AI, Aliens, and Demons

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Non human intelligences, including AI, aliens and demons are in the news. And now a well known exorcist has been removed from office for suggesting that alien sightings might actually be demonic in origin. Hello, I'm Eric Simmons and welcome to Crisis Point. Foreign so welcome to a special Thursday live edition of Crisis Point. I'm actually out of town. I was out of town this past Tuesday and I'm out of town next Tuesday. I was in Greenville, South Carolina last Tuesday giving a couple of talks. One was actually about artificial intelligence. And then this coming Tuesday I'll be in Atlanta also giving a talk about artificial intelligence to Popes encyclical and in my upcoming book on on the topic. So I can't do that's two weeks in a row not being able to do the Tuesday afternoon live podcast. So I thought I'd just do it today on Fri on Thursday. Hopefully people can join me. Also, I just want to mention we had our May fundraiser and contrary to certain rumors, our demise. What's that? Our premature demise, whatever we, we're not, we're not dying. We were not going to meet our goal. For the first time since I have taken over Crisis and I have and I gave some reasons for that. I think it's the criticisms of Trump we've given and also the praise of Pope Leo annoyed some of our audience and I understand that. I respect that. And so we didn't look like we're going to meet it, but I think we actually are. I think we're actually because we got some mailing checks coming in. We got some other big donations that are coming in late that we that we haven't counted yet. So I think we meet. So I want to thank everybody, thank everybody who donated, everybody who gave to the Crisis Spring fundraiser. I really do appreciate we an aggressive goal and I think we're going to meet it. We haven't met quite yet, but I think we're going to. Okay, let me get into the topic of the day. It seems like non human intelligences, intelligences, hard for me to say, are in the news a lot. And so what is a non human intelligence? Basically it's what you would expect is any intelligent being that is not human. Now as Catholics we know for a fact that non human intelligence exists. The angels and the demons, they are not human, but yet they are intelligent. And so God we know for a fact has created at least two species of intelligence, the angelic beings and humanity. We know this for a fact. But the question is are there others? Are there others Besides humans and angelic beings that are intelligent, for example, aliens beings, intelligent beings from another planet. Other examples might be fairies or elves or interdimensional creatures or a whole host of different fantasy type creatures that have some type of intelligence but are not human. I know a lot of those are not really acceptable, like the fairies and the elves, and aren't acceptable to modern man, whereas aliens might be. But the truth is, if you look at Catholic history, you see that many Catholics, most Catholics I would argue, including saints and doctors of the Church, believed in non human intelligences other than the angels and the demons. They believed that these, that they existed. They took it as a fact that they existed. And now, of course, today we have another potential non human intelligence, which is artificial intelligence, AI. Some see it as like, I've read books about artificial intelligence where they talk about as kind of an alien intelligence because it's an intelligence that's not human. The Pope kind of admitted it's a type of intelligence when he wrote in his recent encyclical. He said we must avoid the misconception of equating this type, meaning AI, this type of intelligence with that of human beings. Now, he put intelligence in quotes, so he's not really stating for sure it is. But at the same time, depending on how you define intelligence, AI is a non human type of intelligence. It could be considered that. Now, something we should note is that the Church has not declared definitively all the different types of intelligence beings that are out there. They haven't, you know, they've said definitely angels and demons exist, definitely. Obviously humans exist. God of course, exists as an intelligent being, but he's above really creation. So I, we're not including him in this. We're talking about created intelligent beings. But the, the Church has never definitively spoke on is are there alien intelligence, intelligent beings, Are there other types of intelligent beings on this earth in this dimension or whatever the case may be. And like I said, it's been a common belief among Catholics for all of Church history that some other alien intelligence, other non human intelligence does exist. Okay, so I want to talk about some of them. I want to talk about AI, I want to talk about aliens, I want to talk about demons, and I also want to talk about, yes, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, who was, who was the Chief Exorcist of Washington D.C. until he was removed by Cardinal McElroy. I almost said McCarrick, same diff. He's removed the Chief Exorcist for some comments to me, I'm going to play A video that he that just recently came out that seems to be the final straw that broke the camel's back to get him removed from office and his ministry kicked, his apostle kicked out of Washington D.C. now I want to mention about Father I'm sorry, Monsignor Rossetti. I actually had him as a guest on one of the first Crisis Point episodes. This was almost five years ago. I had him on to talk about his book Diary of an American Exorcist from Sofia