The Voice of Reason Debacle: The Dangers of Influence and Fame

The Catholic internet was shaken by revelations about Voice of Reason, a rising Catholic apologist who allegedly engaged in a decade-long pattern of manipulating vulnerable women while presenting himself as a defender of the faith. This raw, unfiltered conversation dives deep into the spiritual dangers of leading a double life and the devastating consequences when those in positions of Catholic influence betray the trust placed in them.

We examine how Voice of Reason allegedly used his role as a catechist to obtain contact information from young women, including a disturbing claim of grooming a minor. The conversation tackles difficult questions: What responsibility do Catholic communities have when confronted with such behavior? How should we balance mercy with accountability? And what guardrails should exist to prevent those with serious moral failings from continuing in public ministry?

Beyond the individual case, we explore broader spiritual lessons about the damaging effects of sins against chastity. "The devil rejoices the most in carnal sins because they are the easiest to trick men into and the hardest to draw men away from," notes Christian, highlighting how St. Thomas Aquinas warned that lust particularly wounds one's rationality and spiritual life. This leads to a compelling discussion about how many Catholics today treat confession as a "revolving door" without genuine commitment to change.

Parents will find valuable insights about protecting children in the digital age, where "every text conversation is a near occasion of sin for young people." The hosts emphasize practical strategies for teaching youth about online safety and the permanent nature of digital communications. "Nothing you do online is ever private," Anthony warns, suggesting parents use this scandal as a teaching moment.

We invite you to join this crucial conversation about maintaining authentic Catholic witness in a digital world full of temptations. Subscribe, share with those who might benefit from these difficult but necessary discussions, and remember that true Catholic faith demands not just knowledge but transformation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Addressing the Voice of Reason scandal
• 8:42 The pattern of manipulation and grooming
• 14:01 Using position of authority to exploit women
• 32:13 Church's failure to protect youth
• 43:42 Sins of the flesh and spiritual damage
• 53:12 Should VoR return to public ministry?
• 1:07:22 Understanding lust and its spiritual effects
• 1:18:04 Apologetics vs. authentic Catholic living
• 1:25:58 The digital danger for today's youth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Oh, in tes pera verum. Yeah, we decided not to do an intro video tonight, thought it was probably a little inappropriate.

Speaker 2: 0:40

We can't do an intro video, we can't do anything funny. I mean, we're keeping this relatively well very serious, Not just relatively serious.

Speaker 1: 0:49

So there won't Stop laughing. We get in the green room and Wagner goes age of reason.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Okay okay. Look, look.

Speaker 3: 1:02

Way to blow his pot like that.

Speaker 2: 1:04

You had to do me like that. Okay, I'll just all right, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 1:10

I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry, I had to. Just, it was just, it was just a bit much. It was hard for me he didn't really say somebody else, iran, all.

Speaker 1: 1:22

So look, you know the the thing is, it is a, it's a. It's a rough subject because I, I, we, I kind of. About a week ago, Rob had told me some of this stuff was going on behind the scenes and he's like the person that came to him with it. Rob had to tell them specifically, like yeah, don't show Anthony the details because uh, like anthony's a good guy when he says he'll he won't tell anyone.

Speaker 1: 1:49

At that point he really will mean it, but it's what happens after that point he'll have no control over so, like in the green room, I told christian we weren't gonna make jokes and I meant it.

Speaker 2: 2:02

I know it was, yeah, it was whatever, but for me, I mean I. I actually just found out yesterday, yesterday when I made the tweet that, like you know, if I knew I would say something I don't know who this was. I was being honest, I had, I had no idea. And eventually, once I made that tweet, the people got into my dms and were telling me all about it. But yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 2:27

There's really not much else to say than you know he's our, he's our brother and we care for him as our brother. But you know, just because somebody is your brother and you love them and you want the best for them and you want to, you know you want them to be corrected and do the right things, that doesn't mean you're supposed to let them watch your kids and it doesn't mean that you're not supposed to tell your siblings when he does something really bad that might endanger the family. So you know, just, we're not, we're not committing the sins of detraction or gossip or or any of those things. This is a sort of necessary discussion to have, especially for a lot of the people out there who are, we know, struggling with similar things. I've been very paranoid about that recently of you know who else, because there's obviously other people who are engaging in this type of behavior as well.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Okay, so a couple of things. You made a pretty relevant comment today like that people accusing others of like detraction and stuff. You said, yeah, let's not release the Epstein files because that would be the sin of detraction, right, like it's like. No, there's a look, I have a 17-year-old daughter. If my 17-year-old daughter went to a Catholic youth conference and there was a speaker there who was a bit charming and then got my daughter's number and some of this stuff happened to my daughter, like I'd lose it.

Speaker 3: 3:50

Did you hear how supposedly he allegedly got contact info? No, yeah, so allegedly. The most damning of the allegations are from when he supposedly got contact info from a of a girl who registered for um, I think, either either conference or the catechism class, and he got her cell phone number from her registration. He used it to text her yeah, there's something like.

Speaker 1: 4:24

There's like there's a spiritual incest aspect of that also, because he's the catechist Right and he's in a position of authority teaching this girl. Now there's a. There's a bunch of different things I wanted to talk about tonight, one one being like the church used to have these very clear rules like men and women shouldn't be in the same room together if there aren't chaperones around, things like that. And with modern technology, it's almost like every text conversation is a near occasion of sin for young people. All right, yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:00

All right, so we're not going to, I'm not going to get into the details of every one.

Speaker 2: 5:05

Yeah, if anybody wants to look at, like, the specific details about all of the events, with screenshots and I'm just warning you guys, I mean there's some very explicit material in the way in which certain immoral acts are being described and that's very, um, degrading and it's very, not not, it's very degrading, very, um, you know, disgusting. A lot of what was described, uh so, but protestia, um, he's a Protestant guy who kind of just like craps on Catholics all the time, but he did collect all of the the information. So if you go to Protestia, his Twitter or his website, he collected everything. So, yeah, if you want to, I would heavily advise caution, but that has a lot of the materials with some of the context for how to read them.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Without going into the specifics of the text, though, I could give you like the mo, okay, so, uh, this girl came out today and she said um, uh, she goes. She like she pre-ambled it by saying like I don't, I'm not looking for anybody's sympathy, I just kind of want to give you an idea of how he operated. So he was aware of the vulnerability of women that he chooses to engage with the desire for a wholly knowledgeable husband, first off we're talking about voice of reason, correct voice of reason.

Speaker 1: 6:27

I don't know the other guy, I only know alex. Yeah, I don't know jared. I know voice of reason in the way he has presented himself to the public. Okay, I've had some issues with some of the things he said. He's called out specific people. He's made accusations against people, uh, that that are traditionalists, things like that. So he's called out specific people. He's made accusations against people that are traditionalist, things like that. So he's aware of the vulnerability of women. He chooses to engage with the desire for a wholly knowledgeable husband, the understanding of the admiration many have for him because he is a Catholic apologist. I experienced it firsthand and my desire to heal, forgive him. All right, she goes through that, she says okay.

Speaker 1: 7:10

So my experience with Alex was in December of last year. He moved very quickly and told me he liked me. Within two days of texting him. He attempted to initiate lustful conversation. Very early on, when I tried to correct him and bring my concerns up, he told me not to beat myself up over it that these desires were good, that they would bring us closer to God if he willed it. This is truth, but manipulated truth. These desires are good in the context of marriage.

Speaker 1: 7:31

Not a week into texting, the attempt to engage in sin only increased. I have enough self-awareness to know I play some role in it. I'm no better than you, however. I was the only one to stop it before things went beyond implications. I was only met with poor attempts of justification. He continually expressed the desire for marriage, spoke of the need for urgency in starting marriage, prep, meeting my family, love bombing and manipulation 101. So you see this in almost every woman. He spoke to a perversion of the sacrament of marriage to get what he wanted. Does this alone make him a cancelable? No, no, does it make him a bad guy? Probably. You mean most people our society struggle to at some point.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Uh, struggle with less yeah, her, her comment, her commentary is just completely like her commentary is pretty stupid. But you know, obviously she can tell us on a firsthand account of you know about, uh, about him, he would basically um, he would.

Speaker 1: 8:27

This has been going on for about 10 years. He would gain. Like women are seeking a holy husband, he goes in, tells them he's going to be that thing for them, makes them think he's serious about it, gets a relationship going and then, as soon as he gets what he wants, he would just ghost them. Now Alex has kind of blown up over the last like six months. I would say. It started off with the James White debate, then he got to go on with George Janko, then he was on with Matt Fradd. So this guy's kind of had like a whirlwind six months and as his star rose, that's when, I think, all of this stuff finally caught up with him.

Speaker 1: 9:03

When he was a small little content creator, he was able to go and move around like this. But then if you're living a double life like this, it's only a matter of time before this stuff kind of catches up with you, and it's something that every, every person of notoriety struggles with. This isn't just a voice of reason issue. This is you see this in Protestant pastors, you saw this with father karapi, you saw this. You see it in all aspects of of.

