Deliver Us from Black-Pilling

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:10] Okay, I'm gonna try this again. We tried to have a podcast earlier today, but my Internet went out. It was. [00:00:17] We had a big storm here came through Cincinnati area and actually it stopped storming by a time. It was time for the podcast at 3:00 clock today. [00:00:26] And so I was like, okay, I'm good to go. And then like 30 seconds in, my Internet went out. Actually my, my power was fine. I think it flickered a little bit, but the Internet just went completely out. And I ended up having to call them and did the typical. I explained what happened and then the response is, I hear that you are having problems with your Internet. You can't connect. And I'm very sorry to hear that. You know, just a typical stuff. But in the end they did take care of it. They did a little reboot on their end and I was back up and running. So hopefully nothing will happen this time. So we're doing a special evening live live stream. Hopefully people will, will tune in. It's not our regular time. In fact, if people like the evening ones better, let me know, I might consider doing that a little bit more. [00:01:10] You know, Anthony was avate of avoiding Babylon's giving me a hard time on X that uh, he was afraid I might fall asleep because I'm a grandpa. And uh, so, so we'll see, you know, if I fall asleep in the middle of this podcast, you know, somebody try to scream in the live chat and wake me up. So I did consider wearing pajamas to, to the podcast just for the, for the evening feel. But you know, anyway. Okay, so let's actually talk about what we want to talk about, which is this issue of black pilling. [00:01:38] Now before I talk about the danger of black pilling during a crisis, after all, I run Crisis magazine. We talk about the crisis in the church and the world a lot of. But I do think there's a danger of black pilling when we talk about that. But before I do, I do want to make something clear. I do not think this is the primary danger in the church today. I do not think this is how so many souls get lost is through black pilling or anything like that. I think the majority of souls that are lost are through the ways we all know about, which is anemic spiritual life in parishes, heresy running rampant. Just a general sense of indifference towards the Catholic religion, among Catholic bishops even, and priests. [00:02:21] Like I said, terrible parish life, a weak hierarchy. All the things we talk about here all the time. [00:02:27] That is the reason most people leave the church. [00:02:29] In fact, there's just millions of souls who have left because of those things. And we have legitimate reasons to be righteously angry at our church leaders because of this, because of how they have led the church over the past 60 years and led so many people astray and out of the church. There's a real crisis. We shouldn't act like there isn't one. I mean, heck, I even had a podcast a few months ago where I talk about the two religions in the one church. Meaning basically what's practiced by many people is not the Catholicism, Catholicism of the ages. [00:03:07] It's something completely different. And so I really do believe that. But here's the thing. [00:03:13] I would argue that probably everybody in the audience, my audience, the crisis audience, knows most of that. [00:03:20] I mean, I just don't understand. I know other, other media outlets do this, other podcasts do this, other, you know, people do this, but I don't like to do it, which is you just kind of play to the base and gin up the anger towards the same things over and over again. [00:03:35] If I just had a podcast, every single episode was, look how terrible the Bishop is. Look how terrible that Bishop. Look how terrible the Pope is. Look how terrible this is. [00:03:43] Just like we all know this. I do think it's important to talk about it sometimes. Obviously I talk about it a lot, but I just don't think we should only do that. In fact, I would like to talk about some of the dangers that we face. [00:03:54] Me as well. We face in the, you know, in this, in this world of living in a crisis, recognizing crisis and trying to fight the crisis. And that's where I would say the one of our dangers is black pilling. And here's the thing to remember. [00:04:10] Satan wants every soul. Satan wants every soul. And he knows, he knows he has to go about it a different way. Depending on who he is dealing with, he might be able to get a soul through laxity. Somebody who attends Novus Ordo just like, oh, it's not that big a deal. Use birth control. It's not that big a deal to watch that movie with pornographic scenes, things like that, that might be his entry into certain souls. But for somebody who is trying to live as a faithful Catholic, trying