Institute Press. And so I would encourage people to find that episode and watch it. I'll try. Maybe I'll try. Remember, put in the show notes, but I'll post it on X and things. So before we get to that, I just want to talk in general about some different things coming up about this, about non human intelligence. The first is like, okay, I had my episode last week about the Pope's encyclical and I talked about it, my disappointment with it, but also my praise of certain aspects of it. But one of did, like two days after it came out, after I had read the whole thing and already commented on it, I shared this post. I shared, I said, what does AI think of Magnifica Humanitas? Not much, apparently. This analysis by Claude is brutal. And because it was run very soon after publication, it's not a compilation of other critiques, but analysis far more objective than most you'll read. And I link to a article where somebody basically talks about let Claude analyze the Pope's encyclical and critique it. And I was, I'll be honest, I was a bit surprised by the reaction to this post. If you'll notice, it got over 200, 200,000 views. It was almost ratioed. And people real. I mean, people were saying I had AI psychosis because I think that AI can think. And they were just like, this is, you know, how stupid are you to actually ask AI what it thought about the encyclical? I mean, a lot of them, of course, only saw this post because that's how the algorithm works. They don't know me. They don't. They don't know my. Like I've talked about AI not being able to think in the past, writing a book that includes that, that whole argument. Yet I was a little bit surprised by the visceral reaction to my post. Just to be clear, I don't think AI can think as humans think. But that's a colloquial way of saying it. I'm not actually claiming AI thinks when I say it. Just it's writing People, it's writing. It's good to get people to read what you're writing. Sometimes you use colloquial language. But more importantly, why was there this visceral reaction to me having, you know, sharing? Again, I didn't run the AI, I didn't ask Claude for an analysis, somebody else did and I just shared it. And I think it has to do with our fear of the existence of non human intelligence. The idea that AI could potentially be this alien type intelligence, this alien way of thinking or something like something that exists outside of us, outside of our world view of how we see things. Because Catholics mostly who are freaking out, like this idea of, okay, there's us, there's the angels and demons, there's God, that's it. I don't want, I don't want there to be any other intelligent intelligence out there. Only thing else that they can think. And like I said, I don't think AI is true intelligence. I don't think it has a soul, I don't think it has a conscience. I don't think it can think of, think like we do. But even the idea of asking AI a question like this I think really offended a lot of people. I don't think that's going to be the case. Eventually I think we'll get used to it and it will just be a thing that people do and people don't. We're just so used to AI. It's just part of our, our being. I've seen other technologies that come, people get very upset about it at first and then it just becomes normal for everybody. I also don't think it's a big deal to run an AI program to analyze a writing. I don't think it should do your thinking for you, but I do think that you can look at it and just say, hey, analyze this because it can help you think about it. Like I said, I read the document. I had already done a podcast before I even saw this, but when I read this I was like, okay, there's some good points in here. There's some dumb points in it too. Just like, I mean, when I comment on something, I make good points and I make dumb points. So does AI. AI made some good points, but I noticed people were just very quick to just reject it. And I think, and reject the criticism because it was AI generated. But I don't think that's, that's a, an intellectually honest way to look at these things. And like, for example, I heard a story, I've not confirmed this, but I Think it's true where somebody shared a painting that they say they ask AI to paint something that inspired by like Monet, in a way of Monet. Everybody, he shared it online, everybody railed on it, said, oh, it's soulless. It's obviously AI stuff like that. Then he revealed, oh, actually this is a, an unknown, a little known Monet painting. And I think that's a good experiment because I noticed that if you say something is AI generated, people immediately say it's soulless. It doesn't really, you know, it's awful. It's so obvious. But then when you actually, when somebody, when they find out it's actually human generated, then it's like, oh, okay, this is actually much better. And I think there's a certain bias there. