Apocalypse Now?

[00:00:16] Our times are becoming apocalyptic. Multiple wars, destructive hurricanes, rampant heresy in the church, increased government, totalitarianism, and other traumatic events. Are we nearing the end times? And what should Catholic, how should Catholics respond to these dramatic happenings? Hello, I'm Eric Samuels, your host, editor chief of Crisis magazine. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before we get started, though, just want to encourage people to smash that like, button. I haven't said that in a little while, so smash that like button. Subscribe to the channel, let other people know about it. We always appreciate when you do that. Also, please get our email list. We will send your articles each morning. [00:00:59] Just go to crisismagazine.com, put your email email address in and you'll get that. We actually had a little hiccup, technical hiccup, past couple days. The email didn't go out and people were concerned, but fortunately we got that fixed. So that was good. Also, you can follow us on social media riceismag at all the different social media channels. Okay, so first of all, I just want to note that I'm back. [00:01:22] It's been a couple weeks since we've had a podcast. I apologize for that. Had a few things happen in my life. My mother passed away a couple weeks ago, and I just wanted to, I wanted to say right here that I really, really appreciate, greatly appreciate many prayers that were said for the repose of her soul for our family. I was just, I was very touched when I announced on x that my mom had passed away, how many people promised to pray for her. And I, and I do really appreciate that also then I had some health issues right after, right at the same time. And it was. And so I wasn't able to do a podcast last week either. But anyway, I'm back. And the health issues, by the way, are not related to the lack of a beard. Just so for those who are watching and might notice that I no longer have a beard that was not shaved off for any health reasons at all. So, okay, but let's get into the actual podcast. What we're going to be talking about today, and that is the world is going crazy. I mean, let's be honest, the world is going crazy right now. I don't see how you can look at any differently. I mean, I've been on this earth for over a half a century and I've never seen anything like it. Like, I recognize that social media magnifies issues like our news media. Everything magnifies what's going on. We didn't know as much, but we knew a decent amount what's going on in the world in the 1980s, the 1990s. [00:02:48] And I think I can say with pretty much a clear conscience that things seem crazier now than they have been, at least in my lifetime, definitely in America. [00:02:58] I mean, right now we have a war going on in Europe, in Ukraine, and that's the serious thing. That could easily escalate into a serious, massive war beyond what it is right now. It could escalate into a nuclear conflict. [00:03:16] And so that's dramatic just by itself. [00:03:20] We have another war basically going on now in the Middle east with, of course, yesterday was the anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel and then the ongoing, I don't know if you want to call it war, whatever it was, of Israel on Palestine and Lebanon over the past year. And then now Iran has launched missiles against Israel. Clearly, that's becoming, that conflict is growing and becoming more serious. [00:03:51] Another one that threatens to become a world war three situation. I mean, the combination of the war in Ukraine, war in Gaza, Palestine, this could really. This could really be the big one, as they say, a world war three, a nuclear war. I mean, a war to end all wars. It's serious at this point. [00:04:13] And then. And then beyond the wars now, we have. Recently, we've had some incredibly destructive hurricanes in our country. Hurricane Helene that went through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee. It really hit North Carolina hard. Who here, if you're being honest, three weeks ago, would have said, oh, yeah, Asheville is somewhere that's going to get flooded? I think most people would have been like, what's in the mountains? It can't get flooded. And yet Asheville has been just decimated. And I have family in western North Carolina and some friends, and it's just. And it's. I couldn't hear. I didn't hear from my family for over a week. We had no way of contacting them, but we have heard that they're okay, which I'm very grateful for. And friends have. I have a friend whose business was destroyed and. And just lots of bad things going on there. And now with Helene just being. I think it was two weeks ago now we have Hurricane Milton. Now, I will say Hurricane Milton's an odd one. I lived in Florida for five years, and while I was there, like all Floridians, I kind of got to know hurricanes and how they operate, kind of where they come from, where they hit. I was on the Gulf coast and typically the Gulf