Speaker 3: 9:29

When people gain notoriety, they start getting I mean to be fair, his worst allegation was when he was a nobody, so it's not like he struggled with this because of fame. Yeah, it sounds like he struggled with this as a 20-year-old grooming a 15-year-old allegedly.

Speaker 2: 9:44

Yeah, I mean, the thing is he was kind of thrust in the spotlight. For those who don't know the background of Voice of Reason, he was kind of thrust in the spotlight actually when he was in his late teens I think he was 16, and he started out a small time like parish and diocesan stuff and then it only sort of grew from there. But yes, his actual Internet ministry stuff is like last two or three years. But yeah, exactly what you said, anthony, coming from a Protestant background, I know you, you cradle Catholics don't have as much experience with this occurring because there's really not that many like super big celebrity priests and for the super big celebrity priests it's not normal that these are the type of guys who fall into types of impropriety, at least in the Anglosphere.

Speaker 2: 10:36

But from my Protestant background it was all the time you would hear about these celebrity pastors, and this is what scares me the most, because they had a very strong pattern this sort of issue would pop up of sexual impropriety.

Speaker 2: 10:50

They would repent, go underground and then, like a year later, they would pop back up and be in charge of a different church, be in charge of a different ministry. And I really think that we have an obligation, we have an opportunity right now of how we're going to deal with this sort of behavior. Because are we going to not have an adequate conception of sin, repentance and the disqualifying effects that certain grave sins can have on opportunities for ministry? Because sacred scripture is very clear, the tradition is very clear when it comes to the moral uprightness that is necessary for these sorts of positions. So we have to ask ourselves are we going to fall into these false conceptions and just kind of let him take a six-month break and then come back and we pretend like everything's fine and he continues on his career? Or are we going to insist upon what the tradition and what sacred scripture and what plain reason insists upon us doing with the type of exclusion that needs to happen for people who engage in this type of behavior, especially over a long period of time?

Speaker 1: 12:01

You wonder if now, let's say, he is going to confession for these things, if, if the penance he's receiving is three hail Marys, right, like this is because some of these sins are millstone around your neck, sins Like you're in a position of authority and you're causing one of these little ones to sin, right. So now you, you. Now I don't know if he's masking the severity of it when he goes in, but you would think a good priest would admonish him enough that if, especially if he's going to the same priest, like, talk about using the confessional like a row and I'm not trying to get into him specifically, but like the if you especially I'm glad we have you on for this christian because you know this stuff better than us but if somebody committed fornication like this, like a typical penance in the tradition would be way more than three Hail Marys, I would imagine. Right.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Yeah, absolutely. I mean for acts like that it would be months of penance. You know it's in some cases years of penance. It's extremely, extremely serious.

Speaker 2: 13:07

And the reason that we treat these things so seriously is because these types of sins, they really do wound one's soul, one's dispositions, one's reason. That's another thing not to make a pun right there, but one's reason is completely well, not completely, but in a large degree corrupted by sexual sins, like sexual sins, sins of the flesh. St Thomas, he says that the devil rejoices the most in carnal sins because they are the easiest to trick men into and the hardest to draw men away from. So really, when you have these types of failings, especially, there's there's other issues, obviously, when it comes to different sins, but these sins, especially sins against the sixth and ninth commandment, they especially invigilantly need to be rooted out, especially amongst the people who are the public representatives, because, as we see, you know the the type of violations of other people, the type of violations of trust, the type of violations of the good of the community, because this really affects everyone. I mean, you have somebody like that, like you said, if you had your daughter in this type of situation, you'd be pissed.

Speaker 2: 14:20

Now, expand this. Do you want a voice of reason, knowing that he has this sort of long career of doing this type of behavior? Do you want him around any number of youth? Obviously nobody wants him around any number of youth. There was just a picture of him yesterday. He was at some sort of parish speaking to a youth group On Friday, the 11th.

Speaker 2: 14:42

Last Friday he was at a parish youth group, a youth group, on friday the 11th last friday he was, oh, friday. Yeah, sorry, but um, you know you, you see this, these types of things, and it's such a a damaging, uh, such damaging behavior. It's like it's really hard to trust. You know somebody around, people of the opposite sex after this sort of behavior happens. So I'm sorry rob.

Speaker 3: 15:02

you want to go when you asked or, hypothetically, is he confessing this to a priest? It should be noted that, if everything surrounding these allegations is true, that a priest most certainly did know, and that's why he was removed as catechist from a parish, why was he allowed to? Why were people not told when he started speaking at youth conferences? Have there not been regulations put in place in the church to prevent stuff like that? After the recent scandals, Speaking at conferences?

Speaker 1: 15:39

I don't think so. But catechists, I would definitely think. But speaking at conferences, catechist, I would definitely think.

Speaker 3: 15:44

Right, like um but, speaking of confidence, if a parish knew about these allegations enough to remove him as a catechist and it might even be why he was stopped going to seminary right that he was forced to because people knew was there not an obligation to that speculative it is speculative, yeah sure, but a lot of this surrounding this stuff is yeah, that's the other thing, like I don't know.

Speaker 1: 16:06

So when, when this was brought to us, like a week and a half, two weeks ago, we were like there's no way we could talk about this. Like we we actually told the person to, we put them in touch with, like an investigative journalist and we tried to make sure this was handled properly. And then somebody just kind of dumped everything out there today, handled properly, and then somebody just kind of dumped everything out there today. So, like all of this I don't know how much of this is confirmed, but it looks as if it's, I mean, catholic answers uh, got rid of his entire page today.

Speaker 2: 16:33

so you would think if he denied the claims they they might not do that I, I actually, um, I talked to a few people within the, the Inc, the depths of Catholic Inc, because, you know, I still have my relationships with some of them. I actually talked to one of them and he was confronted last night by somebody in that circle, one of the big influencers, that's. Another thing that I want to bring up is at least the response from a lot of the influencers within his circle. You know, the know picture of the I don't know 12, 13 somewhere, probably like around 10 influencers standing there. Um, you know, having now known the responses of some of them, uh, from private, you know sources talking to him and things like that, um, their responses are overall very upset, pissed, you know, didn't know about it. So I actually don't, I actually believe a lot of these people that they just didn't know that alex was engaging in this type of behavior.

Speaker 3: 17:36

Um, because, yeah, he was confronted about this and you know they're they're not happy and it sounds like the so-called cover-up not that it even needs to be called that, but the people who were running cover were doing more for over the wretched saint stuff and a lot less people if anyone knew about the voice of reason stuff.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Yeah, from my understanding, nobody knew about the voice of reason stuff. Everybody just knew about the wretched saint stuff. But you know, I mean that that situation's also um, I I have a lot, a lot less of you guys are obviously interested in the wretched saint stuff, um, but I think it's illustrative. With the wretched saint stuff, the uh, I don't know how real the cover-up actually was, because it does. It does very much seem like the person who was giving this information while the information was verified. The person giving the information was like sort of uh, mentally insane might be the best way of putting it and this mentally insane woman harassed a bunch of the different influencers and got restraining orders put out against her and stuff like that. So it makes sense why she got insta-blocked every time they tried to reach out to them.

Speaker 1: 18:51

So I don't think it was a systematic cover-up or anything like that, I think also you and I spoke on the phone today about this Like just kind of being more careful about who you allow on your show, because this idea of oh, oh, somebody has a big profile, let me just get them on my show to raise my own profile like that stuff comes with danger right it's like it's like just picking somebody because they have a big following without actually knowing anything about them, or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Like keeping your the people that you seem to have a good relationship with, that have worked for a while, and just keeping your inner circle small seems to be the way to go with this stuff. But, um, I also want to talk about the the like how ill-equipped the church seems to be to handle the challenges actually facing young men and women, and also, I don't want to let the women off the hook totally for all this stuff either. Like we're gonna have to get into that too, yeah, um, because a lot of this just seems like jilted lover revenge stuff at the same time I mean, it's basically just like revenge porn, but you know, like the other way around, yeah, like they're, they're, they're.

Speaker 2: 19:53

I think most, I think most men would rather have you know their inappropriate voice simping audios leaked.

Speaker 1: 20:04

Yeah, but okay. So to what the church seems like, the hierarchy seems to be like I saw today and one of the bishops were out protesting immigration. We've seen them taking a knee for BLM. They're talking about climate change, but it seems like no one in the church wants to address the actual issues facing young men today, which, I mean the biggest takeaway you'll get if you read through these texts and stuff is that we're talking about a generation of men who are just completely destroyed by the stuff they're watching on the internet just just complete corn brain gooner behavior, like stuff you would like I. I mean, it made me very happy that I'm much older and I never had to deal with online dating apps and having to text girls and things like that, but just what is the church doing to address these young men and the challenges they're facing? Like I feel like we're some of the only guys that are actually talking about this stuff.