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a certain bias against AI generated stuff, don't get me wrong. But I do think we have to rethink a bit these categories a little bit. And I think this is why I had such a visceral reaction. That is because this idea of some type of intelligence that's not human. We also see in the news everybody freaking out about disclosure. The Washington, the Trump administration has been releasing documents related to what they call UAPs, basically UFOs, unidentified, you know, objects. Was it unidentified, anomalous, something. I can't remember what UAP stands for. But the point is it's deal with UFOs, things that you see that you don't understand. And people, they, they're unidentified, they don't know what they are. They're releasing more and more documents about it. And in fact, we have a movie coming up from Steven Spielberg called Disclosure Day. And Steven Spielberg is leaning into this, making it sound like he thinks that, that aliens have visited us and they are with us. And, and this movie kind of helps reveal that. And I honestly think first in Spielberg's case, it's just marketing. He just knows he can lean into this and more people come go see his movie. And honestly, it's just a good marketing technique. But there's clearly something going on here when we have the government now releasing these documents. Now, it could be what's going on here is they're creating a great distraction. That is definitely one possibility. It's also a possibility that they're trying to lead us to some conclusion that they have not yet revealed. They want us to depend on them more. I mean, basically they're doing it in order to give themselves more power. More than likely they wouldn't reveal this stuff if it didn't help them in some way. But there's a lot of hype about this, about disclosure of potential non human intelligence. Intelligence are on this earth right now or who have visited us in the past. So we see. This is like, you know, just getting, it's getting more and more in the news. We also have. And that's led to a great debate about the whole. Aliens are demons. This is something, it's almost a meme now. Aliens are demons. A number of Catholics are saying this. I think Tucker Carlson has suggested this. Other podcasters have suggested this. The idea that all this talk of aliens, UFO sightings, you know, people being inhabited by aliens or abducted by aliens, it's all demons. Aliens are demons is kind of the catchphrase for they're all demons. That there is no, there is no non human intelligence that exists other than angelic ones created. That is. And so therefore anything that is alien in nature is demonic. That is the. That is the claim. And so somebody who waded into this is Monsignor Stephen Rossetti and he is the. He was the chief exorcist for Washington D.C. and he also. Let me make. I want to get this, the name. I can't remember the name of it. He is the head of the, like St. Michael spiritual healing center or something like that, which is based in D.C. here. I might have it here in, in the book. It might say what he is. Oh yeah, the president of the St. Michael center for Spiritual Renewal. And that was based in D.C. and Cardinal McElroy kicked that out of D.C. here, let me actually pull up the statement from Washington D.C. it says the art. This is just from yesterday. The Archdiocese of Washington announced today that Robert Cardinal McElroy has removed Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, as an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington and ended all affiliation between the archdiocese and the St. Michael center for Spiritual Renewal located in Washington D.C. it goes on to say Cardinal McElroy said that statements made by Monsignor Rossetti linking UFOs to demonic presence and the sinner's recent use of social media gravely undermine the Church's very precise teaching on the Devil, demons and exorcism. I could go on for hours about the irony of somebody like Cardinal McElroy being worried about the Church's very precise teaching. When the guy is, you know, just one of the most progressive cardinals, progressive Catholics in the world. He doesn't seem to care very much about the Church's precise teaching on homosexuality. For example, he doesn't seem to care very much about the Church's precise teaching on just about anything, but now all of a sudden he's super worried about it, because he's super worried about the Church's teaching on this. And so I want to play the video, the most recent video that came out, which I think. I don't know, this is a fact, but this is the one that just came out a couple days ago that went viral and I think was, at the very least the straw that broke the camel's back that led to Rossetti's firing, essentially. Now, I'm not saying it's the only thing we'll talk about why in a minute, but I want to talk about. And I'm going to interrupt it at certain times to get my own commentary on it, but let me go ahead and play it here. [00:16:38] Speaker B: I wanted to chat with you for a moment about something which is very much in the news today and on people's minds. That's the whole thing about UFOs and life on other planets. Could there be. Sure, there could be. We don't know. The Church has said there's nothing incompatible with the faith about believing that there's life on other planets. So, sure, you could believe that and be a good Catholic. I personally don't think there is. My mother did, my sainted mother, God bless her, she was convinced There there were UFOs and aliens and other planets. Fine, whatever. [00:17:17] Speaker A: Okay, first, before I continue, clearly Monsignor Rossetti is reasonable about this. This is not some guy going off half cocked about like this great deception that all alien appearances are all demons and aliens can't exist. If you think aliens exist and then you're not really a good Catholic, and all the crazy stuff you hear from certain voices in the Church, that's not him. He's very reasonable to hear. He's not saying it's not. You can't believe an alien, that aliens exist. His own sainted mother, as he said, believe that he doesn't. And. And that's fine, too. So right at the beginning we see how reasonable Monsignor Rossetti is about this, but let him continue here. [00:17:57] Speaker B: But there's a danger here, and I want to raise that. As an exorcist, I want to raise that danger, and that is that demons like to hide. They don't want us to know they're around. They don't want us to know what they're doing because they're more effective when we don't realize it. And they can kind of get into your head, you know, and, and manipulate things in the world to influence us to do evil. The scriptures are very clear. Here's what it says. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with the principalities, powers and rulers of this present darkness, with evil spirits. So put on the armor of God that you may be able to resist on the evil day. [00:18:41] Speaker A: So [00:18:43] Speaker B: the fight we have in this world, this spiritual battle is, is with, with the evil one. And Jesus resisted of course, Satan in the temptation, the desert. And we too are tempted as well. [00:18:59] Speaker A: Again, here's Monsignor Rossetti being very reasonable and just simply stating what the Church has always believed, that evil for demonic forces do exist. At this point he said nothing that is even slightly controversial or should be slightly controversial in the Catholic world. Let's continue. [00:19:19] Speaker B: Demons indeed can break into the physical world and at times they can be seen. We actually have some photos of such things and that we have documented that sometimes people will see shadow men. Many people who are possessed will see indistinct dark shadows, possessed houses, globes of light, all sorts of things and more direct manifestations, evil hands. We've seen that and actually images of beast like creatures. So at times demons will be manifest in this world. I had an incident not too long ago where someone who had a particular gift and we've documented that gift and she was shown a picture of a ufo. She said it's a demon. There's no question in my mind personally. Again, this is not de fide, but it's my personal belief that probably many if not most of these UFO sightings are in fact demons and they can do. [00:20:26] Speaker A: Okay, I just had to interrupt that again real quick. He explicitly states he's not saying what's de fide teaching of the Church. Not officially. He's giving his opinion. He's allowed to have an opinion. In fact, his opinion is more informed than 99% of our opinions. And his opinion is that most of the. He didn't say all. He doesn't say every single dem, every single alien encounter is demonic or anything like that. He's just simply saying that he believes that many of them are and he's okay to have that opinion. [00:20:57] Speaker B: Things that we can't do, such thus the speed and all sorts of things that human beings can't do. The reason why it's important is because they will try to manipulate us again, as I said, behind the scenes. I had one woman come to us who lost her grandmother. She loved her grandmother. So she was normally right handed, so she took her left hand and started engaging in a conversation with her dead grandmother. And there was this automatic writing. These beautiful letters would come across every. You know, beautiful letters from her grandmother. She thought, I love you, my beautiful granddaughter, and I love you, and I'm fine. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this went on for about six months. Then at the end of six months, the letters went south, and they were really ugly. And then she realized this was not her dead grandmother she was conversing with about a demon. And I think that's true of many people who are engaged with mediums. That's why the church says, don't do it. Don't engage with mediums. You think you're engaged with some beautiful deceased relative. And it's probably a demon masquerading as human or other people in house. They say, well, we have a friendly ghost. No, no. And we don't interact with friendly ghosts. If you believe there's a deceased person that needs prayers, fine. Pray for the person. But let's not have friendly ghosts, friendly UFOs, mediums, all that sort of thing connects us with the dark world is a portal. And the Bible and the church consistently warns us against this. Remember, our fight is against principalities and powers, evil spirits, Satan and his minions. But in the end, we trust in God. Just follow the rules. As I tell people, stay in the boat. Follow the rules so they're there to keep you safe. Church is not trying to control you, but trying to keep you safe from the evil one. But trust in Jesus. We have a great joy in the Lord and our eyes are fixed on heaven. So don't worry about the UFO stuff and all the friendly ghosts and aliens. By the way, one exorcist told me he thought that this person was possessed by aliens. I'm going, what? That's nonsense. Aliens, if there are aliens, don't possess people, that's nonsense. Again, it's demons trying to hide and trying to manipulate and disguise themselves. So don't be fooled. Focus your eyes on Jesus. Trust in him. He'll bring you safely home. [00:23:38] Speaker A: Okay, I'll end it there as it was just about over. So if you listen to that, that comes across to me as extremely reasonable. There's nothing he says that is against the Catholic faith, against the precise teaching of the church on any of this stuff. I'm not saying you had to agree with him in the sense that you may think that some of these alien signs are legitimately aliens, extraterrestrial beings, but that's okay, because that's in fact he says that at the beginning it's okay, but he is warning us against real dangers. I mean, I had a guest on, on, on Crisis Point, Teresa Yannaros. I think that's. I can't always forget how to pronounce her last name. Who was very involved in the UFO movement. And she knows some