Are We in a Religious War?

[00:00:16] Okay, so I want to talk again about the war in Iran. It's what most people are talking about right now, but it's gonna be a little bit different than it was last week. The first thing I do want to say before I get started is I was, as many of you know, I was in Dallas, Texas, last weekend to speak at the Blessed Carl Symposium. I spoke about Blessed Carl as an apostle of peace. Actually, my talk will be posted on our Crisis magazine's website tomorrow. And so if you weren't able to make it, you can at least read my talk. And hopefully it's inspiring to you and helps you desire peace more as Blessed Carl did you. So today I just want to make something clear. I'm not talking about the morality of the war in Iran. I did that last week. If you want to hear my arguments why I think it's an unjust war, listen to last week's podcast. I do want to say a little pet peeve of mine. I have noticed that a number of Catholic commentators are basically saying, well, we don't know if it's just war. [00:01:16] It may be. We don't know. A lot of different factors. [00:01:20] I even saw one say, we can't even know necessarily. [00:01:24] And honestly, I just don't have respect for that position. I have a higher respect for people who just say, yes, I support it. I think it's a moral and just war. I disagree with them, but I think I could have a conversation with them where we could hash it out where we disagree. [00:01:39] But I honestly feel like some Catholic commentators are punting simply because they don't want to go too hard against Trump because they feel it might harm their business, their. Their base. I mean, I know that Crisis magazine, we have lost a few subscribers because of coming out and saying that the we believe, or I believe that the Iran war is unjust. But, I mean, come on, have a position. I mean, it's not like just war theory is something that's esoteric that you can't. That nobody can ever figure out. There might be some complicated issues in some conflicts in some cases. But in general, come on, guys, take a stand. Either support it and say it's just or say no, it's not just. Okay. I just wanted to get that off of my chest because it kind of bugged me seeing how many Catholic commenters, some of them I really respect, who were basically punting on this. I mean, if you're going to be a Catholic commentator, you can't punt on literally one of the most important issues of our day take a stand one way or the other. If you're not sure, well, research it some more and listen to different people's viewpoints and then come to a conclusion. [00:02:44] Okay, so I want to talk about today is the religious aspects of this war. There's no question in my mind that there's religious aspects. Obviously, we have Israel is one nation involved, it's Jewish. Iran is another nation involved, it's Muslim. And America is the third nation involved, which is at least ostensibly, sorry, Christian, at least in name, we're Christian. And in fact, many of the people who are making the decisions or advising President Trump to make the decisions about this war are definitely have religious reasons behind Christian reasons that they would say behind it. So does that make it a religious war? [00:03:23] I mean, is this mean? Like, I've even seen some people talk about this being a crusade, that this is just a new crusade in a positive way, saying it's a new crusade against the Muslim hordes represented by Iran. [00:03:37] So the question is, is this a religious war and what are the religious aspects to it? [00:03:42] You won't get this type of analysis on Fox News, that's for sure, or on CNN or msc, NBC or wherever they're called these days, because they're not. Everything is secular to them. And if it's religious, it's just bad. And I want to talk about the real religious issues in this war and how they're kind of driving the war and the people behind it. [00:04:04] Okay? So I first just want to give the perspective of each of the three countries as far as the religious aspects of it. [00:04:11] So first, from America's perspective, I mean, we have to be honest that President Trump is not really a practicing Christian. I mean, he's got an odd. We don't really know what he is, but he's never claimed to be. In fact, he's claimed not to be a practicing Christian. We know he's not interested in Christian theology. [00:04:33] He's not, like, looking at the Bible to try to figure out what the heck, you know, what does this mean from a scriptural standpoint or anything like that. [00:04:43] When Trump acts, he acts from two interests. One is self interest and one is national interest as he perceives it. He is not acting in any way, shape or form saying, okay, I'm trying to fulfill some biblical mandate. I just don't believe that's true of Trump. [00:04:58] That being said, Trump has surrounded himself by many people who are very serious about their faith, both Catholics and evangelical Protestants. The Catholics, the most prominent Catholics would be J.D. vance and Marco Rubio and now the evangelicals would be people like Mike Huckabee, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War. Mike Huckabee is the ambassador to Israel. And he's got advisors like that Paula White lady who's like the faith advisor or something for the White House. She's a prosperity gospel preacher. [00:05:33] And so they are these people like Rubio, Vance. [00:05:37] I cannot say Hegseth without messing it up. I always want to say Hegswith, Hegseth and Huckabee and all these guys, they take their faith seriously. And I do think it impacts, particularly in the Protestant perspective, it impacts how they view this war. Like, if you note, Rubio and Vance don't really put this war in religious terms. Now, Rubio