DC Diocese Financial Problems, Insurance CEO Assassinated, and Syrian Government Overthrown

[00:00:19] Hello. Today I'm going to talk about the financial difficulties of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. the United Healthcare CEO being assassination assassinated, the overthrow of the Syrian government and a whole bunch of more stuff today on Crisis Point. Hello, I'm Eric Sam, your host and in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, just want to encourage people smash that like button, subscribe to the channel and also let other people know about it. I was going to make a comment about smashing it like the US government likes to smash smash leaders it doesn't like. But I couldn't think of a funny way to say it so I'll just stick with that. Also right now we are in our fundraising drive for Crisis. We do this only two times a year, two months out of the year, usually around May or June and then December into year and go to our website and you'll get a pop up asking you to donate. I don't like asking all the time for donations, but I do. We have to do it some or else we can't pay the bills. We offer all of our content free to the world but it's obviously not free to produce. We have to pay our writers, we have to pay the web host, you know, the technology people, people who do the accounting, all that stuff and me and so I just ask that you would donate. We have a generous, very generous matching grant of up to $75,000. If we raise $75,000 in this fundraising campaign it will get matched dollar for dollar and so we'll get 150 actually. So this is very exciting. We really obviously we appreciate that generous donor matching Grant 1 but we appreciate everybody who donates to us. And, and I do get messages sometimes from people saying, you know, I really, I'm on fixed income. I've had some, you know, my radiator broke, now I have to get fixed. I don't have any money. I'll pray for you guys. I really do appreciate that. I'm not just saying that. [00:02:07] I understand that everybody can donate. We don't expect everybody to donate but at the same time we, we always appreciate your prayers no matter what. So okay, so today I'm going to cover a number of topics. The first one, let me just go ahead and dive right into it. The first one is whoops, got the wrong headlines up here. This is a well run machine. See if we, if we can raise more money this will be better run. That's probably not true, but anyway. Okay, so the first is headline is Archdiocese of Washington faces financial problems. And basically this is in the pillar that the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. led by Cardinal Gregory is having some financial difficulties. They are very much running a multimillion dollar deficit right now. And they're trying to figure out ways to make that up. And one of the things they're talking about doing is the diocesan assessment. This is every diocese has this where they basically tax the parishes. So you donate 100 to the parish. A certain percentage of that goes to the diocese. Typically that's how every diocese does a little differently. But that's the most common thing is something like that. [00:03:16] And what, but there's always certain donations you can make that are exempt from that diocesan assessment. [00:03:23] And what they're basically saying is we're going to make nothing exempt. We need more money. [00:03:28] And I think this is interesting because the reason they're saying they need more money is because donations have dropped greatly since 2018 when the McCarrick scandal broke. Remember McCarrick? Theodore McCarrick, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was the, was the head of Washington D.C. archdiocese in the early 2000s and then Cardinal Wuerl replaced him. And then there is allegations and actually pretty much proven that Cardinal World basically kind of covered up the problems with Archbishop, with former Cardinal McCarrick. And so needless to say, a lot of people stopped donating and I don't blame them. [00:04:06] Oh, by the way, real quick, an aside, my apologies. Right now I'm fighting a nasty cold, but I'm here for you people. I'm here for you. And so if all of a sudden I sneeze or I have to blow my nose or something like that or my voice sounds funny, my apologies. But I'm, I'm doing that now just to make sure it's clear if rfk, if you're listening, I'm not taking any of the, any big pharma drugs to take care of. I'm doing all natural remedies. So you know, please, you know, don't, don't, don't put me on the, on the list of big pharma clients. But anyway, now going back to Archdiocese of Washington, I think this is interesting because I remember I lived in the Archdiocese of Washington for 10 years from 2001 to 2011. And during that time Cardinal McCarrick was the archbishop for about, I think six or seven of those years. Cardinal World came in. I can't remember what year he came in, but maybe 2006 or seven. [00:04:59] But when Cardinal McCarrick was, was running the diocese, he had a massive fundraising campaign for a specific, like a special, like we're going to raise a ton of money for the future. And it was very aggressive. The one thing. There was a couple things Carl McCarrick was very good at. One of them was raising money. [00:05:18] And this was very aggressive. I remember. This is. This is wild. [00:05:22] I