of the. The meetings she went to when they called down the presence of these aliens were actually demonic rituals. She believes that very strongly now and she experienced it herself. So she would know the point, though here is. Monsignor Rossetti said nothing scandalous, said nothing outrageous. Everything he said there was very reasonable and very much within the Church's precise teaching. Here's the funny thing about, you know, how did, how did McElroy say it? The Church's very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism. I mean, there's nothing he said that went against that very precise teaching. I would love for McElroy to actually explain exactly, exactly what it was that he said that goes against that very precise teaching. Again, you might disagree and say, I don't think some of these. I think some of the alien encounters might be real, might be actual aliens. Fine. But nothing Monsignor said goes against that. Now, I will say also, I want to put this up. Monsignor Rossetti had a statement after he got removed and he says, I am saddened by the decision of the Archdiocese of Washington to cut its affiliation with St. Michael center for Spiritual Renewal. I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church's Magisterium, particularly in the cited video on aliens and the demonic. I believe it is of utmost importance to be obedient to the Church and I will continue to endeavor to subject all that I do and the center to be thus obedient. Also, I will continue to encourage all to do so as well. As I often say, stay in the boat, that is, stay in the bark of Peter who will lead you safely home. I am grateful for 19 years of ministering in the Archdiocese of Washington as its exorcist. And I thank the Archdiocese for its support and blessing all these years. We will remember the Cardinal and all in the Archdiocese of Washington in our prayers for its important ministry. The St. Michael center for Spiritual Renewal plans to continue its ministry elsewhere. Okay. I mean, obviously Monsoon University is a humble guy and he said if I, you know, he b. What do you say? How do you word it? He said, I asked forgiveness for any ways I have not been faithful to the teaching of the Church's Magisterium, particularly in the side video on aliens and demonic. As we saw, he was not unfaithful to any of those teachings. It's very clear he wasn't. But I appreciate his humility. He is a man under obedience as a clergyman and he's, he, he didn't like, try and fight. In fact, I do have a certain concern about celebrity exorcists. I do think it's a potential problem. It's a potential red flag when exorcists are too out there advertising their wares. But it's clear the worries I have do not apply to Monsignor Rossetti based upon his humility in accepting what happened and his obedience and just saying, okay, I, I'm. If I said anything that goes against the Magisterium, the Magisterium is right and I'm wrong. Now, of course he didn't, but still I appreciate though, his, his humility in the face of what I think is in, I think most normal people would think is an unjust action by Cardinal McElroy. So the question is why? Why was he removed? Now, I think there's a couple possibilities. I think it's likely this is just the straw that broke the camel's back. Meaning I don't think it was simply this single video that led Cardinal McElroy to remove him. Maybe. I mean, he is, he, he does come across as a very petty man. Cardinal McElroy, that is. So perhaps it was just as petty as just that one video went viral and he didn't like it. So he said get rid of him. But my guess is he didn't like the fact that Monsignor Rosetti is, is pretty popular with the conservative Catholic crowd. He's well known and respected and I don't think he, he probably didn't like that. I also think it's another possibility. And by the way, I have like kind of four possibilities here and all of them can be true or not or only one or two of them or something like that. So one is again, that there's previous issues that he didn't like. Whether just or not doesn't really matter at this point. Another is McElroy might be embarrassed by this talk about demons. I mean, we live in a very secular world and if there's one thing you see in a lot of church leaders is they are embarrassed about the faith, about the supernatural aspects of the faith. They downplay it as much as possible because otherwise they might be looked at funny at the, at the, at the cocktail parties of the, of the elite that they go to. So it might be just as simple as here's a priest of his talking about aliens and demons and all this stuff and he's just like, oh my gosh, this is just, this is embarrassing. What am I gonna say at the next party when you know, this rich donor, this senator, says something about like, hey, why do you have a priest talking about aliens and demons? Hahaha. And he's embarrassed. It might be as simple as that. Another possibility is you can't discount the influence of the government and powerful people in Washington D.C. on Cardinal McElroy now that he is there. Remember, he is the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington D.C. and depending how many conspiracy theories you want to believe, it's possible they got to them, so to speak. They told them, hey, we don't want the narrative that these aliens are demons. We're putting out this, these disclosures, we're putting out information about these alien sightings for a reason. And, and the narrative that they're demons does not support that. What we want to do, our narrative, so you need to squash this. I don't think we can act like that's not a