coast, like around Tampa area, it does not get hit directly. That often. In fact, Tampa has not been hit directly by a major hurricane since 1921. So over 100 years. And that's just a way, if you, if you know how hurricane, I'm no expert here, but hurricanes, they come from the Atlantic usually, and they go, and they hit the east coast or they go up into the gulf, maybe hit Louisiana or Mississippi or Alabama, something like that, or maybe the Pensacola, something like that. But they don't typically hit the Gulf coast as much. But in this case, this one starts in the Gulf of Mexico, is making a straight shot for Tampa, and it was a category five yesterday. It's been downgraded, category four. They think it's going to be category three when it hits, which, you know, we say only category three, but category three hit directly on the coast. That's major. That is significant damage. I know a lot of my friends and I have family down there as well, but I have a lot of friends from when I lived down there. A lot of them have, have evacuated. Some are hunkering down. [00:06:27] We just got to pray for that. But it's a real serious issue. I mean, this is a, almost an apocalyptic hurricane potentially. [00:06:37] And I know I brought this up on X today, but I know there's some that believe that the weather is being controlled by, I don't know who the elites, deep space, deep state, you know, they, they, and I posted, I said, listen, I honestly don't think they control the weather, whoever they is, but there's a lot of things I would have said in years past. I honestly don't think X and X ended up being true. So, you know, I think I need to be a little humble here and know that maybe they can manipulate the weather. Maybe they can influence the weather. Maybe they can. I mean, I know they can do certain things with the weather, but on this scale, I don't buy it. But either way, whether it's controlled or not, it's, it's going to hit, it's going to be bad. And then we have. So I'm just kind of going through all the apocalyptic type things going on right now with the american elections. [00:07:29] You know, we're the most powerful country in the world. So what happens here does matter for the whole world. It doesn't just matter for us. [00:07:36] So who our leader is matters for the whole world. It could be the difference between world war three or no world war three, who is elected, or I should say who becomes president of the United States. It could make a big difference. [00:07:50] And we have a situation here where most people, maybe not most people a lot of people don't trust, aren't going to trust the results, whatever they may be. [00:08:03] And there's a real chance for violence depending on how the election goes, I should say, how it's declared. And, you know, Elon Musk is saying that if he said that if Harris wins, it'll be the last election in our country. I don't think that. But at the same time, I understand why he's saying that there's a real good chance that the upcoming election will not be a valid one, not be a fair one, whatever you want to call it, that there'll be cheating involved. And because of that, there's going to be a lot of disgruntled people no matter who wins. And so we have the chance for potential violence, riots, things of that nature. [00:08:44] And like I said, whoever ends up becoming president, it's going to make a huge difference in the world stage now, shifting from the world. And there's other, and by the way, there's also just the standard base craziness in the world right now with the transgenderism just going crazy still with the fake racism being called out for everything, with, of course, abortion being such a big deal in this election. I mean, Kamala Harris is running on one issue and one issue only, and that's abortion. That's all she ever wants to talk about. That's all she can talk about. That's the only thing she seems capable of talking about. Putting two complete sentences together is on abortion. And so if she wins, I'm convinced it's because a significant amount of electric electorate is voting for abortion, aborting for the, voting for the killing of unborn children, which I don't know about you, but to me that just cries out for the wrath of God in our country. I know for decades now we've kind of deserved it. [00:09:51] But, like, this would be a situation which the people say because, remember, abortion was legal for so long because a few men in black robes decided it would be. It's not like in 1972 or 73 they decide, all the people say, we're going to vote for abortion, we want abortion. In fact, most people didn't want it then, and for a long time, people didn't want it. That's not true anymore. Abortion is winning on many ballots. It won here in Ohio. It's winning other places. And so there's a decent. I know it's also, fortunately, in some good states, it's lost. [00:10:24] But if Kamala wins, I mean, actually wins, not cheating, she actually wins, it will be because of abortion. I mean, that there's just no. Because