Speaker 2: 21:09

Well, I mean it's, that's been something that Hassan and I, particularly we've talked about this for the last two or three years, I guess now no-transcript, you know it's. It's kind of like modesty of clothing for women. It's like for women there's this sort of perpetual annoyance that a lot of them will express where they're, in good faith, trying to seek the type of clothings that they ought to wear. It's not inappropriate and you haven't had guidance from the church on this explicitly in decades and decades and decades. And really this, this leads to a lot of the sort of play things for theologians and pastors and commentators who can kind of just for lack of a better phrase, they can just make shit up, you know, and not actually you know, have a foundation within, you know the divine revelation for the type of advice they're giving. They're just kind of just making it up, throwing it out there, and it's just kind of based on their intuitions and a lot of one of the biggest losses is probably the loss of custom, which I'm sure you guys, as cradle Catholics, know a lot intuitively, a lot better than I do.

Speaker 2: 22:44

There was this sort of force of custom with how these principles were in place from generations of Catholic life and people just didn't need to be really explained these things. You know this was just something that was natural. You know you just had from your upbringing. You knew you didn't do this thing, you did do this thing. This is what's right, this is what's wrong. And now there's a lot more discourse that has to happen. You have to actually think through these problems in detail, and not having the authority of the church backing up these recommendations makes it very difficult to actually, you know, find consciences to follow these sorts of things. And the heart is deceitful above all things, and we'll we'll draw us towards what really is a bad idea on very specious grounds.

Speaker 1: 23:33

So okay Now, earlier you said you don't think there's. You think you don't think there's any scenario where we should allow him to come back into the public eye. Right, here's Bobby's comment. I think voice of reason should never have a public ministry. I hate when people call it a ministry that's not sanctioned by the church. It's really a weird thing Again, and I understand the lady shouldn't have a postulate's reaction.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Holdsworth made a good point, though the hierarchy has abandoned their role in evangelization. I have no lay uh uh apologists and stuff like that explaining the faith. I don't think that's the issue, but I I do think there should be like a bare minimum. If you're going to present yourself publicly that you don't have an addiction to online filth, like that should be like the bare minimum. It's. It's not that high of a bar, I mean, and I'm not talking about like, like somebody has a slip up on occasion, but like if you, if you have no, if you don't have the self-control to not look at this stuff, you really should not be presenting yourself as any, any anything in the you know to represent catholicism in any way.

Speaker 2: 24:41

I would think yeah, yeah, I don't think so. I, if I, if I did say that he should never, never, in an absolute sense, ever be let back in, that was on my part a mistake. I mis-expressed myself, because we do have, in certain instances, after a long period of discernment and repentance and healing that comes only through the Catholic spiritual tradition you know, lived out in the Catholic liturgical tradition, sacramental tradition, lived out. Unless there's been this sort of sustained effort that takes place over a, you know, a reasonable period of time, that's discerned on the basis of advice from holy, wise and prudent confessors, he shouldn't come back. So that's why I use, like, the six-month example, Like obviously it would be absurd to think that somebody could overcome 10 years of this sort of pain in six months.

Speaker 2: 25:37

So we do have instances of, you know, bad clerics or individuals, other individuals who are lived a sinful life, you know, even somewhat touching the public ministry, and they had the, they had a sort of conversion to God and eventually became very useful for the church. But I think we have to be careful about making these sorts of lives of the saints normative for every situation. Sorts of lives of the saints normative for every situation, I think. I think normally, like generally speaking, no, but uh, obviously I don't want to make it so exclusive.

Speaker 1: 26:10

I think that would be absurd I think he'd have a hard time anyway. I got like he lost all of his support system, like like part of the way this whole thing would work is that they would all help each other. Go on each other's shows, things like that, you know he's, he's going on, this pocket is going on, that I don't. I don't know how that would work for him again. So I don't, I don't know, man, but I think the the the best we can hope for in this situation is that he, like god, is using this to humble him and save his soul, right, like if this thing came out. There's got to be a silver lining in it that he was going down such a dark path that God brought these things to light for his own sake.

Speaker 2: 26:57

Yeah, absolutely, in the, in the bogus ordo, on Sunday, our Sunday gospel was the good Samaritan. On Sunday, our Sunday gospel was the Good Samaritan. And I, you know, I was talking to my friend Hassan last night and I was like Hassan, you know, I just, like you know, can't we just do this sort of like theological all test thing where we just like focus on these sorts of things and not have to worry about, you know, whatever is happening in these realms and having to argue with people who think that we should cover these things up or, you know, not have to bother with these, or that it's these sins to talk about this, like why can't we just, you know, not deal with the pushback and just deal with other things? And Hassan said, well, remember the gospel. You know who is my neighbor and in many ways, you know, voice of reason has become the neighbor for a lot of us. Where he is, you know, beaten by robbers and all this stuff has been taken, he's left for dead, spiritually speaking.

Speaker 2: 27:58

And you have a lot of people who are acting like the Levite and like the priest, thinking that, you know, they don't, they, they're too good to dirty their hands in this sort of situation or through absurd readings of the law, thinking in a in a way that's not in keeping with what divine revelation says about morals that we just have. We should just ignore cases where public figures have these sorts of falls, but really that that's a form of cowardice. It's a form of cowardice have these sorts of falls, but really that's a form of cowardice. It's a form of cowardice. It's a form of a lack of mercy towards another person, towards one of our brethren who have fallen, and a lot of times like this, these sorts of conversations and bringing this forward to public attention is very painful for him. You know it's very, you know, not comfortable for us. It's painful for him, but it's something which is necessary for for our healing, uh, for his healing and the healing of the entire church, to get rid of this scourge that affects so many people the also okay.

Speaker 1: 28:55

So, like I, I've also noticed that a lot of the I always thought you should have been their guy, like you always had a way of. I always thought you should have been their guy, like you always had a way of, because we you and I have disagreed on Francis and stuff like that. But you never were like this annoying.

Speaker 3: 29:16

Pope splainer.

Speaker 1: 29:18

I always felt like there was some weird disordered thing with the Pope splainer segments that I never thought it was about liturgy at all. I always thought like there was something about like the laxed moral demands of the way Catholicism is presented now that they actually prefer to the traditional faith and the moral standards it puts on you. And it seems like all those guys that like were so adamant to defend things like that. We're so adamant to defend things like that. There's always something that winds up coming up in the long run, like that where I always really did think that you should have been their guy because you always had a way of saying, all right, look, we don't have to like praise francis for this, but like we can make it work like we can make it work now we know that clearly you don't, you don't want to be their guy.

Speaker 3: 30:03

Well, that's another that's another thing.

Speaker 2: 30:06

Yeah, I mean, I I think um in in many ways that I I respect, I respect the people um who, with, with due preparation, with good uh reason, go into those sorts of positions, because it does get really frustrating. I know for a lot of apologists at that level. Sometimes they want to, you know, go in a little bit more detail or explain things a little bit more. There's always this um temptate. Well, there's always this risk that when you simplify things, that people are going to misunderstand and misconstrue what you have to say. So I always respect people that are at that, you know, at that sort of ministry, but that's just never been what I've been interested in. I don't, I don't have the capabilities for.

Speaker 1: 30:51

Well, the thing is, I think a lot of people were raising the alarms with Francis because they saw what he was doing was laxing the moral standards once again. Right, like so he's talking about fiducia, supplicants and things like that. It's like so, by by lowering the moral standards of the church, what you're doing in general, it's not really about the same sex couple anymore. Now you're kind of giving everybody the impression that, like, sins of the flesh don't really matter. You know, it's not that big of a deal, uh, and like, in terms of like the most damning, no, like pride is always going to be the most severe sin, but sins of the flesh lead to sins of the heart. So it's like, you know.

Speaker 1: 31:33

That's why I've seen people post that meme where it's like lust, the final boss or something. It's like no, no, that's actually like the entry level boss lust. If you can't conquer that, like it's conquering, that is like the entryway boss lust. If you can't conquer that, like it's conquering, that is like the entryway to the spiritual life. You're not getting anywhere until you get that under control.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Really yeah, absolutely, because there's a. You know, when it comes to and this is, this is, I think, one of the big um, perpetual sins of a lot of catholic ink morality. Morality because they do moral theology in a very laxist way. They are hyper, they're basically hyper laxists when it comes to moral theology. If, if the church has not made a decision on something, then you can basically do whatever you want, which is almost almost definition, laxism, right there, which the church is condemned.

Speaker 2: 32:22

But I think the cardinal sin is that they don't have an adequate understanding of original sin and the continual effects of original sin in the concupiscence of the flesh. That's always going to stay with us and we have to be vigilant to avoid occasions of sin. You know, I was actually thinking about this. I went to confession yesterday and I was, I was saying the, the occasion of sin part and I just like I it just kind of, let me, you know, to pause for a second, you know, and just think about. You know, I'm, I'm promising to God to avoid occasions of sin, because I know, you know, the, the presence of concupiscence will always, you know, remain within me. The effects of original sin and actual sin will always remain with me, the biggest poverties of a lot of the contemporary moral theology is they really don't take seriously how damaged people are generally by original sin and then also by actual sin.

Speaker 2: 33:20

The culture around us, the type of occasions and temptations like you were mentioning with texting girls one-on-one People don't realize that, even if, as St Paul says, you know all things are lawful but not all things are profitable. So even if, even if some of these things may be, you know, technically proper for one to engage in which you know I dispute whether some of them are, even if they are, if I were to concede that argument you know this is unprofitable and people know themselves that they're they're too weak. You know we're very, very weak. People know themselves that they're too weak. You know we're very, very weak.