did say something recently about that Iran's run by a bunch of religious nut jobs or something like that, but he doesn't see it as a religious war. Neither does Vance. However, I do think it's possible Hegseth and Huckabee and others, Lindsey Graham, some others, they do see it in religious terms. And that's driving them, what they're doing, particularly those who are Christian Zionists, that the religious aspects are significant. And I want to get into that, those details here in a minute, but that's America's perspective. So it is. Religion is impacting it, even though it might not be what's driving Trump to make his own personal decisions in this war. There's no question that his advisors, many of them, are driven by religious, for religious reasons and what they're doing. [00:06:50] Okay, so Israel's perspective, is it driven by religious motivations? [00:06:57] I honestly think not really. [00:07:00] I personally think the Israeli government is sec. Is mostly secular, and they see Judaism more as a race and a people than as a religion. I mean, obviously, I'm not saying they don't believe in the religion on some level, but I don't think like Netanyahu is doing what he's doing, thinking he's fulfilling biblical mandates or anything like that. He might talk like that at times, just like American politicians will do that for their own advantage. But I think it's more, much more a matter of we need to protect Israel, we need to protect what we're doing, you know, protect our nation and potentially expand our borders. And so they are fighting for Judaism and they're fighting for Israel's expansion. [00:07:41] But I don't, I'm, I don't, I don't think it's, it's a matter of advancing the faith, because, remember, Judaism isn't a faith that Tries to proselytize, tries to expand by conversions. [00:07:54] And so I don't think that's really the driving force behind Israel's fighting here is not because of like a real deep religious impact. Now, that being said, there are people, there are Jews in Israel who are making an effort to rebuild the Third Temple. We'll talk about that in a little bit, how important that is for some people. [00:08:13] So I'm not saying nobody in Israel has religious reasons to support the war. What I am saying though is I don't think it's the primary driving force behind Israel engaging in this war and really pushing for it. The ones who really pushed us into it. I don't think it's for religious reasons. I think it's more for secular, political type reasons. [00:08:33] And then finally, from Iran's perspective, it's clearly a religious war. They clearly seen religious terms because in Islam there is no separation of church and state. [00:08:44] This idea that the church and the state are two separate entities and they don't really cross, that doesn't exist in Islam. [00:08:52] And so you see this with the fact that the Ayatollah is supreme leader both religiously and politically. [00:09:00] And so for them, every war in a certain sense is a holy war because they're trying to advance Islam, they're trying to advance their religion. And so I think to them, they definitely would see this as a religious war. [00:09:16] And if you look at the rhetoric that it's very clear. [00:09:20] I also think they might see this as another crusade in the negative light, as I said, some people today might think of in positive light, Catholics on this, on our side, I could see them seeing this as another crusade. Here are the invading Christian armies of the west trying to destroy us or whatever. However they would spin it, I think we'd have a very different view what the Crusades were. But the point is, what do they think? Not what do we think they should think or anything like that. [00:09:50] So I think Iran, it's clearly a religious war to them. I don't think there's any, anything else other than a religious war. There's no such thing as a political war for them. [00:09:59] So that being said, it's like you can tell that the three sides, religion is definitely part of it on all three combatants in this, in this fight, Israel, America and Iran, but on different degrees, different levels. So let's talk a little bit though, about the religious aspects of this war and ultimately why, what Catholics, how Catholics should view this from a religious aspect? Because there's a lot of views out here that Are frankly a little bit kooky, a little bit crazy. And I want to kind of detail some of those and explain why I think they're, they're kooky. [00:10:37] So first, some of the religious aspects of the war. Well, first and foremost, day one, we killed the Ayatollah. [00:10:45] By we, I mean the American government. [00:10:47] He is a high level religious figure. He's not the Pope. People might, Catholics might kind of think of him like the Pope. He's not the Pope, like equivalent of a Pope, but he's a high ranking religious official. Let's say it'd be like killing off a cardinal purposely or something like that. He's a high ranking. He's also a high ranking political figure as well. And they did it during Ramadan. [00:11:09] So he was killed during Ramadan, the holiest time of the year for Muslims. [00:11:16] We killed off one of the highest religious figures in their religion. Now, to be clear, Muslim has a big divide between the Shia and the Sunni, and the Shia are much smaller. Maybe 10, 15 of all Muslims worldwide are Shia Muslims. And he was a religious figure in the Shia Muslims. So. [00:11:35] But at the same time, I. [00:11:38] And definitely they haven't always got along. They're not like, you know, Shi' an, Sunnis are not, don't always get along. Yet at the same time, I'm willing to bet there are a lot of Sunni Muslims who were not enthusiastic about this, about America and Israel