was. You know, we were married and I had three kids at no I may. I just had my fourth. I can't remember. But we were young, family. We didn't make a lot of money. I didn't make a lot of money. We're just, you know, kind of just trying to make it. And in D.C. area, it's. It. You need to make a lot of money just to. To make it through the day, because how expensive everything is. [00:05:43] I remember, though, that our associate pastor came to our house specifically to ask for money. Like, he basically invited himself. And he was a great guy, by the way. I loved him. But he was asked to do this by. By the pastor who had to do this. They went to people's houses, and what they did was the people who donated the regular tithe tithers at the parish would they go to their houses and they'd ask for a big donation for this big fundraising campaign. And I remember when they came. When he came to my house, he. They have a number in mind that they figure out. And he asked me for $20,000. And I remember just almost falling off my seat. I think I started laughing because $20,000. I mean, this is 20 years ago. And that was just. There's no way I had $20,000. I mean, if I'm being. If I was being very generous and giving a ton, maybe I could give two or three thousand, something like that. And that would be a real sacrifice. [00:06:41] And basically, they figured it out. What they did was they calculated based on your tithe. And like, we tithe 5%, because that's what I think you should do to your parish. Tithe 5%. But since most people tithe so little, we look like big tither tithers, big donators. And so by their calculations, we should have basically been giving, you know, just, you know, $20,000. And I did give something to it. But my point of the story is they raised tens of millions of dollars in that campaign. And the whole point of it was for the future stability, financial stability of the archdiocese. And now, look, 20 years later, they're running deficits because of the same person who raised all that money, McCarrick. He is causing it. And I think it's more than that as well. There's a lot of reasons. [00:07:32] And the fact is, I think we're going to see this more and more. We already some diocese have gone bankrupt and I think more and more diocese are going to have financial problems. Because the fact is, basically there's three reasons. [00:07:44] One is the bishops are just not inspiring leaders. And you need, if you want to raise money, like nonprofits raise the most money, the ones that have the most inspiring leaders, and they're just not inspiring. Also, I think they probably mismanage at times. I mean, these people, these bishops aren't trained for financial dealings. I mean, it says something about like, you know, they've been failing to keep pace with the increased cost of operating the pastoral center, which is the diocesan office in D.C. [00:08:13] and I think basically what they're, you know, I bet you there's a really good chance they have a lot of waste there. I bet you there's a very good chance they have a lot of waste there. But so the first thing is, you know, bishops aren't inspiring. Second one is there's dropping attendance. I mean, that's the reality. Less people go to Mass, and that's where you're going to get your donations from people who go to Mass. Unless people are going in D.C. they're literally trying to drive people out who go to the traditional Latin Mass. So you're not going to get anything from them because you're shutting down the traditional masses in D.C. and then thirdly, I think there's a certain revolt from the pews that even those who are still attending are like, I'm tired of giving you money. You're not doing anything. You're not preaching the faith. You're not bringing people to Christ. You're not doing the things we need that you're supposed to do as bishops. [00:08:59] And so I think Archdiocese of Washington is just one more example of diocese are going to have severe financial problems. And you see that with diocese going bankrupt. You see with diocese they're starting to merge parishes because they just can't handle the size of their diocese anymore because they just don't have the funds. They don't have the priest, they don't have the lay people. [00:09:17] These are just the consequences of 50 plus years of not of the bishops not being who they're supposed to be. And, you know, a lot of Catholics not being who they're supposed to be as well. If you preach the gospel, if you are, if you proclaim it, people will be inspired, they will follow it, and then they will give money as well. So next story is the USCCB opposes drafting women I was actually pleased to see this, but then I was a little disappointed. Basically, there's a provision in the National Defense Authorization act that would require women to register for military draft right now in America for those who aren't, don't live in America or might not know this. Basically, when you turn 18, if you're a man, if you're male, you turn 18, you have to register for Selective Service, which means if there was a draft, your name would be in that. I remember doing that when I was 18. My son did that a few years ago. You know, everybody has to. Every man has to do that in America when they turn 18, but women do not because women are not eligible for the draft. But now there is a move to make women eligible for the