possibility. I mean, the whole world we live in, we know stuff like that happens if your eyes are open just even a little bit. I tend to think it happens less than some people think, but at the same time I know it happens. So maybe that's it. And then a final possibility is simply that McElroy himself is influenced and led by demons. And so he doesn't want talk of demons to be too public because as Monsignor Rossetti himself said, demons love to hide. And so I could see demons being like, hey, we don't want people talking about us. Keep this quiet. And so they influenced macaroy. I know it sounds, it sounds like harsh to say that a cardinal, a prince of the Church might be influenced by demons. But I'm sorry people, if you don't think that's possible. You don't unders. You haven't read church history. You don't understand how the Devil works. You don't understand how fallen human nature works. We know, for example, that one of the first bishops of the church, Judas, was entered into by Satan. So it is possible God made no promises that he'd protect the hierarchy from influence from the Devil. And based upon McElroy's actions thus far in his episcopate, it's not outlandish to think that perhaps he himself is influenced by demons. And that was part of the equation. So those are different reasons why Monsignor Rossetti Maya got removed and I don't know. I mean, we can't know for sure. But now what I want to do is I want to talk about my own, my own views about this because I know I sometimes court controversy myself when I talk about aliens and AI and things like that. People seem to think they know what I think about this. But I kind of want to give my own views about some of this stuff. The first thing I want to mention is I can't stand. It's a pet peeve of mine. I can't stand when people claim certainty where certainty doesn't exist and that certainty that they proclaim goes beyond what the Church has declared as certain. One example, this is the aliens or demons, period, end of story Note. That's not what Monsignor Rossetti said. I'm talking about the people who like if it any claim of aliens is demonic, period, end of story. And if you don't think that you're not faithful Catholic, you're not traditional Catholic, whatever the case may be. You see that also with the people who say God created the world in six literal 24 hour days. And if you don't believe that you're not a faithful Catholic, they have a certainty where the Church has not declared certainty. The idea that, okay, you cannot believe that there are non human intelligences that exist other than angels and demons. If you do believe that, you're not faithful Catholic, period, end of story. I was just talking to a good friend of mine the other day when I was in Greenville and he was telling me about, you know, his frustration with this as well, that just people who go around claiming that, that certain things are true and certain when, when the Church has not declared it. So now here's the thing. I am sympathetic to people who want to have certainty in certain areas because the truth is in the Church. Over the past, in our lifetimes, basically, church leaders have too often been ambiguous about things that we are certain about, like the certainty that outside the Church there is no salvation. We know that that's a dogmatic fact. And yet too many church leaders are ambiguous about that and they're ambiguous about other aspects of the faith. And so because of that, we're all yearning for certainty. I am too. The problem though is, is that we set up these very small boundaries of what is certain that are more narrow than what the Church defines. The Church might have boundaries like out here, you're just listening, watching, I have my hands out far, and then they make the boundaries very tight. They bring it in here and they say, okay, this is what we're certain about. And we, anything outside of this is heresy. And that's not really true. That's not really true. There's a name for this and it's fundamentalism. I know fundamentalism is used as an insult by seculars, by progressives, and it's misused for that. But fundamentalism is not Catholicism. I want to make sure that's clear. In fact, I want to do a video at some point about this, about fundamentalism within Catholicism. And I want to be honest and clear. Fundamentalism is a greater danger within traditional Catholic circles is Novus Ordo circles, like normie circles Now, Normie circles have all their dangers. I mean, they're all contracepting and doing stuff like that. So I mean, there's, there's dangers over there. But a danger within traditional Catholicism is a fundamentalism. And fundamentalism here I'm basically defining as. When you state something as certain that the Church has not said as certain, you say as certain it must be believed, but the Church has not done that. One of those things is whether or not there are non human intelligences out there, that is not something the Church has declared as certain. And so if you declare it as certain and required as a Catholic belief, you're acting like a fundamentalist and not as a Catholic. That's not the Catholic way. Like I said, there have been many over the centuries, Catholics have often believed in non human intelligences, that they exist beyond the angels and the demons. So that's my, that's kind of like my overarching thing here is I just simply am not going to sit here and say, I know I'll get more clicks, I know I'll get more traffic. And if I just said aliens are demons, ah, if I do that, you know, you get the clicks, I get that. I'm just not going to do it because I don't think I can do that as a