that's the only thing she's running on. [00:10:35] And so people would be deciding, I want to be able to live my immoral life and be able to kill my children. [00:10:41] That's more important to me than a potential World War III or an economy in the tank or whatever the case, or a totalitarian government. All other things a Harris administration would bring. [00:10:54] So that is apocalyptic in many ways, because it's a potential for the wrath of God on our country, on the most powerful country. But now, going beyond, like the world I want to mention in the church, this really is a situation where we can think more apocalyptically. I think because we have a situation in church where heresy is running rampant. [00:11:20] I mean, I'm not even talking about. I'm not talking only about Rome. I'm talking about at the parish level, at the diocesan level, there's just heresy and apostasy are more common than orthodoxy and faithfulness. [00:11:35] Heresy and apostasy are more common than orthodoxy and faithfulness. The fact is, people are leaving in droves, and those who are staying often believe things that are heretical. And people in charge are saying things, are teaching things that are heretical. [00:11:52] The average parish does not preach or teach Catholicism. [00:11:58] I think that is, you could argue that what I just said about the church is one of the causes of everything I said about the world. Because if you look historically, theologically, the fact is, is that the saints, theologians, the old testament prophets, they all taught that a turning away from goddess removes God's protection from you. [00:12:28] And so perhaps it's true that because the church is at such a low point now, as far as heresy, apostasy, things of that nature, faithlessness, perhaps that's the reason why we're having an increase in all these different things. I know for the modern mind, that sounds crazy. It's like when I said that I thought Pachamama was one of the. Was a cause of COVID being released on the world. [00:12:54] Well, it's possible that all the apostasy heresy going on in the church right now, that that could be God lifting his protection from us because he does this, not because he's like some petulant father who's like, you're not doing what I want, so I'm going to punish you. No, it's. It's. It's educational. And I'm going to talk about that in a minute, how it's educational. [00:13:17] So all this being said, we also have to take this in the context of the incredible increase in Marian apparitions over the past 100, 150 years. And a common theme among these apparitions has been the idea of an apocalypse, of some type of apocalyptical situation into the world or some great chastisement, some awful things happening in the world being. We need to be prepared for it. We see it. Our la Fatima, of course, our lay of Akita and other Marian apparitions. It's not uncommon that the Marian apparitions talk a lot about apocalyptic visions of what's going to happen. Bad things are going to happen in the world. [00:14:07] So I think we have to put this all together as Catholics and say, okay, what time are we living in? We have all these crazy things happening. [00:14:17] We have wars, rumors of wars, diseases, you know, hurricanes, all this stuff going on, heresy, all this stuff going on. Cardinal against Cardinal, Bishop against bishop. As early of Akita said, what's going on? I do think we should read the signs of the times as Catholics. Now, here's something I'm going to say. Spoiler alert. [00:14:37] I don't necessarily think this is the end times, like capital e, capital t, the end times, that is our lord's return is imminent. [00:14:46] I'm not saying that's not possible because obviously it could happen at any time. [00:14:51] But I don't think that is. I don't think that's the real thing. We should be asking ourselves is, oh, is this the end times or not? Because ultimately it doesn't matter for what we do whether or not it's the end times or not. Because what I would say is that instead what we are living in is a time of increased evil. [00:15:16] We see this throughout history, in times and places. We see this. For example, think about when, if you were living in northern Africa shortly before the expansion of Islam, you're a Christian living there. You've been living hundreds of years now. There's been Christians living there, good Catholics, or you're living in the Middle east at the same time and all of a sudden Islam just swarms in and takes over. [00:15:44] That would seem like the end times to you, wouldn't it? That would seem like apocalyptic times. [00:15:49] Or imagine you're in the Soviet Union, you're a faithful Christian, and sorry, before the year you're in Russia, 1917, and all of a sudden your monarchy is overthrown, installed is an evil communist government, and the persecution of Christians just escalates to levels unseen since the early church, probably even greater than the early church, to be honest. [00:16:19] That would seem like the end times