Speaker 1: 34:19

And with these types of temptations, you know, even if you think criticizing somebody for you know it's like it happens a lot. I mean you look at how many people during the Me Too movement like jumped on board condemning Weinstein or whatever his name was, and the next thing you know there's 10 women coming out and accusing that guy of the same. There's no women that are ever accusing me of this. I'm just saying, like you worry, when you go and you point at the sins of another, that that thing will come back and and haunt you and you'll have that moment of weakness and you'll give in.

Speaker 2: 34:46

I mean like to be honest, this is, this is terrifying, like I was, I think I I said that exactly to you. I'm like, dude, this is terrifying. I don't know like I can confidently say I don't know what is going on with anybody around me like, and again, it could, it could be. You know, I've I've these things, I've seen them pop up time and time again. You don't know who, who in the sort of Catholic influencer sphere is doing these sorts of things, engaging this sort of behavior, and the amount of souls that are going to be damaged with the downfall. So I think it's very important for anybody out there who might be a Catholic influencer if you're listening and you're struggling with this type of behavior, step back. I mean, the downfall will ruin people's souls and you will be held responsible for it.

Speaker 1: 35:36

Well, you think about how many people really did look up to Alex and thought he was this great apologist and they thought he was so great at what he did. Like you think about the amount of people, especially young people, who, when they see something like this, like it really does scandalize them, like there's a lot of young people who are heartbroken, right you know we we saw when we had those couple of episodes kind of criticizing alex before all this stuff came out.

Speaker 3: 36:02

You know just how many people were saying that he helped them come to the church and and things like that. And I can't imagine being one of them now and finding out what we all just found out.

Speaker 2: 36:13

I think it gets worse though, because what I noticed, at least in my Protestant upbringing, is a lot of people would look at these sexual failings from a lot of the Christian influencer types in the Protestant sphere, and they would look at that and actually the thoughts that they would have is oh, even this guy who I see as this like spiritually great individual, is falling into these types of sins. So I guess it's not that bad when I do it, and I knew this mindset. There's going to be a lot of people who will be committing sexual sins today, this week, this month, this year, because they saw Alex do it and they don't think it's that big of a deal anymore.

Speaker 1: 36:50

So much of what I'm seeing, especially in the apologetics world, is basically it's faith alone, except it's faith to a larger set of propositions, right? So, like you have the Protestant, the Protestants will say, like, just put your faith in Jesus Christ and and all your sins are forgiven. And what I'm seeing in like the, the apologetics world seems to be like no, no, no, it's faith plus the sacraments and stuff like that. But it's still just an ascent to a set of propositions and not about changing your way of life and and actually living out a thing. It's like, well, yeah, well, I go to mass on Sunday and I live that, but it's not about actually like putting a moral demand on you to change these things.

Speaker 1: 37:39

It's not about sanctification, and I think people do use the confessional as a revolving door and they're like, well, I'll just go to the amount of presumption that is going on right now because people think that they learn the apologetic argument of confession you know, forgiving your sin. So they, they will sin, just assuming. Well, I'll just go to confession before I go to mass and it's just basically living as faith alone. Except I got the, I got absolution before I went and I received, so I keep just re-upping my, my you know my relationship with God, without actually figuring out how you're going to get this thing rooted out of your life.

Speaker 2: 38:19

Yeah, that is actually something I've noticed and this is something across church history is that some of the, some of the people, especially the people with moral heresies like heresies and moral theology they were especially good defenders, like especially good apologists for the Catholic faith. It happens across history. This isn't like just a contemporary thing and apologetics really does suck. A lot of the joy of being Catholic, a lot of the yeah, a lot of the joy of being Catholic, a lot of the significance of being Catholic, is kind of going through this revolving door of, you know, answering objections and explaining concepts in a basic way and answering the same objection over and over again. I do think that this makes people view the faith in a completely defensive manner.

Speaker 2: 39:20

It happens a lot Rather than when they're thinking about the Trinity, you know, they're thinking about how they can defeat Muslims. When they're arguing about the Trinity, they're not thinking about, well, what does the Trinity have to do with the spiritual life? You know, what does the Trinity teach me about society? What does the Trinity teach me about my family? You know how can I love God more through knowing that he is a Trinity, and then the same as you mentioned for confession and a lot of other doctrines as well.

Speaker 1: 39:47

There's people that were told they could chew the host. Do you believe this? This?

Speaker 3: 39:50

is the state of Catholic apologetics at this point.

Speaker 1: 39:53

I was told I could chew the host. What kind of heathen chews the host? Are you people crazy? And you know what they use for justification? Well, if you go to the Greek, it says to gnaw. We're not Greek. You got to be kidding me. We're Roman Catholics.

Speaker 2: 40:10

We don't chew the host.

Speaker 3: 40:10

I'm a roman, so true don't chew the host, like the greeks, you know in all seriousness, all the, all the catechisms, basically do say this not to chew the host um, yeah, there was a.

Speaker 1: 40:26

There was a few other things that stood out to me in this whole thing. Like, um, it was definitely just the, the inability of the church to to face this scenario. Um, the response about, and also I think that I think that if you have kids, and especially teenagers, maybe use this scenario as a teaching moment for your kids. Like I, I'm going to have a sit down with my children and just show that like, because a big part of this is look, alex was raised by a single mom. Okay, and I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to knock his family life or anything, but he didn't have a father in the home teaching him you cannot run through women like this. Like you can't. Just because, look, there's something to what alex was doing, where it's like he was good at getting girls and he honed that skill and it's like if he was secular and just a regular celebrity, that would be fine. But like if you're going to be catholic yeah, I'm not saying it's actually fine, whatever. You know what I mean like there's, there's something about like there.

Speaker 1: 41:37

Okay, so I'm watching two sides of the argument. Basically, is what I'm saying like there's, there's some guys who are so inadequate at meeting a girl that they they don't they don't even know how to talk to girls. And then you have this other side, where it's Alex, where he's like a, like a predator. Essentially, you know and there does need to be for young men who are seeking a girl, you do need to have a little bit of a honed skill to to attract a girl and be able to talk to her. But what he was doing was so twisted and warped.

Speaker 1: 42:10

So, you know, I'm just kind of watching two different sides of this whole thing, where young men are like giving up on the hope of marriage and then young girls are dealing with either having the guy who's afraid to talk to them, or the guy who does talk to them treats them like this. So it's a. I don't know what. I don't know what the answer is in this whole situation. He's just saying you gotta have riziz, yeah, essentially I mean that's really what I'm saying, but use it only for good, not evil Riz, but use it for good, yeah, no.

Speaker 2: 42:39

I think it's.

Speaker 3: 42:40

With a great Riz comes great responsibility. That's Look at you guys.

Speaker 1: 42:44

You guys are helping me Save me on that one Thank you, yeah, no, but as fathers like we have sons, like it's an important conversation for us to have with our sons that you don't just run through girls and abuse them like I.

Speaker 1: 42:59

I'm going to use this whole scenario show my kids especially how nothing you do online is ever private, like I don't care. Oh, and the other main thing I really wanted to talk about tonight there's one thing in um like passively participating in online filth where it like comes across your screen and you, you know, passively kind of see it and then whatever you you might have some sins associated with that, but when you're a man trying to coerce a girl into giving you one of these pictures of herself, you now become a pornographer. Like there's something so vile and such a notch higher about that and you girls that are actually giving these photos over, you're essentially providing a personal only fans for a guy to live out his fantasies. Where he's like this, the level of culpability is raised to such a higher level than just passively seeing filth on the internet.

Speaker 1: 43:58

In a scenario like this, absolutely, I agree I was hoping for a little more out of you than that, but okay I mean I could, I could do some, I could do some.

Speaker 2: 44:13

Yap um, especially on this issue.

Speaker 3: 44:16

What's christian gonna say? Yeah, anthony, you're right, that's very jewish of them.

Speaker 1: 44:21

Oh my god, that's a local sign. Rob what do, you do you said you wanted more, I gave you more. How is my boomer showing I'm, I'm.

Speaker 2: 44:29

I thought that was a really good plan to freaking work that one out it's crazy I mean, I was just seeing this statistic like 11 12 year old girls I think it's like nine and ten of them have been asked for inappropriate pictures of themselves online. Um, so, like my, my daughters are never going on the internet.

Speaker 2: 44:48

I can tell you that right now, um yeah, like you know, it is just not happening. I don not happening, I don't care, I literally don't care. Say whatever you want, call me unrealistic, I do not care. I grew up on the Internet. They're not going on the Internet ever, ever Around these guys, these guys. They act like gremlins, never my daughter is never.

Speaker 1: 45:07

We've talked about it on the show before. It's like the idea that my daughter is just going to go and date some guy and I'm going to have no input on it is just absurd to me. You know, anthony, blah, blah, blah, blah blah.