killing the Ayatollah during Ramadan. [00:11:58] Ramadan. I, I don't think that was the. [00:12:01] I don't think that was a huge win in their eyes. [00:12:07] I think Americans don't appreciate how important this is because we don't have religious figures that we respect. Really. We don't have religious figures that are political figures. I mean, it would be. I'm not saying that the Ayatollah is the same as a Pope, but I do think it would probably, I think about a little bit more. [00:12:26] It probably has the impact on them as somebody killing the Pope would have on us if, like there was a country decided to bomb the back and kill the Pope. Think about what you would think as a Catholic about that. I don't care what you think of the current Pope. You would be ticked off and you would want to declare war and total war against whoever did that. [00:12:48] And so we need to appreciate how big a deal that was that we just went in that first day and we killed the Ayatollah. I realized he was also a political leader and he was the head of the state that, that we were fight that, you know, we declared war against. Why technically we didn't declare war, but you know what I mean. [00:13:05] But I do think we need to recognize the impact, the religious impact of that action. [00:13:10] I fear that that action has created many, many future Muslim terrorists. [00:13:19] I fear it's created many future Muslim terrorists. After all, if you look at Osama bin Laden and what he said, why he did, what he did, why 911 happened and all his, his, his holy war, his jihad was because he was upset at America. The Iraq war, the first Iraq war, and the fact that we came there and we, and we're. And we're in Saudi Arabia, we're all throughout the region. [00:13:44] That was his stated reason why he, you know, masterminded 9 11. [00:13:52] And so there was blowback, as Ron Paul would say to it. And I think there's going to be incredible blowback to this. Now, I'm not saying you never do anything because there might be blowback. Sometimes you have to do the right thing. Even though, you know, there might be blowback. I'm not. Again, this podcast episode is not about the morality, whether or not to do it. I'm just talking about what are the consequences, what are the religious consequences? [00:14:14] I think the fact that we killed off the Ayatollah on day one and his family and just during Ramadan, I think it has a big impact, religiously speaking, to a lot of Muslims. And so I fear that we've created a lot of new Muslim terrorists by doing that. [00:14:34] So that's one religious aspect. Now, I think, though, on our side at least, the main driver, religiously speaking for this war, in my opinion, is Christian Zionism. It is Christian Zionism. I think it's the main driver. Now, again, I don't think Donald Trump's a Christian Zionist because I don't think he's Christian. And by the way, I'm not saying this is an insult to him or anything like that. I'm just simply saying based upon what he himself has said and done in the past, I don't think he considers himself some, you know, evangelical Christian, anything like that. [00:15:08] So I'm not saying he is a Christian Zionist. However, people around him are Christian Zionists, and some are just Zion are Jewish Zionists. He's some of his biggest supporters and donors are Jewish Zionists who are allied with Christian Zionists in many way. [00:15:25] And so some of that is just simply, we're in this war to defend the nation of Israel for political reasons, not even religious reasons. So if you're a Zionist, you're pro the modern state of Israel. That's kind of by definition what a Zionist is. [00:15:40] And if you're pro the state of Israel and you consider Iran the biggest threat to Israel, then you're going to be supportive of any action that could weaken Iran and strengthen Israel. But I think it goes beyond that. That's like a political aspect of it, because Zionism, ultimately the modern Zionism, is a political movement, but it obviously has lots of religious undertones to it. [00:16:01] And here's some of them. For example, the idea of the Christian Zionist idea, I'm going to talk about the Christian Zionist right now. Not, not the, the Jewish Zionist. I'm talking about Christian Zionists like Mike Huckabee and people like that, who Ted Cruz people influenced Donald Trump, seemed to influence him greatly in his decision making. [00:16:22] I mean, one, one justification Christian Zionists have is they believe in the book of Genesis that God promised a land to the Jewish people. And that applies today to the modern state of Israel. And so the land that God gave to Abraham and to the chosen people, that is exactly the land that the modern nation of Israel deserves and is theirs by divine right. And so they can do whatever they need to do to, to, to take it over. I mean, Mike Huckabee basically said that in his interview with Tucker Carlson a couple weeks ago. [00:16:56] And so that's, that's definitely part of the theological justification for the state of Israel today and for expanding and fighting its neighbors. Because right now, the modern state of Israel does not cover all of the land that God promised to the, to Abraham and his descendants and to the chosen people. [00:17:17] And so this is also true of the war in Gaza, you know, Palestine and everything that goes with that. I think even south Lebanon, I think it would be included. I'm a little bit, I'm afraid to say that I might be wrong with that. But they are attacking South Lebanon. I know they're doing it supposedly to go after Hezbollah. But the point is, is like that's part of the justification, the theological, religious justification for this. But the big, the big driving force of Christian Zionism