draft. Now, fortunately, the USCCB wrote a letter to the appropriate congressional leaders and said, we oppose women in being part of the draft. Kudos to the bishops. Absolutely right. Women should not be part of the draft. [00:10:39] However, it always seems like whenever we compliment the bishops, there's always a however after it. However, they also said the USCCB has long held that the practice of making military service as an option for women but not an obligation has served us well as a society. The bishops wrote, citing a 1980 statement on the issue. I'm reading this from the Catholic Vote article back. [00:11:05] Has it really been good for society having women in the military? I would argue not. [00:11:10] I think women should not be in the military for two major reasons. The first is just the effectiveness of the military. The military, its purpose is to kill things and destroy people. And. I'm sorry, destroy. That's fine. Destroy things and kill people. That's the job of the military. I mean, that's what they're supposed to do when they're called into action. It's to destroy things and kill people. [00:11:40] Women are not made to do that. Thank the Lord. Thank God. I mean, he's the one who did it. Women are not made to do that. And I understand there are many positions in the. In the military where they're not actually doing that directly because there's a whole thing about women in combat or not women shouldn't be in combat. And I don't think women should be in the military at all. I mean, obviously you could have nurses that are. That are serving the military, things like that, but I. I just don't think it's. It's right. And the other, this, the other reason, not only effectiveness, but morality. [00:12:08] A nation that asks its women to defend it physically is a very poor nation. Women should Be the, the last resort. If you've killed all the men and now you're coming, yeah, sure, the women should pick up their guns and start shooting. I'm not, I'm not saying women can't, can't defend themselves. Like in a household situation, if a house is getting attacked in the day by marauders or pirates or whatever and a, and a, the man gets killed and all the sons get killed. The women, yeah, they can pick up their guns, they can be defending as well. But the idea of women in the military is just a very, it's a sign of the decline of our country. And any country that does this that you would ask your women to defend your nation in the military just shouldn't be done. So good for USCCB for being against drafting women, but bad on them for thinking, for acting like it's no big deal that women are actually in the military. [00:13:06] Okay, so the next big news story is kind of the news story of the week, and that's Brian Thompson. The United Healthcare CEO was assassinated last week. And this was pretty wild. I mean, it was cold blooded. Somebody basically just came up and shot him in the back a few times and then escaped for about five days, I think it was. And what was interesting about this is right after he was assassinated, when this became news, there was an outpouring of support online for the shooter. [00:13:38] Not in sympathy for the man who died in his family, but for the shooter. Because there's such a deep hatred of insurance companies and our medical system. Now here's the thing. I understand that our medical system is so broke, it's just ridiculous. And the insurance companies are so, so terrible and everybody has a terrible experience with them. I remember my first job. This has been going back for a while. I think it's much worse after Obamacare, gets worse every year. But I remember 30 years ago, my first job, first time I really had health insurance on my own. I remember I would get every single claim I made in the first, like few years my wife was having our first child and some other things. It would get denied initially. I'd have to call them up every time to convince them this was legitimate. And essentially I realized what they were doing. Somehow I had been flagged to deny everything. And so it's just a real hassle, real stress, having to wonder are they actually going to pay for this or not? [00:14:40] And so I understand people are very frustrated with insurance companies. I will say this, I don't think the blame lies necessarily in the insurance companies like in the CEO or the Insurance company themselves. I think it's in the system. You know, they say, you know, don't, don't hate the players, hate the game. In this case, I think we should hate the game, not the players. The insurance companies are simply working within the system. Now, I know they lobby for things that help them in Washington and all that. I'm not saying they're innocent or anything like that, but the reality is the whole system is so broken. And I get why people are very much upset with the insurance companies, but if we've gotten to a point where a guy who assassinates an insurance company CEO is cheered by a lot of people, I mean, talk about a declining culture, a culture that is no longer law based, rules based, but it's becoming anarchy because essentially that's what's happening. If you're saying that, okay, it's okay to murder somebody who runs a company I don't like, I mean, that's just, that's just awful. That's ridiculous. [00:15:49] And I think that a. Because here's the thing, an immoral people, which