to you, wouldn't it? So I do believe it's not a crazy thing. It's not like going on a limb to say, I think we live in a time of increased evil, and it might feel like the end times, like it did to those previous christians. It might be the end times, but ultimately it might be the end of the world as we know it, which is kind of what matters to us, right? I mean, St. Augustine writes about this because he was living at the end of Rome when the barbarians were about to take over Rome. [00:16:53] And this was a big deal to the christians in because, remember, Rome had been there forever. In their mind, the roman empire was just a reality that could never change. And a christian roman empire was something that was now assumed. [00:17:11] And all of a sudden Augustine sees, uh oh, we're about to be taken over, we're about to be destroyed. It's the end of the world as they knew it. And so St. Augustine writes about this same thing is true for us. I do believe we are seeing the end of the world as we know it. Now, whether or not this is going to, I mean, it's been happening gradually for a while is, I feel like it's accelerating. It's going to happen in definitively. My lifetime, my kids, my grandkids, I don't, I can't say that because sometimes these things go slower, faster, depending on various factors, but it is the beginnings of the end at the very least, or the middle of the end of the world as we know it. [00:17:50] And so a time of increased evil naturally will end up that we're going to have also a time of increased anxiety. Obviously, that's why it seemed Augustine was writing about it, because christians are anxious. And I think it's okay to admit that, that we're anxious about the way the world is going. We see that it's going in a direction that is not good. We see friends and family falling into apostasy, sinning, you know, into sin, heresy, all these things embracing just crazy things. I mean, just like, I don't know about you, but, like, I'm tired of seeing Facebook posts where somebody is congratulating somebody because they married somebody of the same sex from friends of mine, from high school and things like that, or seeing like, you know, just the degeneracy that's accepted among Catholics. You know, catholic school dances that have people, you know, girls dressed in outfits that would have been considered the outfit of a prostitute not that long ago. [00:18:53] All these things that are just happening, it's going to cause anxiety. So the question is, how do we respond? [00:19:00] I think ultimately there's like three different ways you can respond to this. [00:19:06] First way is the head in the sand. [00:19:09] You numb yourself is probably a better way to put it. You entertain yourself to death. Because the fact is, our culture, our world, has the ability right now, we can put our head in the sand kind of spiritually, so to speak, by simply putting, by simply entertaining ourselves that what we'll do is we'll just watch television, scroll through our social media feeds, whatever the case may be, watch sports all the time, and we just ignore what's going on around us because we keep ourselves numb to it. [00:19:46] That is one way to do it. What that leads to, though, is, of course, laxity and faithlessness. We fall away because the fact is, that is what leads to a lot of the people who fall away from the church. There's this myth that people fall away from the church because they reject some teaching, and all of a sudden they say, no, I cannot be part of a church in which women are not priests or something like that. Or when gays cannot get married, that'll be the reason they might give in later years. But the fact is, the reason most people in the survey show us leave is they just simply stop going. Over time, it just becomes unimportant to them. Why? Because their brains are. Their minds are completely filled with all the entertainment, the bread and circuses of our world. They find no need. They don't think deeply. They don't see a need for God. So therefore they just kind of stop going to church. So that's one possible way you can react. Just simply. It's too much. I'm just going to kind of tunnel in, put my head in the sand, and entertain myself to death. [00:20:48] A second possibility is that we have increased anxiety, and we let that anxiety control us, that we're constantly consumed with what's going on in the world. This is the real problem of today with social media and everything is that, and all the media we have is we do know everything is going on. Like, I know about Milton hitting Florida, I know about Helene, I know about what's going in the Middle East, I know about what's going Ukraine, I know about the person who was murdered on the other side of town. All this type of stuff, it's just too much. Sometimes. It's not healthy for us to know everything going on. But what happens is when we start diving into this with our increased anxiety, is we start doom scrolling and looking even more and more. We're obsessed with the