in its drive to promote Israel and defend the monastery of Israel and to attack Iran, it mostly revolves around the temple. [00:17:58] This is the theological reasoning behind all these things that are happening is really a huge drive to rebuild the temple, the third Temple. So quick history lesson. You probably know this, but just in case you don't, Solomon obviously built the first temple. [00:18:21] It was destroyed by the Babylonians. [00:18:24] And then King Herod under the Roman occupation, he built a second temple. And the second temple was not completed until after that. It was actually in existence. That's the second temple is what Jesus preached in, where Jesus went when he lived. It actually wasn't fully finished until after Jesus had died and rose again. I think it was like 80, 40 or 45, something like that. But it had been building for decades because that's how long it took back then. [00:18:51] The second temple, of course, was destroyed in 70 A.D. that's one of the most momentous occasions in both Christian and Jewish history is the destruction of the temple. [00:19:01] And so that, that. So the, the question is, will there be a third temple that being built? Ironically, the. The apostate Emperor Julian in the 4th century actually did start the rebuilding of the third temple. My guest Joshua Charles months ago on the podcast was talking about that. [00:19:21] But the theology of the Christian Zionist is that a third temple needs to be rebuilt and they support the rebuilding of a third Temple. And that might seem a little strange. Why would a Christian want to rebuild a temple that Christ replaced with his life? [00:19:41] It does seem a bit odd, right? I mean if you don't know a whole bunch about this, on the surface it does seem a bit odd. And when you look more deeply, it's even more odd. [00:19:51] Basically the idea is through their interpretation of scripture, this is almost all Protestants. Any Catholic, Zionist. I really don't. I'm sorry, you really shouldn't be. But this is mostly evangelical Protestants. Their interpretation of the sacred scripture is that the third temple must be rebuilt in order for the second coming of Christ to happen. They believe there's a certain set things that happen in a certain order. [00:20:19] One of them would be the re establishment of the state of Israel, which happened in 1948. Another would be the Jews taking control of Jerusalem, which happened in 1968. I believe if I get the exact dates wrong, I apologize. [00:20:31] But another step would be the rebuilding of the temple. They believe the temple has to exist in order for Christ to come back. And here's the kind of another. And I'll explain why here in a second. [00:20:42] But here's something crazy about that. [00:20:45] They want to like basically make that happen. Like, I don't get that, to be honest. Like, okay, let's say I believe that the temple must be rebuilt for Christ to come back. I would just be like, well, it'll get built when it gets built in God's time. When the Jews decide and they're able to build it, that'll happen. [00:21:03] I wouldn't like take steps. Like, I don't see why you would take Steps to make the second coming of Christ happen sooner. Like do you really think God is going to be like, oh boy, I was going to wait until the year 3000 come back, but boy, those guys really move quick. [00:21:16] I gotta come back in 2026 instead because they got that temple built liquidy split. [00:21:21] And of course, you know, is it like, is it in the theology, is it like okay, the, the temples rebuilt and the next day Christ come back? What if it's like a thousand years that the temple's rebuilt day comes back? I mean, is there a time frame here? [00:21:35] It just doesn't make any sense logically, to be honest. But let me look at. I'm not going to do a complete refutation of, you know, this Zionist reading of the Bible. But I want to give a flavor to Catholics who don't really know it very well because you shouldn't know it because it's not part of our faith. But you might be wondering why is it that they talk like this? What is their basis for it? And they take it from a certain passage. The Bible as Protestants they tend to cherry pick, they tend to take verses out of context. They have no magisterial authority to tell them they're wrong. It's only if their pastor says it's good. And if their pastor doesn't say good, they'll find another pastor. They'll become a pastor. [00:22:15] So a couple of the verses I have here, my new Ignatius Catholic study Bible, Old New Testament personal size, so it's a little bit smaller. It's still a big book because it has lots of good stuff in it. But I just got this recently, that's why I'm kind of showing it off. But anyway, and I recommend you get, you get St. Paul center or Ignatius. [00:22:33] So three verses I'm just going to talk about briefly to give you a flavor of their, of their theology. The first is Matthew 24:15. [00:22:42] And so it says here. So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand. [00:22:52] Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house. And it goes on. [00:22:59] So the key verse here is the desolating sacrilege and standing in the holy place or the abomination of desolation is another translation. [00:23:09] This is really considered kind of the anchor text of this idea of a temple because you have the holy place. So the interpretation would be that the holy place can only Refer to the physical Jewish temple in Jerusalem. And since the temple was destroyed in 70 AD then it has to be referring to a future one. So this has to, there has to be another temple before this happens. Their assumption is that Jesus is talking about the end of the world, the second coming here. However, that's