is what we are, they still understand justice. Everybody understands justice. I mean, you think about it from the earliest days of childhood, you understand justice. That's not fair. I should be, I should get a turn too, something like that. We all get it innately. [00:16:09] But when you're immoral, you use unjust ways sometimes to try to bring about justice. You justify things that are not just in order to bring about what you think is justice. Like in this case now, right now, we don't know for sure what the motives. They caught somebody who they believe is a shooter. We don't know exactly what his motives are. There's a lot going on the Internet, you know, it's supposedly the guy, you know, had some severe back pain, had dealings with the medical companies, with, with the insurance company. [00:16:38] And so it's possible that's what all caused by. [00:16:42] It's also possible the whole thing is like somehow some other reason they're using this guy as a patsy. I've seen a lot of theories about that online. [00:16:50] I would just caution this idea of it's some type of conspiracy where they're just using this guy as a patsy. Because I've seen people say, like, oh, this guy is super intelligent, he's gone to Ivy League schools, but then he does this, he's in a McDonald's in the same outfit he wore a week before and stuff like that. [00:17:09] Here's the thing. People are not. This isn't the movies. People are not able to commit Crimes easily of this nature, at least easily and without making mistakes. In fact, that's one of the things detectives always count on, is that people who are doing these things, if you read about real crime, not television crime, real crime detectives always count on mistakes being made by the people committing the crimes. Because we just don't know how your brain works in this situation. I mean, let's say he, let's say this guy did it and he. And he shot the guy. He might have thought he was going to get caught immediately. He might have been five days there, like, I can't believe they haven't caught me yet. And he might be thinking, who knows what he's thinking? [00:17:52] So I wouldn't jump to a conspiracy theory that this is some type of, like he's the patsy and it really was somebody else or he was controlled by somebody and they're giving him up or whatever. [00:18:04] I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying don't assume just because things seem a little weird just because things aren't perfectly laid out like he doesn't mean it's not true. Because in real life is often very messy. And so I just would hesitate on that. [00:18:21] The last thing I'll say on this is I have not had health insurance for eight years now. More than eight years, I think. Yeah, eight and a half years now. [00:18:31] I use Samaritan Ministries, which is a health share business. And there's other ones as well, where basically you pay in monthly and each month you pay other people who have health needs, health share needs. So for example, if I, if something happens in my family and we have a medical issue with some expenses, I basically submit it to Samaritan. They then send it out to people and people send me checks to pay for it to make up for it. And that's what we do. It's not insurance. So when I go to the doctor, I go to the hospital, wherever it's self pay, I pay it out of pocket, but then I get reimbursed. I'm a big fan of it. It's always worked well for me. With healthcare costs going up, it's getting more and more difficult, you know, for a lot of these things. But I personally think it works out well. So I've been out of the health insurance game for a very long time and I've been very pleased with it. Now I will say my family is relatively healthy, praise God. And so like I haven't had some of the major, major expenses, but I think it covers those as well. [00:19:33] Next story is the Syrian government was overthrown. Now, if there's one thing I know about American foreign policy is that we do a regime change somewhere. It always works out perfectly. It's always better than it was before. [00:19:49] Not. That is not true. We. We love to do regime changes throughout the world, and they almost always end up being worse situations than when we started. And I really think this is what happened here. I think this was a regime change that the US Government's been wanting to do for years and now finally was able to do it. Know, through various reasons. I think mostly Russia no longer being able to kind of support Syria because they have their own issues with Ukraine and things like that. There's even talk about maybe this part of negotiations. Like Putin basically said, okay, I'll leave Syria to you guys if you guys will kind of let me do my thing in Ukraine. I don't know if that's true or not. [00:20:25] Here's the thing. I'm not saying Assad, the leader of, the previous leader now of Syria, was some great man and somebody we should all look up to. [00:20:34] He's a dictator. However, the fact is that he brought stability to Syria. Syria was basically one of the most stable governments in the Middle East. He also protected Christians, which is very important to remember. [00:20:49] And it's similar in some ways to Iraq. I mean, Iraq, the same thing was true. Saddam Hussein protected Christians. He had a relatively stable country before we came in there in the 90s and