news, we're obsessed with following everything that's going on. [00:21:36] And that's even more. [00:21:38] That kind of feeds a worse attitude, an anxious attitude, because what happens then is like, I think what happens then is we lose our peace. We lose our idea that God is in control. Even now, through all this, God is in control. But if we let our anxiety take control of us, we forget that. We forget that. And what we start to do and also say is we have to do these things to fix things. We have to do this, we have to do that. [00:22:06] But ultimately, most of the problems in the world we can't fix. You know what problems you can fix your own. Those are the problems you can fix. [00:22:14] How are you not being a good father or a good mother? How are you not being a good worker, student or spouse or the case may be that's what you can fix. You can't fix what's going on in the middle east. You can't fix what's, you know, in Florida. You can help. Hopefully maybe you can find a way to help people. I'm not saying you don't try to do that. We can't fix everything, but that increased anxiety will lead to just going off on our own and forgetting about God's role in all this. [00:22:43] The final way I think we can respond, and this is obviously the right way, is through deeper prayer, deeper mortification, deeper penance, deeper sacrifice. That's really the way. [00:22:56] Now. This is not a call for quietism, where we just hold ourselves up in the corner, pray all day, and we don't ever try to help anybody. But the reality is the apostolate. I've been rereading divine intimacy recently, and he's been talking about this a lot, the apostolate. If you have an apostle where you like, you know, like I do in a sense. You know, where I have people who I talk to about the faith and things like that. And you might have that in some way. You might work for a pro life organization, something like that. [00:23:28] I'd say about 99, 5% of what you do should be prayer and sacrifice, and about five to 10% is actual works. That I think is the proper balance. [00:23:38] And so when we see what's going on in the world, we really do need to pray. I put about, I put up on x, something about praying for the people of Florida, about Milton coming, and somebody mocked me, saying, oh, yeah, thoughts and prayers. Now I've done my little ritual phrase. Now I don't have to do anything. That, of course, is a faithless way of looking at things. A godless way of looking things. The fact is prayer is the most important thing you can do. And if you don't pray, whatever you do is worthless. [00:24:07] So, yes, we should be falling deeper into prayer. As our anxiety seems to increase in us, that should be more. We pray more. If you pray an hour a day now and you find yourself anxious about today, pray an hour and a half. Pray 2 hours. I mean, obviously our state in life is going to determine how much we can pray. We're not contemplative monks or nuns, especially maybe a stay at home mom who's got young ones, maybe three or four under the age of six at home. It's gonna be hard. Husbands help, help her out. But the fact is we should be praying a lot more than we are. That's the response. When we see what's going, we see a deeper increase in evil, then we need to have a deeper increase in prayer. That is the proper response we're supposed to have. And we should not obsess about the news. [00:24:54] In fact, if it's become an unhealthy obsession for you to look at the news. Excuse me, stop watching the news. Stop listening to it. [00:25:03] It's not going to be a matter of salvation that you know exactly what's going on all over the world. What matters is your own soul and the souls of those around you. [00:25:12] I also say, when I talk about deeper prayer, I do think there is one prayer in particular I would urge, and only because our lady seems to be urging it throughout the apparitions. Another thing I talked about, a theme of Marian apparitions over the past century or century and a half, and that is apocalyptic visions. What's the other theme? Pray the rosary. Pray the rosary daily. That's something Mary has insisted over and over again. Pray the rosary daily. I feel like she's trying to tell us, like the rosary in particular in this time and place, is the prayer that our lord wants us to be saying. [00:25:50] I know there's been a little bit of controversy because, you know, my friend Taylor Marshall, he likes talk about. He always likes to say, if you don't pray the rosary, you're not on the team. And somebody like, oh, it's terrible to say that. You're making, you know, you're making it binding. You're making it where you make it. It's immoral if you don't pray the rosary. You're not really catholic, you're not praying the rosary. I think they don't understand what he's saying. What he's simply saying is our lady herself has called for the praying of the rosary. And so Catholics really should take this up. I get that it's a roman, a latin catholic devotion, and Eastern Catholics might have their