not necessarily the proper interpretation. In fact, I would argue it's not. I just want to read to you actually some of the Ignatius commentary on this because it's very good to get us grounded in what this is really talking about. It's not talking about the end of the world as much as it's talking about the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. because he's talking about people fleeing, Christians fleeing because that's exactly what they did. You see these reports? No Christians died when Jerusalem was overtaken in 70 AD and the temple destroyed because they'd all fled because of Jesus's warnings. [00:24:07] It says here in the commentary, it says Jesus's Olivet discourse in Matthew 24:25 is difficult to interpret. He speaks extensively about cosmic catastrophes, heavenly signs and the future judgment of God. [00:24:24] This has led some to think that Jesus is predicting the second coming, the end of the visible world. This interpretation appears to take Jesus words seriously and at their face value. Nevertheless, it leads to a troublesome scenario. [00:24:37] Jesus expected these world shaking events to occur soon after his ascension. After all he told the disciples, truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. That's Matthew 24:34. So just a little bit later, was Jesus mistaken? Should we feel uncomfortable because the world is still with us almost 2000 years later? [00:24:58] A closer look at Jesus words in the context of ancient Judaism reveals a better interpretation. [00:25:06] Namely, Jesus was predicting the demise of the Jerusalem Temple, the architectural symbol of the Old Covenant. [00:25:15] At a literal historical level, Jesus entire discourse is an extension of his cryptic comment about the temple. There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. [00:25:25] In other words, Jesus, he is talking about the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. The destruction of the temple in 70 AD in a very real way is a completion of the ministry of Jesus. That's going to sound maybe crazy, but it really is true. [00:25:43] And that's what he's talking about. He's talking about the prediction. In fact it says here, it says interpreting Jesus words in this way does not does more adequate justice to the symbolism of his language and the testimony of history. [00:25:57] From this perspective Jesus stands vindicated since his words did to come to pass within the lifetime of his contemporaries. In other words, Jesus says, everything you see around you, the temple will all be destroyed and some of this generation will see it. That's exactly what happened. Because in fact, the destruction of the temple was a necessary step in the establishment of Christianity because it's showing that the old law is no longer in effect. Now we have the new law, we have the new temple, we have the new covenant, we have the new Israel. All these things have now come to, to fruition. [00:26:34] And so this interpretation that we need a physical temple in order for Jesus to come back again just simply doesn't work for Matthew 24. [00:26:42] Now let me look at another verse. This is Second Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. [00:26:51] He says here, let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the Son of perdition, who opposing as opposes and exalts himself against every so called God or logical worship. So he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. [00:27:10] Now the interpretation by the Zionists is that this is in fact his most, most direct references they often use, they argue that Paul is describing a literal, physical throne room scene and the Antichrist sits in God's temple. Then if that's true, then a temple must exist for him to sit in the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist. [00:27:32] But this is not necessarily the interpretation that's needed. In fact, in the Ignatius Catholic Commentary it says, let me find it here. [00:27:47] Oh, I'm, I'm missing it here. Sorry about that. [00:27:50] Oh, here we go. It's when it talks about the, the man sitting in the temple, the man of lostness is. [00:27:56] Some church fathers, such as St. Irenaeus and St. Cyril of Jerusalem, see it as a reference to the Jerusalem temple and so that it will be rebuilt in the end times. However, others like St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim, the Syrians, say a reference to the church, since in Paul's theology, believers make up the true temple of God. [00:28:17] In other words, it's not a guarantee that we're talking about the actual temple here, a physical temple. [00:28:23] I think a stronger interpretation is we're talking about a man of lawlessness who takes some type of authority or power in the church and sits in maybe the Vatican or something like that. I'm not saying Pope Francis, the Antichrist, Pope Leo or anything like that. Don't, don't go there with that. But I am saying that potentially one at the end of Time, something like that. We don't need, in other words a third temple for that to happen. [00:28:48] And in the last verse I just want to look at is Revelation, chapter 11, verses 1 and 2. This is where John's seeing his vision, of course. He says then I was given a measuring rod like a staff and was told rise and measure the temple of God in the altar and those who worship there but do not measure the court outside the temple, leave that out for is given over to the nations and they will trample over the holy city for 42 months. [00:29:11] Now this, the Zionist interpretation is you can't measure what doesn't exist. [00:29:18] It needs to have a physical, it's not, it can't be a metaphor or a spiritual concept to measure it, which means there has to be a physical