to combat fight against the crisis in the church today, I think he wants that soul too. And so he's going to go a different route. And so I think what his, what the route he often will do is it will be more of this idea of black pilling. Now, what do I mean by black pilling? [00:04:58] I should make sure that's good. I know not everybody understands that language. [00:05:01] Essentially it harkens back to the movie the Matrix, which came out like 25 years ago, something like that, where Neo was presented to. Oh, what was the guy's name? I can't remember the guy's name who presented to Leo to Neo the two pills, the red pill or the blue pill. And it kind of represented what role do you want to live? Do you want to live in a world where you. The blue pill, where you just keep on keeping on? You just accept the status quo. You don't challenge anything. You just kind of accept how things are, or the red pill, which means you look deeper in that case, you get into the Matrix. And so there's different pills since then. In the bitcoin world, there's called orange pilling because orange is the color of bitcoin. Being somebody interested in that. [00:05:43] Black pilling basically means a somewhat nihilistic view of things. A very pessimistic, nihilistic, almost despairing view. Morpheus. Thank you. Somebody in the chat mentioned Morpheus was the. I can't believe I forgot that. That's a great movie. [00:05:59] I did not like the other ones. I like the Matrix, the orig original. I did not like the. The sequels at all, really. [00:06:06] So black pilling, though, is this idea that you take the black pill and basically you just have this very pessimistic, nihilistic view of things, that things are only going to get worse, things are only bad. You have a very difficult time seeing the good in anything going on in the world. And let's be honest, it's not the, the. It's not that different. [00:06:25] It's not that difficult to fall into the sin of black pilling. And you know, I think somebody in the chat here, Anna Kate, mentions to what extent is black pilling the same or not the same as the sin of despair? I mean, I think they're very related. They're basically the same. I mean, I think despair, though. [00:06:42] Yeah, I mean, black pilling definitely leads to despair. And let me explain black pilling a little bit more. [00:06:49] What I really mean by black pilling is you see the human side of. When I'm talking about in the Catholic Church, not talking about, like, for example, in politics, because in politics you might legitimately think, okay, our government's just going to kind of go under and it's not going to last much longer. That's not necessarily black pilling, because it might go under. [00:07:07] It might very well fall apart in our lifetimes. That's not unthinkable every government has so far in the history of man. There's no reason this one wouldn't. But black pilling in a Catholic context, I'm talking about there this idea of you only see the human elements in the church, you only see the human elements in church and the church is full of human elements and you don't really. You're not able to see that divine element at work like you might think. In other words, you think basically the only way that we can ever get out of this is some miraculous divine intervention that is would be beyond anything God has done in the history of the Catholic Church. [00:07:48] The problem with us today is black pilling is very easy to fall into, particularly if you are on social media. Yes, I know I have preached against social media in the past and I will continue do so. It's very dangerous. And. But here's the thing. The algorithm pushes to negative. Ask anybody who's a content creator online and they will tell you they know for a fact. It doesn't take long being on the Internet and producing content to know that the negative gets more clicks. The negative gets more clicks. I mean, I did a podcast Last week on 10 Pillars of Catholic Family Life and I thought it was a good podcast. I actually had some number of people and I encourage everybody to check it out. [00:08:25] A number of people told me they really enjoyed it. But here's the thing. It was one of my worst performing podcast episodes I've had in months. [00:08:33] Why? Because the title wasn't something like, oh, why Candace Owens is crazy or why the SSPX is wrong or why Bishop, you know, so and so did this terrible thing, why Pope Leo disappoints me like that. Those things get more clicks. Now I, I do those podcasts as well because I think it's important that we, that we lay out what's going on in the church and in the world. So I'm not saying you just refuse to do this, but we all know what the algorithm pushes. [00:08:58] YouTube is going to show to more people my videos that have a negative title than if