own specific devotions to our lady, and I encourage those. [00:26:29] But let's be honest, most people we're talking to are Roman Catholics or members of the ordinary or something like that, where the rosary is the devotion par excellence in the church today. And I think our lady is trying to tell us, pray the rosary daily. So I would just urge people, pray the rosary daily for peace in the world, for conversion of sinners, for, as the prayer says, at the end of low mass, for the liberty and exaltation of our Holy Mother of the church. We need to pray for, specifically for the people you are responsible for the people, you know, friends and family who have fallen away, wherever the case may be. Pray, pray the rosary. [00:27:08] And finally, one thing I want to talk about is I'm talking about the apocalypse. [00:27:12] And by apocalypse, most people think we mean the end of the world, some dramatic, cataclysmic end of the world. And that is what it means in common language. [00:27:24] But the word apocalypse actually means revealing, a revealing or a disclosure. In fact, the last book of the Bible, most people call it revelations. In other words, the apocalypse and revelation. Apocalypse basically mean the same thing. [00:27:40] Apocalypse is a disclosure, a revelation. [00:27:45] And I think this increased time of evil right now, that's exactly what it is, because what it's doing is it's exposing all of us. It's exposing us. Are we faithful? We all know people who have fallen away because of, for example, the scandals in the church. [00:28:04] Some very well known people have done so well. This is an exposure, a time of revelation. Are you faithful or are you not? Are you faithful just because times are good, because you like the pope, because you like your bishop, because whatever the case may be, are you faithful because things are going well for your life? Are you faithful because, you know, you live in a great country with lots of freedom and things going well? [00:28:28] Or are you faithful simply because God is the Lord and you're going to be faithful to him no matter what? That's what really matters. I mean, that's the revelation that's happening. And I think we're seeing this greatly. I think the fact is that I'm going to upset people. This next part I know. [00:28:48] I think the fact that there's, we're seeing people like Archbishop Vigano reject the hierarchy of the church just wholeheartedly and say it's not Catholic and he's just the most prominent member I see this all the time where people just say, well, like I saw somebody recently talk about how we don't have to be obedient because there was a time when holiness and authority were connected. Now they're not, and that's just simply not true. Authority and holiness have never been connected in the church. Frankly, yeah, there have been holy bishops, holy popes, but there's been a lot of terrible people too, who have been bishops and popes. [00:29:22] And so they still had authority. And so those who have rejected the authority of the church, I think it's a time of revelation for them at disclosure. Because here's the thing. It's a narrow road, our lord says, that leads to salvation. [00:29:36] But note in a road, you can fall off on either side. You can fall off because you just decide the ways of this world are the ways you're going to accept. You're just going to go along with the world. [00:29:49] Or you could fall off because you decide you are more Catholic than the church is, then our bishops are, then the pope is. So therefore you're going to reject them and leave the body of Christ. [00:30:00] Either way, it's a falling away. Either way it's a revelation, a disclosure of what matters to you. [00:30:09] Is it our Lord and being faithful to him and being a member of his church? Or is it things, I want things to go my way, whether my way means I contracept, fornicate, whatever, or my way means I'm going to go my own way, my own church, whatever the case may be, either way, it's you're picking your way, not the Lord's way. We have to cling to the church. We have to cling to the sacraments. [00:30:35] Our lives are being revealed. Our choices are being revealed for all to see right now. And I think this is, we can't hide in complacency. That's the thing about certain times where things aren't an increased evil. [00:30:46] It's easy to kind of just be like, yeah, I'm a Catholic, I'll keep going to mass and things like that because everybody else is. That might have been the case in like the 1930s or 1920s in America. It's not the case anymore. You make a choice, I'm going to remain in the catholic church. I'm going to be Catholic. We don't go off on our own. We stay in the church. [00:31:05] So I would say let this apocalyptic time, I think we can call an apocalyptic time, even if it's not the end times. [00:31:13] I think this apocalyptic time is a time for revealing a time of disclosure. And let it be a time for your own revealing to tell yourself, okay, where am I? Where do I stand? [00:31:27] Where