temple. [00:29:26] The problem is there's a lot of problems with that interpretation. First of all, yes, you can measure something metaphorically or spiritually if you read the book of Revelation. I'm actually doing a study of the book of Revelation right now. [00:29:39] Everything is symbolic almost in that thing. It represents something else. I mean you see things like a sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. Do you really think that means a sword will actually be coming out of the mouth of Jesus or something like that? No, it represents the word of God, the double edged sword and all that. [00:29:56] And so the idea though that it has to be something physical just isn't true. But the other thing is though, a lot of biblical scholars actually argue that Revelation was not written in 90, in the 90s AD like a lot of people think, but was actually written in, before the destruction of the temple. [00:30:14] And here John is referring to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. he's predicting that because he talks about it being destroyed and measuring it. [00:30:23] So it is possible this was written before 70 AD and it's talking about that because Revelation, remember, talks about many different levels of meaning. It talks about the current situation, the churches that John's writing to. It's talking about the end of the world, it's talking about the near future, it's talking about a lot of it's, it can be applied to lots of different times. It's not just the end of the world. [00:30:43] But just like I said, that wasn't a deep dive. But it should show Catholics at least that some idea that the Bible teaches that a third temple needs to be built in order for the Christ to come back is just nonsense, frankly. It's just not, it's not something we should, Catholics should take seriously. And it Kind of shows some of the problems with Protestant sola scriptura. [00:31:05] They don't have a magisterial authority. Say, yo, slow your roll guys, you're getting a little ahead of yourselves over your skis here thinking that all of a sudden this is saying this and this is saying that, and this is the dangers of sola scriptura. It's led these heretical beliefs. These heretical beliefs have led us into a war, have pushed us into a war. [00:31:24] This is a reason, by the way, Catholics should denounce Christian Zionism, not cuddle up to it like I see some Catholics doing, because it has dangerous real world consequences. [00:31:34] A Maronite priest was killed by Israeli tank fire yesterday, or maybe it was Sunday because of heretical beliefs, essentially because Israel would not have been attacking in, in south, South Lebanon if the Christian Zionists, the Evangelical Christian Zionists here in America weren't supporting all this. [00:31:51] Now why this is also important religiously is the Third Temple just can't be rebuilt. It has to be rebuilt in a certain place. You can't just rebuild the Third Temple in, let's say, Oklahoma. [00:32:05] It has to be rebuilt in the location of the original temple. Well, what's there right now? The Dome of the Rock. This is like the third holiest site, I think it is, of Islam. In other words, in order to rebuild a temple, we need to destroy the third holiest site. For Muslims. You don't think that's going to make them more, even more religious? But this is exactly what the evangelical Protestants want to do. Now Catholics, you might think, well, we don't care that much about holy sites for, for Islam. You know, it's not like we have some type of high respect for them. I, I don't disagree with that on one level, but at the same time, our faith doesn't tell us, okay, we just start going destroying them with our armies just because reasons and not expect without understanding the prudence and the consequences that will flow from that. And we especially don't do it because a bunch of heretic Christians tell us to do it because of some false theology that makes no sense. [00:33:06] So that's a real, that's a real aspect of the religious implications of this war and what's kind of driving it. [00:33:15] Another thing I want to mention with the religious aspects of this war is the most forgotten group of them all. And they're always the forgotten group when it comes to this. [00:33:28] Middle Eastern Christians, Middle Eastern Christians, the Christians who have lived there for generation upon generation upon generation who have been there for in some cases Literally over a thousand years. [00:33:42] They are the ones who always lose in this situation. [00:33:46] And so for some reason, even. And I don't. The evangelical Christians in this country, American ones, they don't care. They obviously don't care about that. [00:33:57] They are not. By the way, these Middle Eastern Christians are not Christian Zionists. [00:34:01] Just talk to any of them. They're not Christian Zionists. [00:34:04] And we just saw that. We just heard that a Maronite priest, Catholic priest in South Lebanon was killed by Israeli tank fire. And the story is actually even a little worse. I didn't realize this at first, but I read the story a little more detail. [00:34:22] What happened was an Israeli tank fired upon a building, and then the Maronite priests and some others went to go help the people who had been in the building to rescue them, to care for them, and then the Israeli tank fired again, and that's what killed the priest. I wish I could remember his name, pray for his soul. I personally think he's probably directly in heaven as a martyr, and we could ask for his prayers for peace. But think about how evil that is. And this happens a lot in military operations where you do, like a double tap. You fire, and then when people go to help, you fire again to kill all them