Speaker 4: 45:22

Wagner yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:24

But it is. It is, you know, shocking that this is, that this is used by a lot of the socially awkward people that you were talking about. A lot of them will, you know, have these sort of pseudo-e relationships. A lot of the you know Catholic Discord communities, you know, monthly, they'll have these scandals where you know one of the guys who is considered, you know, like a knowledgeable member of the community is going through you know some of the women in the community and you know, like a knowledgeable member of the community is going through you know the some of the women in the community and you know, getting explicit pictures and engaging in this sort of behavior.

Speaker 2: 46:00

It's, it's very common. I mean it's probably I've seen it at least a dozen times. It's many different figures. I mean we just had the one with, uh, the one fellow, um akino akino. He um did this sort of behavior with a underaged woman and, well, underage girl, um, underage girl, and you know he's this scholastic, apologist type guy. It's, uh, it's, it's very, very common, um, common, and this is why, you know, you just need to ever remain vigilant.

Speaker 1: 46:36

To the younger guys that are in this world and you're doing the online dating thing and you're probably you know you're trying to meet a Catholic girl. You might meet her and she's across the country and you know it's the only way you have to talk. All I'm going to say is this you may assent to a set of propositions and say you believe the faith, but at a certain point, if you don't actually live that out like um, it's essential. Look, I'm speaking from experience here. Like I, I I was a cradle catholic. I was catholic my entire life. There was a period of time where I was sleeping with my girlfriend out of wedlock. Like you can't, you can't maintain that and remain Catholic. Like you will leave the faith. Like you can't. It's an incongruent lifestyle, right? So yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:25

So, like I may have never, like I always was Catholic, but at the same time I was living as though God didn't exist. And just you know, I would have assented and said, yeah, no, I'm Catholic and I believe these things. But if your lived experience and what you speak about are so far apart, eventually one will go Like you'll either leave the lifestyle or you'll leave the sacraments and the faith. You can't coexist in a mortally sinful scenario for an extended period of time. You might get away with it here and there, but eventually God's going to give you what you want and you're going to receive God's wrath and he's going to say, okay, you want this, Go ahead, have it. And there won't be any of the instances of chastisement that he'll give you to try and call you back home, and that is God's wrath. He'll just give you what you want and and you'll just be cast off to your own devices.

Speaker 2: 48:14

Yeah, yeah, st Thomas, he makes a statement. He says that, um, lust is most abhorred among men because the, something like the, the concupiscible appetite, is shared between us and beasts Lust, lust makes us like under the beasts, you know it makes. It makes, uh, turns men into animals, destroys their rationality. And you know, what we see is that, with a lot of people who are completely, uh, you know, engrossed and lost and fall into this type of behavior, you know they legitimately lose. You know their rationality, well, the act of their rationality, and they are, everything becomes ordered to. You know, this habit, this, uh, this addiction that they have, um, and then you, that is their end, you know, and, like saint paul says, make their god their bellies.

Speaker 1: 49:05

you know, but a little bit different than that, the digital component into and it really is like a dope addiction, right, like it's not just so, like you have, you have the, the, because there's always. Men have always struggled with lust, but once you add this digital element into it and the likes and the dopamine hits that you're getting from this stuff, it really is like a drug addiction that just will spiral out of out of control if we allow it. It's um, we've just seen enough of the public. The catholic public figures have their downfall like this. I, I was impressed by one thing that I I want to play rob, I sent it to you. It's uh, it's christian's video I sent you. I don't want you. You gotta just play this, because I we have to talk about your gooner radar, like there's something so like unbelievably spectacular. I've seen you do it a few times.

Speaker 3: 50:01

I mean to be fair, a lot, of a lot of us saw. I mean not that we saw the specifics coming, but a lot of us had a sense that something was off.

Speaker 1: 50:10

But I mean, look, he's a young guy. I I honestly never would have thought this.

Speaker 2: 50:16

I really didn't, because the way he's a gundar, yes, you have this.

Speaker 1: 50:21

You have this, this detectable, like you can just tell when somebody's saying something that's a little too much like brain rot and it was a really. It was just a subtle thing that I would have never picked up on and you got it, but we got to play this real quick. That's a great to use, beth, these societal problems.

Speaker 3: 50:45

For example you, I know you have.

Speaker 1: 50:47

Why is that so quiet? Volume, volume, volume. We turned it down last time for music.

Speaker 4: 50:52

For example, you I know you have fruits, bro, in fact, with my sister it's like I just threw the phone. I wanted to give him a hug. When people meet somebody who's no premarital hugs. Christ-like. You could tell, because they're Christ-like.

Speaker 2: 51:04

The fruits are there.

Speaker 4: 51:05

I need your prayers, man. I need you to pray for me, because that's something that we're all working on and shout out to your sister, man. Your sister's amazing too. So sweet. You know the accommodation.

Speaker 1: 51:16

No premarital hugs.

Speaker 4: 51:18

You guys are a sweetheart man, and so are you, you're a sweetheart. No, no, the looks are too good, so yeah, so going back to what the church.

Speaker 1: 51:26

Okay, no premarital hugs. And you just kept looking up at the screen like that, the no premarital hugs. And you just kept looking up at the screen like that, like you knew something was going on.

Speaker 2: 51:36

I mean, yeah, right, when the information you know came, right right when actually I I texted hasan the things and I said I'm almost like I can't confirm this, like obviously don't talk to anybody about this, but you know it's, it's voice of reason, you know I can.

Speaker 1: 51:52

I just had, like my, a few of you saw the rumblings ahead of time Saying that something's about to come out and you kind of knew it would be when you when you look at it's kind of like it's kind of like a movie where you, you, you see the conclusion.

Speaker 2: 52:14

Then you kind of look back at it, yeah, like there's, there's things, there's certain positions that people take on certain problems, there are certain ways in which people phrase things. I, I don't know it's, it's like a little bit intuitive, but yeah, it's the being called to be single thing.

Speaker 3: 52:29

Was well, rob, can you pull that clip up, can you? Can you pull that?

Speaker 1: 52:32

clip up. Can you pull that clip? Because everybody look, this actually set off like a firestorm on Twitter because everybody started talking about the vocation to the single life. And Rob, I remember when you saw that immediately because I think we critiqued it on our show that night we did and you were like what are these guys talking about? A vocation to the single life? Because I think he was very nervous when matt asked him about marriage. I think he knew he had.

Speaker 1: 53:03

He had to be very careful how he answered that because there were several things I mean, he was literally texting probably that day, yeah yeah, so I think there were several like he was very nervous when that question was asked and his response was really strange and it kind of caused like this firestorm on twitter where I remember arate chelly was getting involved and she's like what is everybody talking? I think it's a woman who runs arate, right, it is oh, I interacted with that account.

Speaker 3: 53:31

That one's on the list.

Speaker 2: 53:36

No, Lexi. Lexi blocked this account from my phone.

Speaker 3: 53:42

Yeah, the Rarate and Fish Eaters are both women.

Speaker 2: 53:45

Yeah, I mean all seriousness on that small aspect. By the way, I've been very clear since the beginning. Anytime like there is a necessary conversation that I have to have with a woman over dms, I tell my wife and I'm like this is the person's name, this is where it's happening. You know, check my phone, whatever my. Obviously my wife has my phone password. She knows how to get on my phone like she uses my computer all the time, um, but you know you need to have those guardrails, you know, to avoid. You know, obviously, for all of these women. I have no inkling that I would somehow, you know, have an inappropriate relationship with any of them, but you know it's I. I promised god every time I go to confession that I will avoid anything leading me.

Speaker 1: 54:35

Yeah, I'll never have an appropriate conversation in a DM with a woman ever, like my phone stays open. My, my kids could pick my phone. I mean they might read some crazy stuff I said on Twitter, but that's the extent of it. They don't understand. Daddy what do?

Speaker 3: 54:50

you mean about that?

Speaker 1: 54:51

Never mind, daddy, what do you mean about the heart, never mind a few wild tweets, but other than that, you know, there's literally nothing they'll ever see on my phone that they shouldn't what's the hard r daddy? Oh my daughter actually said that she, she, she told my wife, me and my wife the other day she goes.

Speaker 3: 55:12

Anthony blew a karate spot Okay go on Twitter right now.

Speaker 1: 55:17

How do you guys not know you can't tell when you're talking to a woman?

Speaker 3: 55:21

Did you not know when she had her reaction to the whole Russia-Ukraine war? Come on, guys.

Speaker 1: 55:28

Stop gossiping about karate.

Speaker 3: 55:30

I like karate, shelly, but I can always tell when I'm talking to a woman. You got stop gossiping about rarate.

Speaker 1: 55:32

I like rarate chelsea stop, I do too, but I could always. I could always tell when I'm talking to a woman. You got, you got gooner radar.

Speaker 3: 55:38

I got female radar okay, are we ready to watch this clip?

Speaker 1: 55:41

all right, let's play the clip so what are you doing?

Speaker 4: 55:48

hoping for marriage or looking at the priesthood, or neither right now or what. Honestly, I've been thinking about this a lot lately too. I feel like I'm being called to just remain single. So I was in the seminary for a while, discerned out of it, and then a lot of Byzantine priests that I know is, hey, man, you get married and then you can be a Byzantine priest, but I don't think I'm called to that either. And then when I look at just marriage by itself, I don't think I'm called to that either. So I don't know. Well, it sounds like you're introspective in a good sense, and it sounds like you're processing this, maybe with a spiritual father.