then in the 2000s. And so the new leader, though, apparently is going to be a guy who has been with Al Qaeda, who we used to call a terrorist and think was awful. Now he's a rebel. Now he's a freedom fighter. It's always interesting how the United States government on one day can say, this guy's a terrorist, the worst evil man in the world. And basically, if politics shifts, okay, now he's a freedom fighter, and now he's a rebel. [00:21:26] And so I predict. I think it's pretty obvious that Syria is probably going to fall into chaos. And unfortunately, the most likely victims of this chaos is going to be the Christians in Syria because they were protected basically by Assad. And so I think it's like, I'm not claiming Assad was like, the greatest leader ever, but I am saying that I think things will get worse. And that's something we should have learned a long time ago. [00:21:52] When we engage in this regime change in other countries is we're like, oh, that's bad. We want to fix it. And our fix is worse than what it was. And I think that's exactly what's going to happen here. Now the question is, why is the US like care about this? Like, why were we kind of pushing this long? I actually don't know. I mean, I think it's odd. I think. I think. I think the number one thing we want is American foreign policy. The neocon foreign policy has always been what can we do to make sure nowhere else is stable, but we're stable, so we're always in control. They want instability around the world because that gives us more power. And I feel like this is just one of those things that another place where we're going to cause instability so that we can continue to have power and control. We don't want countries to be too strong because we feel like it's a threat. Any strong country to us is a threat. And I think that's. I think it's very misguided. I think it's awful. I think it's immoral. But that's just kind of the reality, the way things are. [00:22:53] Next story. The problem with Nick Fuentes. Now, some of you may not know who Nick Quintes is. He is a commentator. I mean, I guess that's what I am, too. He's a commentator. He's been online for a number of years. He's a young guy. He's very talented. He's very bright in a lot of ways. He has a very large audience. [00:23:11] And he's also awful, for lack of a better term. Now, I know all the young grippers who are his followers are going to be like, oh, you just don't understand. You're an old guy with gray hair. Okay, fine, maybe that's the case. [00:23:24] The fact is, he's most well known for. He's accused often, I should say, of being anti Semitic and being racist. And he's also Catholic, by the way. At least he says he's Catholic. He's. He said disparaging things about the traditional at mass. He's also said disparaging things about marriage, which makes me wonder how much of a Catholic he really is. But, you know, he does claim to be Catholic and. [00:23:45] But people accuse him being anti Semitic and racist, but his supporters say, no, that's not true. That's just. You're using those terms. People use those terms all the time. And it's true. Anti Semitic and racists have become almost worthless terms because of the fact that they're so overused and they're used, they're applied in situations where they should not be Applied, but I think they do work in this situation. Let me just give you an example. This is why I bring it up. Because what happened last week on X, a friend of mine, Trevor from Trinity Brewing, he posted something on X showing his family, his family, his father and mother, they adopted a couple of black children a number of years ago, I think. And so, you know, he's white, it's a white family, but they adopted some black kids. And he put a picture of it and he was just saying, you know, he got these African American kids and you know how beautiful it is. And he didn't respond to Nick Fuentes kind of making fun of some interracial family. [00:24:40] And Nick Fuentes actually replied, he just put in quotes African American. And you know, there's one meaning of that is he's making fun of the term African American, which is kind of dumb, but okay, whatever. But then all of a sudden you got a flood of responses. I mean, I've been on X for a very long time. I'm pretty jaded to what people say on there. I'm pretty used to the nasty things people say. I don't think I've ever seen nastier replies to a text to a post than they did to a Trinity Brewing's post about his interracial family. I mean, it was just the nastiest things. I mean they were, they were. I, I can't even say it is a family broadcast. I literally can't say anything that they, they said. But it was just, trust me, it was vile and disgusting. Now people say, well, that's not Nick Fuentes. That's just, that's other people, that's people claiming his followers. He's not like that. He just said African American. Well, here's the thing. [00:25:34] Fuentes isn't a dummy. He knows exactly what he's doing. When he does this, when he posts this, he knows he's sending all of his followers there and this is exactly what they're going to do. He does never, he does not say at any time, guys, stop this, this is over the line, we shouldn't do this, whatever. No, he encourages it. And therefore you have to just ask, is he himself actually a racist? And I'd say yes. And the same thing happens often with Jewish