as well, which is evil, which is awful. This is what happened to militarist Christians. The. The cardinal, the Catholic cardinal in Iran, he was basically extradited. He left and went to Rome because it was getting so bad there. I think the Vatican probably wanted him to do that. [00:35:21] Remember also what terrible damage the Iraqi wars, the two Iraqi wars did to the Christian community there, almost wiped it out. I mean, these are Christians who have been there for years. They are some of those ancient communities in Christianity. [00:35:37] Yeah, maybe they're not Second Baptist Church of Des Moines, Iowa, but they go. [00:35:43] Which has been around since 1942, so. Oh, my gosh, it's so old. No, these are little communities that have been there since the time of Christ in some cases, and they're getting wiped out. [00:35:55] And those are some real religious aspects. I don't care who you blame, but that's what's happening. And so we need to remember them and never forget them. So the question is, is this a religious war? My answer is yes and no. [00:36:10] No in the sense that secular forces and priorities are driving a lot of this war. Like I said, Trump is very secular. He. He's got political reasons mostly, I think Israel very much. Netanyahu. He has political reasons that aren't really religious that are dominating his reasoning for why he's doing this. So no question in their minds, they would not see it as a religious war, really. [00:36:33] But I would say it's a religious war in a couple ways. One is I kind of think all wars are religious wars. I kind of agree with the Muslims in some way on this in that secularism is a religion. [00:36:43] It's a false religion, but it's a religion. [00:36:46] And so in that sense, it is. But even more specifically, I do think that is a religious war in that we have Christian heretics, some secular Jews and Muslims who are fighting with each other and driving the fighting going on over there, whether we're talking about the Muslims in Iran and all they've done over the years, pushing their religion in violent ways. [00:37:10] The Christian Zionists, the heretic Christians here in America who have been pushing for war with Iran for decades, the Jews who are, who are in Israel, who are fighting or trying to destroy Iran. There are real theological reasons driving this, this war. I mean, I thought it was interesting that Rubio said that Iran is run by religious lunatics. That's how they make their decisions. But I'll be honest, I don't disagree with that necessarily. [00:37:40] But I would say don't call, you know, you're calling the kettle black here. The. The religious lunatics are on our side as well. Mike Huckabee is a religious lunatic. [00:37:50] You know, it sounds like Pete. Pete Hegseth is a religious lunatic. Paula White is a religious lunatic. Ted Cruz seems to be a religious lunatic. When, if you listen to them as a Catholic and understand what they're saying, theologically, it's lunacy. [00:38:06] So to me, it seems like a lot of religious lunatics are involved in this, in this war, which makes it a very bad religious war, but a religious war nonetheless, one that I don't think Catholics should support, at least not for religious reasons. If you want to argue with me as a Catholic, I think for political reasons, for America's best interests, we need to defend Israel. We need to fight Iran. Okay, let's have that discussion. But do not tell me there are religious reasons behind it, in the sense of like, the Bible tells me so or whatever. [00:38:32] Now you're just getting into heretics territory, so let's not go. Catholics should not support that. And the truth is, a true religious war, which is what this is turning into, would be awful because it could last decades. Like I said, we're creating a bunch of Muslim terrorists that could be living in America already. They might have come to America completely fine with, you know, American toleration. They have. No, no, they're not radicalized or anything like that. And actions like this could easily radicalize them. We could be creating terrorists at home. And when that happens, I think it's a win. Not if. And there's some attack. I know what's going to happen. The first thing we're going to do is we're going to blame Islam and how terrible it is. I think Islam's terrible too. [00:39:16] But the fact is if we hadn't attacked Iran like this, it wouldn't have happened. [00:39:24] I also want to caution any Catholics who might want to call this a crusade. You see this with some traditional Catholics. [00:39:30] Wake up. This is not a crusade. This isn't medieval Christendom anymore. The people who are driving this religious reasons are heretics. [00:39:38] That is not somebody you should say is a, you know, somebody you should support as a crusade. There are people who are driving this because they think if they rebuild a Jewish temple that all of a sudden Jesus is going to come back. I mean, that's crazy talk. That's religious lunacy. This is not a crusade. [00:39:55] We're not fighting for our faith. [00:39:58] We're fighting honestly, in my opinion, for the expansion of the American empire and for the expansion of Israel. [00:40:04] We're not fighting for the Catholic faith. So don't. Let's not act like this is some type of crusade. So I also want to know another religious implication. Like I said, we're potentially creating Muslim terrorists. [00:40:18] Why do you think, what is the driving force behind all the Muslim refugees over the past 20 some years that fled into Europe particularly just didn't happen overnight, that all of a sudden it's like, oh, for no reason whatsoever. All of a sudden every. A bunch of Muslims in the Middle east and Africa decide, hey, let's go to