Speaker 1: 56:21

So I think, if you're doing both of those things, Maybe he's self-aware enough to know Because, look, I'll tell you something else about if you're, if you're living the way he supposedly was, you're actually not capable of marriage. When you're like you're actually not, you're not, your behavior will not change just because you got married. So he would get married, he'd be going to these conferences and he'd have side pieces, yeah, so, like, maybe he's just self-aware there, because I'm telling you, you cannot do the things he's doing and then think marriage is going to fix that you're absolutely right about this.

Speaker 2: 56:59

A lot of people, the way they think about you, know these sorts of issues, like you know. Oh, if I have a porn addiction, oh sorry, corn addiction whatever you can say.

Speaker 2: 57:08

I mean, I think you could say someone has an addiction to pornography, you know, and they and they're like, oh, I'm going to get over this because I'm just going to go and get married and it's all going to be fine, Like you're an idiot. You're an idiot, especially if you're a Catholic. You're an idiot, Like Catholics as married men. There are many times during marriage in which one must restrain from. You know, abstain, yeah, To abstain. I don't know why I couldn't think of the word abstain. There's many times when one has to abstain for sometimes weeks at a time. You know, and if you don't have the discipline to not watch pornography, you're cooked, you know you're absolutely cooked, and it's going to ruin your marriage. Okay, watch pornography. You're cooked, you know you're absolutely cooked, and it's going to ruin your marriage, Okay, so it the. I hate when I hear people say oh, you know, somebody's going around fornicating and somebody's going and has a porn addiction. They should just get married so they can deal with it.

Speaker 1: 58:04

That's the no. Yeah, if you, if you're look, if you have a porn addiction, it doesn't get easier when you get married. Now you're just committing adultery, essentially of the heart, like you're just.

Speaker 2: 58:14

That's a violation. What the first? You're violating chastity.

Speaker 1: 58:17

Now you're also violating justice, the rights that you're that are due to your spouse yeah, there's something that I've always made sure my children and my wife know, and that's that I only have white eyes for my wife. Like I don't, I practice custody of the eyes at all times. I never look at anything but my wife. It's such an important lesson, especially when you have sons. I need my son to know that his dad is not being a hypocrite when he talks to him about these things and that, no, your father loves your mother and only your mother, and that is it.

Speaker 2: 58:53

Look at the floor. Eyes to the floor. It's the summer. Eyes to the floor. Okay, no, looking at these broads. No, looking at the look. You just know they dress bad, they dress inappropriately. You shouldn't look at them.

Speaker 3: 59:07

Or if you're a plain kind of autist look up.

Speaker 2: 59:10

Yeah or yeah, or look up, yeah, or look up Eyes away. Okay, don't even risk it.

Speaker 1: 59:18

You idiots, and you're looking. What you've done is you've given a bunch of sixes the idea that they're tens Right, so now you've got to.

Speaker 2: 59:26

Like headphones on, put on the playlist, put on the TikTok brain rot playlist of all the songs that are put on TikTok brain rot based edits and look at the ground and walk. Just look completely autistic as you walk around.

Speaker 1: 59:44

You guys gave the impression to a bunch of sixes that they're tens. Now they're all walking around with this freaking attitude like they think they're all the hottest chick in the world. It's really obnoxious. Stop giving them this attention. They don't deserve it.

Speaker 3: 59:59

Yeah, zoomers can blame the older millennials for that.

Speaker 1: 1:00:04

And then, rob, let's play the Majarians clip that I put in there also.

Speaker 3: 1:00:08

I haven't watched that one.

Speaker 1: 1:00:09

This one was pretty Rough to watch. Did you see this one, christian the cookie?

Speaker 2: 1:00:16

one.

Speaker 3: 1:00:17

No, we're not playing that.

Speaker 1: 1:00:21

I don't want to hear about any cookies anymore.

Speaker 3: 1:00:23

Hearing that once was more than enough.

Speaker 1: 1:00:26

Listen to this.

Speaker 4: 1:00:28

The thing like this one.

Speaker 4: 1:00:30

You're right, reputation is super important and it's only a matter of time before something I say something stupid or do something stupid, just because I'm stupid and I scandalize everybody, or something will come out about me or something. That's stupid and I scandalize everybody and I want everyone to know. Like me, I'm just a guy. I'm really just a guy. I'm not special. I'm just a guy. I'm really just a guy. I'm not special. I'm not important. I'm not holy, yet not as holy as I should be. I have a lot of issues. I have a lot of problems. I have things that I struggle with. I've hurt people. I've hurt you. I've hurt people that I love, people that I've never wanted to hurt, you know, because I'm still a work in progress.

Speaker 3: 1:01:15

He's getting choked up.

Speaker 4: 1:01:16

It's only a matter of time before you know the beautiful thing about being out.

Speaker 3: 1:01:23

Why is he still online? You know like come on.

Speaker 2: 1:01:29

I think it's cognitive dissonance, like when I first saw that clip.

Speaker 2: 1:01:34

I was actually very happy to see that clip because I do think this requires, you know, beyond the hypocrisy and the cognitive dissonance, it does require some sort of you know it's a Catholic. Theologians traditionally distinguish between three ways in which the conscience related against an act. You can either act according to conscience, against conscience or without conscience. The most dangerous place you can be is acting without conscience, when your conscience is completely seared and you're just not. You're acting like the beasts, you know, not even doing moral reasoning about any of your acts, and this just shows that he's acting against his conscience. Uh, which is much better than having a seared conscience. It it means that there's, you know, there, there still is the the sort of the light of the light of God shining in, you know, directing him towards what's right, and he's just ignoring it. Um, but this, this leads a lot of room for, for repentance, and so that's yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:02:33

I gotta tell you I kind of agree, look, look. So, alex, if you I know I don't know if you're going to watch this, cause I'm sure you're going through a lot, but if you do catch this, I know it seems like the end of the world right now. I've seen people go through, I've gone through minor internet skirmishes where it feels like everybody's against you. This stuff does pass, right and it does it. This stuff does pass, and if you turn the internet off it really goes away, like it's really just online.

Speaker 3: 1:03:01

This is not one of those situations I don't, he's not gonna be able to go to his parish but I want to.

Speaker 1: 1:03:07

Well, that's true. Yeah, that's this. Is that's true?

Speaker 3: 1:03:10

Yeah, this is not just an online thing.

Speaker 2: 1:03:13

Maybe you might be right.

Speaker 1: 1:03:16

But him being found out is probably the best thing that ever happened to him. Now he's free from the fear of confession because it has happened. Now he can truly repent. Now he's not going to be able to see that in the moment, but like the worst freaking things in the world that happened to us like you never see God's hand in it in the moment but you do see it in hindsight Like the greatest struggles I've ever gone through. I thought God abandoned me and then, when you see it in hindsight, you're like man. God kind of had his hand on me this whole time and I think that's kind of what's happening with him now. I think if he'd have stayed on the path he was on, if he'd have stayed on the path he was on, he'd have been beyond god's mercy and I think this whole incident is god's mercy.

Speaker 1: 1:03:57

Absolutely, I absolutely agree yeah, this is you guys. Look, I I keep forgetting about that aspect of it, right? Yeah, this, I mean, I keep forgetting about that aspect that. Look there a for anybody that doesn't know there was a 14 or 15-year-old girl involved that he was grooming Allegedly Allegedly if those are true, if those texts are real I don't know if they're real, I don't know if they've been confirmed, but if they're real, it is very bad behavior. I don't see how. I don't know, I don't know what the Are we going to talk about the woman?

Speaker 2: 1:04:41

yes, now, okay, honestly, like guys, like I saw what, I saw what some of these women were saying, like some of these women should unironically be in jail. Like what, the one woman who is like a date, like a daycare worker for special needs kids or something, talking about how she's going to sneak away during the day and like send explicit materials? Yeah, like, honestly, like, yeah, it honestly, if I, if I could figure out what her name was, I would get her fired and I wouldn't feel bad about it. Honestly, I really hope somebody does know what her name is so she can get fired.

Speaker 2: 1:05:06

Like, you're irresponsible for your I didn't, I didn't force you. Nobody forced you to do this, nobody forced you to do this. You're irresponsible for your I didn't, I didn't go force you, nobody forced you to do this, nobody forced you to do this. You're responsible for your actions outside of, obviously, like the minor grooming case, yeah, sure, there's power dynamics, but each one of these women made a choice and just to clarify for christian he meant okay, the grooming of a minor, not like minor grooming yeah, I didn't read all of the all of the detailed text so I don't even know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1: 1:05:35

but absolutely, these women are look like like you said. Yeah, okay, there might be an aspect of a man being in a position of whatever, but it doesn't matter. Like I, I'm I. You all need to teach your daughters and we all need to talk to all the women in our lives Like, do not be that dumb and naive. You have full agency, your full moral agency. You're not going to be able to just pass the buck off and blame onto a man because you fell for some stupid narcissist Like you have just as much culpability in it as he does. And part of it is it really did seem a little bit revenge porn to me Like they were like yeah, he's finally getting his comeuppance. And it wasn't because he truly hurt them, it's because they were jilted, because he moved on and ghosted them and went to another one which, look, that behavior did need to come forward. But it is also awful that these women participated in it and are acting like victims. They're not sole victims and this whole thing oh yeah, of course not.