they have a positive title. That's just the way it is. And I refuse to have every single one of my, my podcasts have a negative title. I'm going to have some that are going to be positive in nature because I think that's healthy. I think that's good. In fact, I had a woman at church, she was telling me she liked the the Family Life podcast and she said it was nice change of pace from kind of what's the latest thing going on wrong in the church. [00:09:25] So the point is, is that social media does definitely fall into this, this negative the black pilling. It wants you to black pill because you're more likely to click on things. That's just human psychology and it constantly focused on our problems without ever recognizing the graces. And like I've seen this where other people too, they will talk about positive things going on in the church and just doesn't do as well. So we have to be careful that that's black pilling. [00:09:53] Like I said, it is understandable that we will have moments of discouragement, moments of black pilling, moments of even despair because we are living in an era where I would think it's the second most proportionally number of people who have left the church in the history of the church. I mean I think the Protestant revolution probably is number one. [00:10:12] Sheer numbers right now is number one. But just in proportion to the total church. I think this would probably be number two. So it's hard not to think that okay, things are going badly. But again, black pilling only looks at the human element. It's not looking at the divine elements. It doesn't look at what he is doing good in the world. [00:10:30] Nor does it really look at the bad things as things that he is allowing for our salvation. [00:10:38] This is something we don't like. I don't like this. We complain about when something goes wrong in our life, but often God gives us let's allows things to go wrong in our life precisely so that we might draw closer to him. [00:10:49] So for example, when we hear that Bishop so and so did terrible thing X is our first reaction. Let me jump on social media and say how stupid that is, how crappy that is, how angry I am about that or whatever. [00:11:05] Or is it I need to say a prayer, I need maybe do a penance. You can still get online and and explain why it's wrong. I'm not obviously to do it charitably, but you can explain that there's nothing wrong with that because I do notice confusion out there. Sometimes bishops will do things that some Catholics are like, I don't know, is that okay? Is that wrong or is that right? It's okay to explain why it's wrong. [00:11:25] But if it's just a matter of let's me, I'm angry, I want to tell all the world that I'm angry and I don't pray about that's when we have that that's really our black pilling and we refuse to see good things going in the world. I had an example of this, a couple examples of this. I had one example of this last week where so on Matt Frad's show, Matt Fradd, people probably all know who he is. He has a show now on the Daily Wire. [00:11:49] And he had Peter Kreeft on. And he had. And Peter Crypto is beautiful story about his dying wife. [00:11:55] And it just. I go find it. Joshua Charles, I think, was the first one to share it. And so, you know, maybe look up his account and find it there. [00:12:03] And it was a beautiful story and it was just very touching. And Ben Shapiro's like the Ben Shapiro Show, Account X account then shared it as well. [00:12:13] And somebody's complaining about the fact that, you know, Ben Shapiro, who I'm no friend of. I don't like Ben Shapiro. I think he does a lot of bad things. [00:12:21] And obviously he's Jewish. He's not pro. He's not going to be. You know, he's not promoting the Catholic faith or anything like that. [00:12:27] And the complaint was kind of like that Ben Shapiro was kind of using it to Matt France content to bring people in this like, pseudo gnostic Christianity of Jordan Peterson, things like that. [00:12:38] And honestly, I think that's blackpilling, because the way I looked at was here we have one of the most prominent Jews in our country, one of the most prominent Jews in the country who's sharing content that is deeply Christian by the probably the most prominent Catholic apologist of our day. [00:13:02] There are people who have never heard of Peter Kreeft who follow Ben Shapiro, who also follow that, who also see that clip. They listen to it and they might think, hey, I'm check out this Peter Kreef guy. Maybe they say, I want to check out this Matt Frag guy. That's a good thing, folks. That's a good thing. We should be happy about that. I mean, let's be honest. [00:13:21] Is anybody who's a follower of Peter Kreeft all of a sudden going to see that and be like, I want to now check out Jordan Peterson. Boy, he's so