Europe. [00:40:38] No, it's often because of what we did in the west in destroying their homelands and destroying their areas where they live. So they came so we could see an increase in the refugees coming to and other not so. And people who aren't actual refugees taking advantage of that to come over and reshaping. They're already reshaping Europe into a non Christian continent and they could do that here as well. So there's lots of religious reasons. So. Okay, I want to jump in the live chat now. I appreciate everybody, obviously who joins us live here on Tuesday afternoons. I really appreciate it. We had a very. I met, I met a. By the way, at the Blessed Carl symposium. One of the things I like most about going these conferences is meeting people who like read Crisis and are part of the crisis audience. I love meeting them in person. I met at least one or two people who are part of the live stream and so I just want to shout out to them. So, okay, Ted Seber says Trump is a health and wealth follower of Norman Vincent Peale's optimist Christianity. I think that's the closest, I think that's probably the most accurate thing you say. I still don't think he necessarily even considered himself a Christian, but his view of Christianity is definitely that type of Christianity. The idea of, you know, you can name it and claim it, you can do things, you know, through optimism and sheer willpower and things like that. [00:41:58] Okay. Achilles6328 says religious war led by irreligious people. That's a good way to put it because no question Trump is an irreligious person. I'm pretty sure Netanyahu is an irreligious person and they're leading this religious war. [00:42:11] Okay, Amanda Farnham, who I did see at the Blessed Carl conference, thank you for what you did to help. And I, I love seeing your husband Daniel as well. Regarding evaluating for just war, what of the unknowns, there's a certain amount of intelligence we may not have been able to fully evaluate this conflict against the just war theory. That is an excellent question, Amanda. I really do think that's a good question. And I've seen a number of people bring this up. [00:42:33] I would say, however, I'm going based upon history. [00:42:38] We were told over and over again in previous conflicts that, oh, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, for example, or we know these things or something like that, and they all ended up being lies. I mean, a large percentage of it being lies. That was not the actual reason we did what we did. I mean, we were originally told the reason went to war with Iraq is somehow that was going to stop Osama bin Laden and nothing to do with him. [00:43:03] And so honestly, when I hear these people say, I mean, I just heard today, I think it was the claim by some government official that Iran had 1200 like missiles pointed at other countries and they were just about to invade and take over the whole Middle East. [00:43:22] I don't know how you say that with straight face because that's a bald faced lie. I can say that with confidence. I don't need to have some inside information. No, that's a lie. First of all, we were told by Trump last summer that he basically annihilated their ability to do stuff like that. Second of all, do you really think 1200 missiles alone, they could take over all the countries around them. Third of all, why is it all of a sudden after they got attacked last year, you know, and, you know, really weakened, that now all of a sudden they're able to take over the whole Middle East? And also, Trump didn't even mention that as a reason when we went to war. [00:43:57] That seems like a big deal. You think? It's like they're literally making things up. [00:44:02] So the truth is, I don't think there's any unknowns here that are significant enough to make us go to war. And honestly, in America, there should be no such thing as an unknown that causes us to go to war. The way our system works is Congress is supposed to be the ones who authorize war, and that's because they represent the people, and that should be something the people know about. [00:44:29] So even if there are some type of unknowns, I don't think. I don't think there should be. But more importantly, I just know the history of the past, you know, maybe 30 years or so, all the lies that we've been told and all the things like, oh, this is true, but it's really not been true. [00:44:45] And so I think we know. [00:44:47] We know everything we need to know to whether or not to evaluate whether or not this is just war or not. That's what I would say. [00:44:54] Okay. Phoenix XP says BB is very similar to Trump in his motivations. They are nationalists seeking glory. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. I would agree with that. 1 Peter 5 oh, yes. Our sister publication will be by. Thanks for this podcast, Eric. Critically important aspect. I appreciate that, Timothy. I assume that's Timothy who's saying that. I appreciate it. And yeah, go 1 Peter 5 for some good analysis about things like this as well. [00:45:16] Okay, I think I'm gonna leave it there. [00:45:18] We'll cut it off there. I just think that obviously, as I always do, please pray. I ask that you please pray and fast for the end of this war for peace. [00:45:27] I just think don't get caught up. Here's my advice to Catholics. Don't get caught up in the religious aspects. If you want to have analysis of the political aspects, that's fine. [00:45:36] But don't get caught up in the nonsense of building a Third Temple or Christian Zionism or anything like that. That's not something, as Catholics, we really should be falling into. That's something that. That's not part of our faith. So, okay, everybody, until next time. God love you. And remember the poor.