people. Like somebody has a Jewish last name, Jewish sounding last name, and they'll get attacked for that and they can't be trusted because of that with all of his followers. Now here's the thing. I get you cannot judge somebody strictly by their followers. I mean, I get this you get this in the trad world a lot where people say, oh, the trads are all terrible because these people say this online. But it's like that's not me. I'm not saying that you can't judge me on that. And I get that that's a legitimate point. [00:26:24] But if you never condemn that online, if you never say stop that and if you, if you do things that kind of encourage it, then it's hard to not say you're part of the problem. And I would just say that it's interesting because most of the defenses of him is like, he's a young guy, he's provocative, he just, this is, the way he talks is he's kind of going against a lot of the problems of today's world. And I would, I would agree that may the problems somebody like Fuentes points out, like feminism, this woke culture, all this stuff, the power of Israel lobby, all that stuff, legitimate problems that need to be addressed. And most of our society, our culture shouts down and shuts anybody up who dares to even bring it up. And so what Fuentes does, he goes the opposite extreme because he's like, well, we're not allowed to say anything. So I'm just going to say the most extreme reactionary things to kind of offset it. [00:27:17] I just don't think as Catholics we should be supporting that because what we should do is say, yes, here are the problems and here is the solution. [00:27:24] Denigrating marriage is not a solution. Making fun of interracial families is not a solution. Making fun of people with Jewish last names, it's not, you know, attacking them because they have a Jewish last name is not solution. Not the Catholic solution at least. And so I think we have to be very much reject this idea that we have to be reactionaries and do things of this nature. So I personally, I mean the nice thing is I've noticed most of actually this is what started this online for me was I said, I basically posted some of the effect of I've never met a well adjusted young Catholic man who follows Nick Fuentes. And I still say that. I mean more came up to me on Sunday and told me after mass and said, yeah, we don't. And so I really think that this is a, I'm not sure how big a phenomenon it is, but I would say if you're Catholic, don't follow people like Nick Fuentes. They're not, they're not going to lead you to Jesus Christ, a full understanding of the church and her teachings. There's plenty of other commentators out there that you can listen to and follow. Obviously first go to the sacred scriptures, go to the tradition of the church, things like that, but don't follow these, these people who are just honestly, they're the reaction. They're trying to make a buck online by being reaction. They know they're going to have a lot of engagement when they do these things. [00:28:40] Another story I want to talk about is Gwen Stefani. I think. No, Stefani. Yeah, Gwen Stefani. She. I saw this, like I was on YouTube and I was scrolling through. All of a sudden I saw an ad with this odd looking woman who was promoting Hollow and I didn't know who it was. I found out later as Gwen Stefan, who I've heard of, but I don't really know what she looked like or anything like that. [00:29:00] She's like a pop star and all that stuff. And she's basically talking about praying and she's promoting Hallow. Now to note, I have done a podcast on Hollow about a year ago and my, my issues with it and I encourage you to go find that. But I was just surprised. I saw that and I was like, oh, of course they got another celebrity who's probably not really that good of a Catholic or even a Catholic at all promoting this. But then all of a sudden I saw everybody's talking about, oh, how exciting is Gwen Stefani. She's, she's Catholic and she's promoting prayer and all this stuff. [00:29:32] Guys, don't we get it by now? Hollow is a corporation, a VC backed corporation with hundreds of millions of dollars behind it. And they're paying millions of dollars to celebrities to promote their app. I think it's kind of funny how Hollow makes a big deal about how they're the number one prayer app on, on the, on the itunes store or whatever, the Apple Store. You're paying probably hundreds of million dollars more than any other prayer app. Most prayer apps are a couple guys who put something together, throw it up there and have no marketing. You guys are spending literally tens of millions of dollars, at least in marketing. Of course you're number one. If you're not, that'd be embarrassing. [00:30:06] Now here's the thing. Gwen Stefani might be a practicing Catholic. She might be great. I know in the past she supported like LGBTQ stuff. [00:30:14] And you know, she's, she's done a lot of things. Like her, her, the way she dresses, music, stuff like that is not something that you want as a model for Catholicism. [00:30:23] Maybe she's changed, I don't know. [00:30:26] But just because A celebrity is promoting Hollow does not make them a good Catholic. Because when you get paid millions of dollars to do something, you're just going to do it. I mean, we don't know if it's true or not. That's my point. Don't look to her and be like, oh, now we have