Speaker 2: 1:06:38

I mean, I just some of the, some of the stuff I was I was reading, I was, you know, scarred guard from it. It was just disturbing, just disgusting stuff that they were, you know, facilitating, encouraging and participating in, um, that's all there is really now the other question is this um, who?

Speaker 1: 1:07:04

who knew about this and didn't say anything? Is that I think those details are going to come out like I am curious how I found out about this over two weeks ago or around two weeks ago and it took until the stuff spilled out like this before, like a Catholic Catholic answers deleted his profile, Like I'm wondering if anybody else knew about this, because I think these girls tried reaching out previously to try and warn people about this stuff and it just kind of seems like today everything hit the fan and everybody I mean, well, the fact that.

Speaker 3: 1:07:36

So the person we knew working on it, majorian, you know he's done um, he has experience in political opposition research, right, so he was doing all the vetting he was, he was making sure it was all real before releasing any of it. But clearly they, these, these women, went to other people, since some other random person just happened spilling all that same evidence out randomly, like majority, like we were all taken by surprise. Majorian was going to release some of the stuff on wretched saints later this week because he'd verified all that, but, like the worst allegations about voice of reason, like we've said earlier, he was going to give to an investigative reporter Cause that's some that's some bad stuff there.

Speaker 3: 1:08:20

So clearly, multiple people were given this evidence just in an attempt by these women to have someone get it out there. So who did they all give it to when?

Speaker 2: 1:08:43

because it sounds like my join was in one of the later groups. To get it. They went to others first, what was going on in the early 2000s with the child sex abuse scandal, and it's a lot of the same mindset of you know, protect our own at all costs. You know, this guy is part of our team, so even when he's doing this sort of behavior because you know he's really good for apologetics like we should just pretend, like a lot of this stuff never happened, we should just, you know, try to cover it up. And like a lot of this stuff never happened, we should just, you know, try to cover it up.

Speaker 2: 1:09:18

But there definitely is a lot of that among the followers of some of these individuals. That's one of the ways they try to cope is say, oh, you know, this was just, it's not that big of a deal. Or you know, oh, have you ever sinned in your lifetime, you know, like these sorts of responses. Or oh, this is detraction, this is gossip, et cetera, et cetera responses. Or oh, this is detraction, this is gossip, etc. Etc. Um, there's a lot of these sorts of mindsets, but in a way I don't really, in a way I don't really care, kind of what just a random person on the internet says. Who are the, the people you know? Obviously you know, franco is not like that, iron inquisitor is not like that. Um, you know, I can't really say for much else, um, but like who? Who are the people who actually did know and who are, or who, even if this wouldn't have become public like this, would have done the same exact thing of just kind of shutting it down, like who are these people?

Speaker 1: 1:10:09

yeah, I think, um, I think this, this whole new like, um, look, and we're in it. It's a weird thing for me to critique, but, like the social media influencer thing, it's a. It's a dangerous like space to be in, yeah, especially if, like, your sole dependency is on attention and you're just constantly trying to drum up attention, like you know it's. It's one one thing if you're an author and you have books coming out and you have other things going on, uh-oh, you're going to get groomed, taylor, hey.

Speaker 2: 1:10:41

How's it going, dr Marshall Anthony? No. Dr Marshall, I heard this report that you were at fault for a certain document from his holiness is taylor's fault.

Speaker 1: 1:10:57

We're dealing with tradition owners. I are. I saw taylor on the pbd podcast talking about if your man's ain't crying, it's dying, and I want to know which novus ordo babies have infiltrated his parish, because I'm secretly convincing him to be a base Novus Ordo type 2 but I do. I'm telling you this all is like. It is kind of interesting to see that all the people that had so much to say about Taylor Marshall causing all the problems, something always comes up to bite them in the ass in the long run.

Speaker 2: 1:11:34

It's like Roy Burkers, but for Taylor Marshall.

Speaker 1: 1:11:38

Taylor Marshall cares, oh man, um, all right, so we can, if we got a few, uh, other super chats cause.

Speaker 3: 1:11:46

I don't know about traditional custodians, but it's Dr Marshall's fault.

Speaker 1: 1:11:53

It's not even that wrong. That's not even that wrong. That's not even that wrong. Um, all right, yeah, if you guys got any other questions, we could just keep riffing for a few more minutes, but, um, let me say uh, was there anything else that I hadn't leave the?

Speaker 2: 1:12:06

babies alone, anthony uh yeah, yeah, I'm telling you, I'm having, I'm having, uh, 15 novus ordo babies, and they will the best of, uh, the best of the manualist traditions.

Speaker 3: 1:12:19

They know how to defend every single thing the pope ever says they're gonna be so good at doing the sign of peace, it's gonna be crazy you know, they're all autistics, all right.

Speaker 2: 1:12:32

Well, I, I, I had the, I had the crazy feat of like, uh, like, a double header and a daughter who's autistic. I mean, that's like powerful genetics, right there it's very difficult to do.

Speaker 1: 1:12:45

Let me tell you something. Um, taylor, uh, from like early on in our show, has helped us. Man has been supportive of us, came on every time I asked him for an interview. So you know I've told the story a few times like it was Taylor challenging his audience to go to the Latin Mass four consecutive Sundays in a row. That literally changed my life. Then him saying you know a lot of people goof on the oh, if you don't pray the rosary, you're not on the team. But that got me to start praying my daily rosary, things like that. So you know, I'll always, always see Taylor Marshall is the Don of this whole podcasting thing, so you guys really do have him to thank for me. So, and yeah, he is due to come back on. We'll get Taylor on soon.

Speaker 2: 1:13:29

Yeah, I actually used to cook on Dr Marshall a little bit, but he's kind of grown on me.

Speaker 1: 1:13:34

I know he's grown on me because I think we softened your heart to trads a bit and I think you started to see things a little bit more balanced. We got you, you know. Now that Francis is gone especially, it's like well, that tension is gone. It's like we don't have the Francis tension anymore. Everything's all good, all the brothers could get along again, as long as you're not going after our human system.

Speaker 2: 1:13:56

As long as you're not Lofton and you just decide there's nothing to fight about. So you just start talking about how Baal worship is salvific. What the hell is going on with Michael Lofton, Like are you kidding me? There's nothing else to fight about with Pope Leo. So he decides to kick the hornet's nest and say a satanic sex call. Worship is salvific.

Speaker 3: 1:14:18

Well, one of his friends was just caught in kind of satanic sex calls.

Speaker 1: 1:14:21

Taylor, can I tell this story? Alright? So Taylor was scheduled to come on with us. Now I had spoken to Taylor, I'd run an idea by Rob, because Ruslan, who was doing videos about, like, uh, mel gibson going on with joe, rogan.

Speaker 3: 1:14:38

This was very close to the time voice of reason was on with george janko yeah, it really was right around that time.

Speaker 1: 1:14:43

So like like ruslan was so confused by like what the heck is going on in trad world, you know. So I told rob like we should get taylor on to just like do a breakdown of like all the different trad groups. And then I talked to taylor. He's like, honestly, I'd really rather not like whatever. I kind of just want to unite the clans. Let's do that.

Speaker 3: 1:14:59

But so he agreed to come on, but I never.

Speaker 1: 1:15:01

I never told rob that like we were going to do a different topic. So rob just puts out a thumbnail and title about like all the different things that we're going to do, and taylor was like bro, I told you I don't want to talk about that. I was like no, no, we'll change it, don't worry. That's all. Look at this. Look at us uniting the clans over here. Oh, have you, I'm very another another video will be going out.

Speaker 3: 1:15:25

Uh, end of the week again christian's like oh, I gotta scratch the anti-taylor marshall video idea. Yeah I. I know.

Speaker 2: 1:15:34

The total refutation. Tell my editor get rid of all the audio from the total refutation of Taylor Marshall.

Speaker 1: 1:15:40

I'll tell you what I did. What I did think about the, the, the, the life side thing, what, like? One of my initial thoughts that I didn't actually get into on the video I put out was it seemed like when they got rid of John Henry Weston, the, the, the remaining group almost seemed like they were trying to milk the boomers for whatever else they could without any thought. They got like 10 years left. So yeah, and I think that's kind of what was happening and I think they were like very short sighted and seeing like the the future is trad man, like young people love tradition. And when that co-founder came out and just started talking about how John Henry was bringing the organization to the council of Trent, catechism and sound like man, whatever. W.

Speaker 2: 1:16:28

Yeah Right, I'm like the, I'm like the, the autistic chastity guy. So I'm like, well, you know what the Catechism of Trent says about abstaining before the Eucharist? That's what I slay all of the Gunnar trads with. It's like have you read the Catechism of Trent on preparation of the body. How long they say it's recommended three days.