much smarter than Peter Grief. No, of course not. But there are going to be Jordan Peterson fans. [00:13:33] Follow the Daily Wire, follow Ben Shapiro. They see Peter Kreeft and they're like, hey, that guy looks interesting. I want to follow him. Because Peter Kreeft is like the big leagues and Jordan Peterson's the little leagues. [00:13:44] If you're interested in Jordan Peterson, you graduate to Peter Kreef one day. You don't go the other way around. If you're a Peter Kreef guy, you don't all of a sudden get into Jordan Peterson and Jordan Peterson, by the way, he has said many good things in the past. I'm not like trying to say act like he's, he's the worst or anything like that. I don't think he is. But he's, he's not on Peter Chris level by any way, shape or form. [00:14:06] I also see this when people like the rag, one of my alma maters, which is Franciscan University and act like it's just the, you know, especially traditional Catholics do this. Act like it's one of the worst institutions around and all that because, you know, it's got this charismatic flair and it doesn't criticize the things going on in the church. But like they had that open letter not too long ago about asking the SSPX not to do the consecrations and, and people like to kind of be down on Franciscan. Now listen, I've had three kids go to Franciscan. I got my master's Franciscan. I can tell you critiques of Franciscan University. You can't go there without having some critiques of it yet. The reality is it's the best Catholic university in the country. I mean, I don't even think that is a real debate about, sorry, Christendom fans, sorry, Benedictine fans, Belmont Abbey fans, University, Dallas fans, all those are fine institutions. I'm, I'm not against those in any way, shape or form. I'm just saying Franciscan is the best of them. Yes, there are things wrong with it, but if we're just looking at like, oh my gosh, Franciscan didn't do this, didn't do that, we're black pilling again. Instead we should see how much it's done for the church. But more importantly, I think than these things, like these big things is I think the black pillars, I think they just need to be in real life a little bit more because I think they live in a bubble sometimes. I think if you go to a trad parish and you just kind of interact with other trade Catholics and then you're online kind of with in your tradition puts you in your trad bubble and all you're listening to is like, you know, lifesite news and things like that, I think you have a tendency to not recognize good things that are happening in the wider church. Now again, I had a podcast a couple months ago about two religions in one church, about all the bad things, the anemic life and so many novasora parishes. And I stick with that. I'm not being inconsistent Here I'm simply saying because there's so many people have left the church because of that. [00:16:00] But to act like that is the totality of what goes on in these parishes, that every single Novasora parish is basically a clown mass waiting to happen. That people are just that. That the only people there are boomers and there's nothing good happening in any parish. That. That's just not true either. [00:16:17] I know people. [00:16:19] I know people. I know people who are active in Novus Ordo parishes in which good things are happening. I know somebody, for example, who's a director of faith formation at a parish, a Novus Ordo parish, and he tells me about people coming off the streets to learn about, to basically want to become Catholic. Literally walking off the streets, coming to the office, say, I want to become Catholic. [00:16:38] And he does a great job of forming them and getting them ready. And then they become practicing Catholics. This is happening. This is real. And it's like if we're black pilling, we don't see that because again, we're just looking at the human, we're just looking at the bad things going on. And we're not seeing how God is still working in the midst of this. It's like if you were living in the 1530s or 1540s and you're just focused only on the process revolution and how Martin Luther and Calvin, all them, they're, they're, you know, and Henry VIII and everybody, people are leaving the church. And that's true. All those things are awful. [00:17:17] But then you don't realize what's going on. For example, over in the Americas with our La Guadalupe, you don't realize what's going on with St. Ignatius of Loyola, with St. Philip Neri, St. Teresa of Avila. Things like, you don't see any of that. You just refuse to see that. You're only focused on the fact that all these people are leaving. Yes, these people are leaving. That's awful. We need to do everything we can to stop it. But God is working at the same time. [00:17:39] That's the big thing against black pilling, that