this person who's this great model because she's promoting Hollow. No, she's getting paid millions of dollars to advertise something. Do you really think every celebrity who endorses a product really loves that product, really believes everything they're saying? No, they're actors. They just say what they're told to say and they get a big check for it. [00:30:58] So I just think that we have to avoid this celebrity culture. As Catholics, when a celebrity, I mean, I feel like we're so desperate. Like a celebrity says something remotely Catholic and we meet like, oh, look how great it is. Look at so and so said something about, you know, Catholicism positive. Just because most celebrities hate us. And so we get so excited when one of them shows that maybe they don't hate us. But let's not act like they're models we should look to. We should be looking at, you know, religious sisters and monks and priests and things like that. You know, moms and dads who are living out their faith. That's our models. Not, not celebrities who are paying millions of dollars just to say, use this prayer app. So I'm not railing on every single person who's ever, you know, used the Hallow app. If it's helped you, fine. I'm just saying let's be recognized what it is. It's a, a VC backed company with hundreds of millions of dollars investment and they're paid to, and they were given that money in order to have that money returned to the VCs. When a venture capitalist gives you tens of millions of dollars, he's expecting a return of more than that. And so Hollow's business model is to make a lot of money. I'm not against that. I love capitalism. I love the free market. But just recognize what it is. It's not a matter of hallows, just this 100% like charity that just simply is trying to save souls. It's its primary purpose is to make money. Like, you know, I did a fundraiser pitch at the beginning of this show. Crisis is a non profit. You give to us simply so we can pay our bills in order to do, to offer you the stuff we do for free. Halo has to pay back their VCs. So they have to do Things to make money. So you're gonna, they're gonna, they have business models to make a lot of money. That's what their purpose is. And like I said, nothing wrong with that. As long as we understand and we're not pretending that it's something that it's not. [00:32:47] Okay, final story. My white pill of the week Bitcoin hits 100,000. Now, some people might ask, why is that your white pill of the week? First of all, I've been a big promoter, proponent of Bitcoin for 11 years now and I really believe in it. And 100,000, what does that mean? I mean, in one sense it's meaningless. I mean, what's the 99,000, 100, 1000 or whatever. [00:33:09] The fact is though, is a big psychological barrier. It kind of shows that bitcoin is becoming more and more established as a monetary system, as an alternative monetary system. And I think that's good because it's a superior monetary system to our current fiat based monetary system where the government can just print money as much as they want. And I think it's important that we, we create these alternative monetary systems so that we can get out of the fiat cycle which basically makes the poor poor, the rich richer and really makes it so that were incentivized to spend rather than save. All these problems. I, I talked about this in my, the bitcoin interview I did with Devin Rose a couple weeks ago on this podcast. Listen, if you're interested. But I think it's exciting, I think it's a good news that Bitcoin hit 100,000 because it just kind of shows that it's maturing, it's coming of age. It's been around for about 16, 15. Yeah, almost 16 years now. Almost 16 years now. I think it's coming of age. I think that's, that's a good sign. [00:34:07] Okay, Last thing I wanna do is just take your questions and comments. I appreciate the people who are here on the, on the live chat and making comments. So let me go ahead and hit them. Okay. James says gay priests abusing boys seem to have a financial impact on diocese. Okay, you said it very bluntly and what you said is very true. And there's no question that, you know, we're talking about the Archdiocese of Washington having financial difficulties in other diocese. A lot of it has to do with the abuse crisis and frankly it does have to do with gay priests, whether they're out of the closet or not. People know when often when a priest is gay, whether or not he, he proclaims it or not. And that really harms the donations we're getting. I agree with you, James. Don't like that Astros logo you got there. Not Astros fan, but respect for the comment. And James also said, if we are required to live by the rules of feminism, the feminism requires females to be subject to the draft. That is true. I mean, that is feminism. That's why we need to reject feminism. Feminism is. Is evil. It's wrong. It's caused massive destruction in our society. And so we need to have. Need to get rid of it completely. And so women just out of the military. And if you're a woman who's been in the military or in military, now you're listening to this. You're. You're a good Catholic and all that. I mean, I understand why. Why you'll feel a little defensive. But the fact is, is that the military's purpose is a masculine purpose. And we don't hear that anymore. We don't want to believe that, but it's true. It's