Speaker 1: 1:16:54

Wow, three days I can see a 24-hour fest. I got to do a 72-hour fest every week. I think I can do 24, but I've seen Ant after 40 hours.

Speaker 3: 1:17:07

It was not good.

Speaker 2: 1:17:10

There's actually a text from this as well in the traditional service for matrimony that talks about the same thing as the priest is to privately exhort them to abstain during Lent and three days before receiving the Eucharist. That kind of got messed up a little bit when daily reception of the Eucharist was encouraged very widely, which is a little bit of a different story.

Speaker 1: 1:17:42

Anthony just moved date night up to Wednesday. Yeah, there's some Friday nights I like to take my wife out on the town. Guys, I don't know if I can do this 72 hours a day. Dude, you go on dates with your wife. We don't just do dates, we do weekends together.

Speaker 2: 1:17:56

I go fishing with my cousin on the weekends. Let me tell you something.

Speaker 3: 1:18:00

Everyone wants me to ask you what's with the fish in the basement.

Speaker 2: 1:18:05

The fish Dude. Right there, that's my fish.

Speaker 3: 1:18:09

Is that?

Speaker 2: 1:18:10

in your basement? No, I'm not in my basement.

Speaker 1: 1:18:14

I don't know what that means. I don't know, either everyone's just asking about it uh yeah, everybody keeps saying ask you about your fish collection. I saw that a few times um, I like, I like fishing.

Speaker 2: 1:18:24

Uh, fishing is one of my favorite sports and I have a fish tank behind me because I hate cats, I hate dogs, I like fish. Fish are the best pets.

Speaker 3: 1:18:33

My wife has 20 aquariums in my house.

Speaker 2: 1:18:35

Yo, really that's awesome 100%.

Speaker 1: 1:18:38

I'll tell you guys this because you guys are younger married than I am. I'm married 20 years and I do hate the phrase like. Your wife has to be your best friend, but you really do need to like your wife. You have to be your best friend, but like you really do need to like your wife. Like you have to like enjoy your, enjoy your wife. You can't, you can't, not enjoy your wife.

Speaker 2: 1:18:56

It's very important. But it's like, it's like what saint augustine says. You know, saint augustine, he says, like, if you wanted to have a guy, you hang out at the bar, you know, you get a dude. If you wanted to, like, build a house, you get a dude. Like, if you want to go fishing, you get a dude. If you want to go hunting, you get a dude. But if you want to, like, you know, procreate, uh, produce children, govern them. You know procreation is a lot more than just the production, which is the governance. You don't want to build a house, you got to have a. You got to have a woman, you know she's the heart of the house. So, but if you want to do anything else, that's like fun or cool, like well, that's what.

Speaker 1: 1:19:27

That's what this show is. This show is the. That's why we don't let women on this show. They ruin everything.

Speaker 2: 1:19:32

I've never had a woman on my channel. It's been.

Speaker 1: 1:19:35

I think we've had two or three. We had Nancy Charles on, I had Catherine from Catholic Unscripted. You've had your cousin on.

Speaker 3: 1:19:43

You've had your sister on. We've had Angela on, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:19:47

So five, but over the course of five years. So, um, all right, guys, I think we're going to wrap this one up. Uh, pray for Alex, pray for all involved in this. I I honestly, I do hope that in the long run Alex repents and has a true conversion of heart. And you know these aren't easy sins to deal with. And uh, yeah, I don't know. I think a lot of people, especially older people who grew up in the nineties, and you know we can relate to the promiscuous lifestyle and having a having a figure, all that stuff out. So I mean there is, there is a way to come back from it. It's just the public facing thing. I don't know how that's going to work out for them.

Speaker 3: 1:20:34

So anyone's asking well, not everyone. A few people are asking where I got the stuff about the catechisms having stuff about not chewing. I pinned that in the live chat, so just click on that and there's at least four I mean, we can keep hanging.

Speaker 1: 1:20:43

You guys got to give us topic ideas. I can riff on anything. Just throw me some comments out here.

Speaker 2: 1:20:46

I have to. I have to play some call of duty tonight, so I gotta get. Oh my, you still play video games, dude, it's okay. So I have meetings, I have to do with friends who are in Catholic action stuff and we just hang out and we play Call of Duty. Occasionally we talk about what's going on in our Catholic action activity. It's very news-dependent type work.

Speaker 3: 1:21:09

Do you guys think the feds don't listen to Call of Duty lobbying or something? Is that why you do it? I dependent type work.

Speaker 2: 1:21:14

Do you guys think the feds don't listen to call the duty lobby or something? We'll never find out what we're saying on the black ops 2 lobby?

Speaker 1: 1:21:21

oh man, I never, got into video games all right here we go. Taylor's got a question for you. All, right, uh, what do you think of thomas aquinas versus pa versus Paul VI on non-olive oil and sacred oils?

Speaker 2: 1:21:38

You know, intrinsically, intrinsically I tend towards St Thomas's position making sense, but on the basis of the authority of the church. You know I will, I will not push his opinion similar, similar to like his position on holy orders, for example, like I won't, I don't, I don't want to go against because even if, like, in the form of conscience, I didn't exactly have, you know, very strong intrinsic reasons for something I at least wouldn't want to like in the public forum, you know, oppose an authentic, like doctrinal or legislative pronouncement of the church. But yeah, I haven't, I haven't really studied that issue of sacramentology, that much I would have to read thesis in Duranzo.

Speaker 1: 1:22:26

See what I mean. You should have been their guy. They were so dumb to not take you. I don't understand what they were thinking. Voice of reason have been their guy.

Speaker 3: 1:22:33

They were so dumb to not take you.

Speaker 1: 1:22:35

I don't understand what they were thinking voice a reason, but he doesn't sound like this, so I don't know what they're you know, we, we know of confirmation now, that that voice is kind of fake though, because we heard the cookie tapes.

Speaker 2: 1:22:46

Oh no, I'm not completely different voice okay.

Speaker 1: 1:22:48

so somebody, if they're asking seriously, what do I think of the byzantine right? I don't know what you mean by what do I think of it? I think that I mean they're Catholic churches. They're even considered Roman Catholic. What I would say is I take issue with someone like Alex for escaping the Novus Ordo to go to a Byzantine church and then criticizing trads for wanting to leave it. Also, now we know why he might've escaped.

Speaker 3: 1:23:16

We don't know.

Speaker 1: 1:23:16

That's still. That's still speculation. But yeah, and I don't criticize anybody who goes to a Byzantine church to escape the Novus Ordo. It's only those who do it and then tell trads that want the Latin mass that they need to submit to the Novus Ordo. I think, yes, I think that's called. That is. That is the definition of bislarping. You are a Westerner and you belong yeah, you, you belong at a Latin liturgy. Go, fight for the liturgy of your ancestors and stop, stop giving ground to this nonsense.

Speaker 2: 1:23:49

This is, I'm telling you, you, this is the thing that we need to start talking a lot more about the obligations that one has to um, people, groups and uh and herit in like the, the president getting ready for locals okay, so so listen, I really can't stay on that much longer, but we should do a show, the three of us with Taylor.

Speaker 1: 1:24:12

That would actually be an awesome show. I think that'd be really fun. I'm sure Taylor would be down for that. Taylor, we'll do that. We'll pick another night and maybe the four of us will get on, we'll talk, we'll let you two go off on your homism thing and I'll have some good fun show. Really fun to see, under Leo, the clans getting united a little bit where there might have been some tension. We will you. We will unite the clans, we will unite.

Speaker 3: 1:24:42

Gen X.

Speaker 1: 1:24:43

Gen X, millennials and Gen Z will come together for a show.

Speaker 2: 1:24:48

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:24:49

All right, we got any closing thoughts.

Speaker 2: 1:24:50

We're going to wrap this one up absolutely all right we got any closing thoughts, we're gonna wrap this one up. I I said everything that I needed to say. I don't think I left anything out on the on the court, so to speak. All right guys no e-girls ever no, no, e-girls, no, no, no, e-girls never okay stay away from girls. No hand-holding, no hugging, no kissing. You know what you're doing. You know the way it makes you feel.

Speaker 1: 1:25:19

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me.

Speaker 2: 1:25:21

Think about what I'm doing right now, when you try to do this stuff and it reminds you not to do it. Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:25:26

No texting outside of marriage. That's the new rule. I'm telling you no texting inside of marriage.

Speaker 2: 1:25:32

In the family room. Okay, that's where you have conversations.

Speaker 1: 1:25:36

We need a new encyclical on that, on how young people are to behave in modern dating culture. So, all right, we're going to get going, guys. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure this show is going to get around. I'm sure I'm going to get some passive-aggressive texts Not as around as. Never mind, I'm going to get some passive-aggressive texts from the upper echelon of Catholic Inc telling me that I went too far.

Speaker 2: 1:26:03

I'm sure, If your girlfriend tries to hold your hand, throw a flashbang at her. She'll never do it again.

Speaker 3: 1:26:10

Real life's, not Call of Duty. Christian.

Speaker 1: 1:26:15

All right at her. She'll never do it again.

Speaker 4: 1:26:20

Real life's not called a duty christian. All right, we gotta go. We'll see you later, thank you.