Catholic in good conscience. Now, do I think some alien sightings and some alien encounters of that are demonic in nature? Absolutely. Maybe even the majority of them are. Maybe most of them all, maybe all are. I don't know. I'm just not going to declare that as certain. And regarding the existence of aliens, I do think they could exist. I don't think there's any theological problem with them existing. I think it's unlikely they do. Scientifically, that is. I think it's unlikely they do, but I do think it is possible. Also, I am very skeptical of claims of UFO sightings and alien encounters, things like that. I'm skeptical of them being actually aliens. I would get, if I had to guess, I would say 99.99 of them. Absolutely not. Maybe. Maybe it's possible. I kind of feel like though, with the vast size of the universe, people don't understand how big the universe is and how difficult would be to travel. I think it's unlikely. You know, I just started listening to a podcast by my friend Ski, Steve Skocheck and Kale Zeldin. I. I think I'm. Oh, man. If I mispronounce your name, Kale, I'm very sorry. Called monitoring the situation. Now, people who watch this might know who Steve Schocheck is. He's the founder of 1 Peter 5 and the former editor in chief of it. Yes, he was. He has left the Catholic faith. He calls himself an agnostic who prays. But I like Steve because he is very open. He's very willing to talk about things and, and give. Listen to various opinions and things like that. And they've been talking about a lot of disclosure and UFO stuff. And it's interesting. I'm not buying completely what they're selling. They're not actually selling anything. But at the same time, I do think something is going on and I think, you know, there is something going on. Is it a rise in the demonic in. In pretending to be d. Pretending to be aliens? Perhaps because they know aliens are something that modern man accepts more likely than. Than other things. Perhaps that's it. I just, I'm skeptical of UFO claims, but I, I do not, I refuse to think is epistemologically impossible. That's where I really lie stand. I refuse to believe, to think it's epistemologically impossible. If the church said tomorrow there are no non human intelligences in existence other than humans and demons and angels, then I would accept that as epistemologically true. But they haven't done that and so I won't do that. I also think it's possible there are non human intelligences that are not demonic, not angelic, not, and obviously not human that exist, that are not alien. I mean, there's a podcast called I Believe in Fairies and I like that name just because it's like we don't know. We, we are arrogant if we think we understand God's creation fully, that there's definitely nothing else in the existence that's very materialistic. Frankly, I kind of feel like some of the fundamentalist Catholics I'm talking, they've actually imbibed the enlightenment principles of materialism. And they've. What they've done is they kind of see you. If you can't prove it materially, other than this very small category, then it doesn't. Of spiritual things and it doesn't exist. Like, I think it's actually possible that the Lord of the Rings is a history book, that before the dawn of man, before the dawn of our knowledge of man, there existed on this earth other beings. I'm okay with that. If you want to call me crazy. You want, you know, kind of make fun of me, that's fine. I don't care. Make fun of Tolkien too, while you're at it. I just think creation is much greater than our modern worldview allows. We have restricted creation to a very, very finite set of, of truths and realities and facts, which aren't actually all true or factual. And so, again, I think we should be open to the fact that something is happening, seems to be happening. It seems to be there's a breaking in to our human ex. Reality of something. Again, it may be the whole thing is a big government plot to control us better. Okay, maybe that's possible. Maybe it is a demonic plot to distract us to do whatever. I don't know, and I don't claim to know what it is, but I'm not going to enter into the discussion with certain preconceived ideas that the Church has not given me, that I just made up myself, because it makes me feel more comfortable. I just, I'm not going to do that. What. Actually, what I'm concerned about more than an alien takeover or even a demonic takeover or pretending to be aliens or whatever. I'm worried by how much it worries us. What I mean by that is it seems like more and more people are very concerned about this. Talking about this. It's. I'm obviously talking about it. And I feel like the demons win. Even if none of our conspiracies are true, because the stress, the chaos, the, the, the anxiety that is being created by all this is a victory for the devil. If you're spending a lot of time concerned about whether or not aliens might be taking over or whether or not demons might be masquerading as aliens taking over, then I really think you're being distracted for what really matters. You're not being distracted by the government. You're being distracted by the devil into what really matters, which is living your Catholic faith. As always, if you simply live a simple Catholic faith, if you simply live the Catholic faith, you will Be fine. You will be fine. You, if you believe it's aliens, if you believe it's demons, if you believe it's a Big Nothing burger, if you don't even know what's going on but you live a Catholic life, you're going to be just fine. And so what I worry is we're spending a lot of time and energy on these issues when really we