do I stand with the Lord? Am I faithful to Christ and his church even when things are going poorly? Or am I only in it for myself because it benefits me? [00:31:38] I think that's. Those are questions we have to ask. [00:31:41] Okay, let me take a couple comments. I appreciate, by the way, people who join the live chat and they are making comments, questions. Dave says, I'm actually glad that the world as we know it will change. That's actually comforting. It's so evil right now. That's a good point, Dave. But remember, it could change to be even worse. [00:31:58] I mean, the fact is we still, for example, in America, we still have a lot of freedoms. I can go to mass when I feel like it. [00:32:05] You know, I have a mass available to me. I have a bunch of parishes in the area. I have a traditional mass available to me. All these things could go away. We think about like the Soviet Union, where it all went away from people. So I do think, though, the world does need to change. Think days. Right. But let's just be careful what we wish for, because it might change in a way we don't like. [00:32:25] I don't. What's this username? Sozonpv. I don't know. We'll stick with that. Speaking of the apocalypse, what exactly does it mean that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church? That's a great question. I think this is something people don't always understand. What does it mean that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church? Ultimately, fundamentally, what it means, I would argue, is that the Catholic Church will remain in existence and will still offer the means of holiness, primarily through the sacraments, until our lord comes back. [00:32:57] So again, the Catholic Church will remain in existence. [00:33:02] It will still offer the means of holiness, particularly through the sacraments, until our lord comes back again. That's what I believe it means. So if you want to be saved, the means of salvation will always be available to us. And the means of salvation is always the Catholic Church. So the Catholic Church will always be available to us. Now, more importantly, what does it not mean? It does not mean that every local church will stay intact. I mean, look at England in the 16th century. The Catholic Church was basically wiped out. [00:33:32] I wouldn't blame an English Catholic for thinking the gates of hell had prevailed. [00:33:36] But our Lord doesn't promise that the Catholic Church will always exist everywhere it's ever existed. So, for example, the Catholic Church could cease to exist in America one day. There could be, like, no Catholics in this country. [00:33:50] And that's what happened in the Middle east and essentially happened in like, Arabia, Africa. When Islam took over, Catholicism was basically wiped out. There might have been here and there a few pockets, but essentially it was wiped out. It's not the gates of hell prevailing against the Catholic Church, but it is pockets of the Catholic Church failing. [00:34:10] And so I would say that there's no guarantees that the Catholic Church will exist as it does today in the sense of a worldwide, global institution that's basically available to most people around the world, except for maybe a few muslim countries, China, things like that. It could be reduced greatly. I mean, Cardinal Ratzinger, Father Ratzinger, then, you know, obviously Pope Benedict later, he made the famous prediction in the early seventies, he sees a church that's going to become much smaller, more intense. That could very well happen. And I don't like it when Catholics act like that will be a good thing because there will be only faithful people left. Because I'm. No, I don't guarantee I'll be one of those faithful people because the fact is, if it becomes a lot smaller, there's reasons people left. We've seen it already happening. Don't be so presumptuous that you think it wouldn't happen to you. That's why you have to pray for persistence and for staying in the church. We've seen it happen. Good people, people who are sincere and been seem sincere. They've now left or they've gone astray so far, you wonder if they're still in the church. [00:35:16] So I would say that the catholic church will always be available to the world. The means of salvation through the catholic church will always be available to the world. Does not mean that it will exist as a global, worldwide institution or that won't be difficult to practice the faith. Things like that around the world, we just don't know about that. So. Okay, so obviously, this was somewhat of a downer podcast for my return after a couple weeks off, but I do think it's something that I think we're all thinking about. Like, things are just getting ratcheted up more and more. And so, again, I'd urge people go deeper into prayer, particularly the rosary. Let this be a time of revealing that you are faithful, not a time of revealing that you are only in it for your own benefit. Okay, that's it for now. Until next time, everybody. God, love.