a mask and purpose. Men are created to defend, to protect women and children. That's what we're supposed to do. Now, I'm not saying there aren't women out there who do way better in combat than me. I am sure there are. I am not. I am not some, you know, military expert. I'm not somebody who can fight very well or anything like that. But at the same time, that doesn't mean, though, we should have our military comprised of women. [00:35:57] Okay, what's this say? BC Cock, I think I'm behind on the arches of Washington, D.C. story. Wasn't one of the reasons Bishop Strickland was removed because of financial mismanagement. That's one of the reasons, they said. [00:36:10] That's a very good point, though. They made a big deal when they got rid of Strickland. Everybody knew why they were getting rid of Strickland because he criticized Pope Francis. But they said financial management. But to this day, they've not shown any proof of that. Here we have a diocese and archdiocese that is admitting to major financial problems. Financial mismanagement, really? They're kind of claiming, oh, we're doing everything by the book. It's just donations. But let's be honest, they're. They're losing a lot of money. Why hasn't Cardinal Gregory been called to the carpet? Why hasn't he been threatened to be kicked out if he doesn't get the financial order, you know, in line? That's a. That's a great point, James. Again, do the Dems want to hand off chaos to Trump. I mean, I think there's no question what's been happening the past couple weeks since Trump won on the foreign policy front is, is trying to undermine Trump. Like all the money we're now sending to, more money we're sending to Ukraine, how we're letting them fire missiles that we, that we're basically running into Russia, all now Syria, all stuff. I do think they want as much chaos as possible in, in the foreign policy area so that Trump is going to be hamstrung. I, I do not doubt that for one second people might be like, oh, people aren't that evil. No, they are. And if they have a lot of power in D.C. they definitely are. [00:37:24] Did, did Ms. Sumidin? I did. I think is the name here. Fuentes is awful. The only thing he's right about is the Jews. I mean, I think. Okay, that's a tough one. I, I don't, I don't agree with the second part of that. Okay. He's right about a few things. [00:37:40] It depends on what you mean by right about the Jews. If you're talking about his criticisms of the modern state of Israel and what it's doing. Yes, I agree. The problem is he goes beyond that in his language and how he, what he encourages and his followers, they make it like anybody who's Jewish is suspicious. Even converts, Jewish converts to Catholicism are held in suspicion. I think that's wrong. I don't think you can hold like individuals responsible for what some people of their demographic group. That's identity politics is what comes down to. So I agree Fuentes is awful. I also think he's awful in the Jews. Not because he's wrong necessarily about all the political aspects of the, of the Israeli lobby and the state of Israel and stuff like that, but because he goes beyond that into a very anti, actually, honestly, anti Semitic way of looking at things. [00:38:33] Okay, last comment. August TV123 surprised that a gen X guy wouldn't know much about Gwen Stefani. Lol. Yeah, I know she's older. I mean, she's, I mean, I've heard of her. Of course. I'm not like that out of it, but I really don't follow pop culture and I haven't for decades. And so, like, what will happen is I'll hear about somebody. Like, I hear her name. So I know there's Gwen Stefani out there. I know she's, I think she's a singer. I don't know. I don't think she's an actor. I know she does. You know, she's popular, stuff like that. But like when I was scrolling through YouTube and this very bizarre looking woman showed up talking about Hollow, I had no idea who it was. I had to look and see. I had to look up to see who it was. [00:39:12] And when I say bizarre women, I think all bizarre looking women. I think all these pop stars, the way they dress and their makeup and hair and all that stuff is just kind of insane. So yes, I know I sound like an old guy now, but that's okay. Okay, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wrap it up there. I appreciate you, everybody on the live chat, people who contributed. I do. And we'll continue to do this. You know, various stories during the podcast, maybe others. Also, if you've listened this long, that means you're a real supporter of Crisis. Thank you very much. I do encourage you to donate. I won't be asking this all the time. Just this month and next in six months or so, we'll do it again. So so far we're doing a good job. We're raising a lot of money. I'm very happy. We're on track to meet the goal of 75,000 to get the whole 150 unlocked. So I really hope we meet it. So I just encourage people to donate if you can, but if you can't, I understand everybody's in a financial situation where they can. Please pray for us. I really do appreciate that. Morning I had a priest tell me he was offering masses for Crisis. And I tell you, that's the biggest donation. That's bigger than the $75,000 donation matching grant is. That is a mass set because there's no price tag on that. Okay, well, that'll wrap it up for there for now. Until next time, everybody. God love.