should be more focused on things that matter, which is just living the faith, preaching the gospel, helping the poor, praying every day, going to adoration, all those things. If we're distracted from those things, if you're spending more time, if you're spending all this time during the day researching and finding out about aliens and things like that and all that, and you're not spending every day, at least an hour a day in prayer, then you've become distracted. The devil's wanting your life. And so that's, I think, my bigger concern. Okay, so this is a live podcast. I want, Check out the live chat first. I want to bring up ES Morales with a super sticker, 9.99. Thank you very much. We always appreciate it. We'll, you know, our fundraiser was a little bit short, but we, I, we might need it. But, you know, getting a donation this way, we really do appreciate. Thank you. Crash Cannon says. Interesting to hear your opinion on this, Eric. Well, I hope you enjoyed my opinion that I gave. He also said AI is sub creation and cannot be intelligent in the way people are. That's kind of my conclusion. In my book, I talk about the fact that God is the only true creator. God is the only true creator, but he gave one of his creations, at the very least us, the ability to create. So we create sub creations. Like, you know, Tolkien talks about this, that a fantasy world is a sub creation. When you paint something, you write something that's a sub creation. When you build a house, build a church, where it's a sub creation, it's a creation creating something. Well, AI obviously is a creation of ours, and so it's a sub creation. Now the question is, can AI itself, as a sub creation, also create? I think that's an open question. I think that's an open question. Ferris Kara says, I, for one, welcome our alien overlords, who will probably zap us all into dust for transing all the kids like the intergalactic Babylonians. Okay, hey, there's one possibility. I mean, we deserve it. Let's be honest. If aliens come here and they're rational, imagine if aliens come here and they're not Fallen, they would just be like, what the heck are you people doing? What is wrong with you people? Maybe they would zap us all for trans and the kids. Cave Bear says McElroy needs an exorcism. That is not at all unlikely. TKO tradition. Of all the cities who need a priest to be a specifically assigned exorcist, I think D.C. would be. Yeah, absolutely. Just so people know, every diocese is supposed to have an exorcist. Most exorcists don't advertise that they're exorcist. What happens is a bishop assigns one of his priests as the exorcist for the diocese because working for diocese, I can tell you this, you get calls about potential possessed people and a good exorcist. What they do is in a good diocese, what they do is they first eliminate all the human possibilities like psychological problems, mental problems, things like that. But if it looks like there might be demonic involvement, then they call in the exorcist and the exorcist could potentially perform an exorcism. And if there's one place in America that likely has a high level of demonic activity, it's Washington D.C. so. And by the way, McElroy removed him as chief exorcist, which makes it sound like there's more than one there. Maybe there is. And we don't know if McElroy is going to replace him with another priest as an exorcist. That's just unknown at this point. John says, should we even see the new movie Alien Disclosure next Friday? I think it's called Disclosure Day. I don't know much about it. I have no qualms about seeing it. If it's a good movie, obviously, you know, if it's a bad movie, nobody has to see it. I personally am interested in seeing it. I want to see it, but I always look at reviews first. I make sure it doesn't have immoral scenes that I shouldn't be watching in it before. Before I will watch it. So I can't say that for sure, but personally, if it gets good reviews, it doesn't have any immoral scenes that, that nobody should be watching, then I will, I will likely see it. Mary says we need more shepherds like the Monsignor McElroy, Satan's agent, in my personal opinion, may the faithful see through this unjust decision. Mary, I can't really disagree with you. John says Knockroy said the comments gravely. Under my official church teaching on demons, which I. I mean, you heard it, you watched it here. Clearly nothing Monsignor says in any way undermines Church teaching. Gaber says maybe McElroy thought the monsignor was referencing illegal alien. There we have it. That's. That's what it was. You know, when he was talking about the very precise teaching of the Church on. On aliens, he meant he was talking about illegal aliens. And that. That's what got him upset, that that might be exactly what. What it was, was. So. Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up there again. Stick to the simple Catholic life, people. I'm not saying you can't follow. I do. Obviously you can't follow some of this news about disclosure and aliens and demons and things like that. I find it fascinating, the alien discussion and just a little plug. Hold on a second. Let me grab it here real quick. Get on my chair, if I can. Get out of my chair. I wrote this science fiction book, Shard of Eden, and it talks about aliens, it talks about AI it's set in the future. And so if you want to hear, like a Catholic perspective in a fictional book with a good story about AI, aliens, things like that, get Shard of Eden. You can go to sharofeden.com. okay, that's my plug to finish the program. Till the next time, everybody, God love you, and remember the poor Sam.