the antidote to the black pill isn't the white pill. Where you stick your head in the sand, act like nothing's wrong, nothing's. Everything's great. Everything is awesome. [00:17:50] Everything is awesome. It's the only time I sing on this is when I sing Everything is Awesome. [00:17:56] Great movie, by the way. Lego Movie classic. [00:17:58] But my point is just like, it's not that you bury your head in the sand, say there is no crisis. [00:18:03] One thing you See, with the black pillars is, they will, they will put po. You saw us a lot with the SSPX defenders, with the, the consecration defenders black pilling. [00:18:15] They will find some video of something going on at terrible. At a. At a. At a. No sort of parish, something like that. And they'll just say, oh, yeah, there is no crisis. As if people are saying that. I'm not saying. Nobody's saying that, but as if that's what people like Taylor Marshall and myself are saying when we say the consecrations were wrong. They're like, oh, yeah, there is no crisis. No, we're not saying that. [00:18:35] We're not white pilling, which I do think is. Is. [00:18:38] But we're not black pilling either. [00:18:40] I mean, white pilling, if you want to just say you have hope in God, okay, fine. But if you want, if you say if you're white pilling means you're saying there's nothing really everything is great in the church, then that's a problem. You don't want to do that. [00:18:52] So where does black pilling lead? I mean, why is black pilling so dangerous? I think it leads you to. [00:18:58] Down some dangerous paths. I think one of the most extreme, most obvious examples of black pilling is SETI vacantism. [00:19:07] SETI vacantinism, you see this because what happens is they've built this whole thing where like, they cannot see, they just simply cannot wrap their heads around the fact that God is allowing these bad things to happen in the church. And so they just reject that any of that's actually Catholicism, and they create their own church, whether it's their little chapel, their own SETI chapel, or it's a, you know, a couple SETI chapels or whatever that broke away from other SETI chapels. [00:19:33] And they. They've constructed a situation in which the only way out of it, the only way out of it is for God to work some huge miracle in a way that he's never worked in history before. [00:19:48] He doesn't work the way he doesn't work. They're basically demanding God, you have allowed. [00:19:53] You have. I guess you're powerless. You've allowed this get so bad that we haven't had a pope in 60 years or whatever the case may be. Nobody's really Catholic, none of the bishops are valid, blah, blah, blah. [00:20:04] That is your most dangerous black pilling. You see this in Archbishop Vigano, you see this in Father James Altman. People like that, they've black pilled so much because they're just looking at the human elements. [00:20:16] They see things in a Very, I think in very comic book fashion, black and white, everybody, people either all good or all evil. I mean you see that how they just go after anybody who isn't 100 on board. I mean I saw like fellow James Altman not too long ago was just railing on Taylor Marshall and it's like. And I saw a bunch of Society at St. Pius 10th Defenders railing on Taylor Marshall because he wasn't on board with the consecrations. And here's the guy who's done more for traditionalism in America than most people, than most of us, if not everybody, than most of us. He's brought more people to tradition traditionalism than most of us, bar none. I mean this is just a fact. Yet Somehow he's not 100 on board. So therefore we're going to reject him. That is completely human way of looking things and black pilling. [00:21:06] And I do think a lot of the Society of Saint Pius X defenders of the consecrations have also fallen into this black pilling. [00:21:15] I'm not saying everybody who attends SSPX is like this. I'm not saying the priests of SSPX are like this or the bishops, anything like that. But I do think though, if you read what they're saying, and I do, I would include some of the leadership of sspx it does sound very much like they're just simply trust. They're only looking at the human element. I mean that, that, that the new bishop from America, SSPX Bishop, I can't remember his name now when he talked about like the modernist church versus the Catholic Church, the traditional church and it's like the modern church is all dead and all that. It just whose language is very much is like I question if he's ever, he probably actually hasn't ever stepped foot in Novus Ordo Church parish. I have, I've met in a lot of them and I get very frustrated. A lot of them. Yet I also know lots of people who attend Novus Ordo only and they're good and holy people who lead good and holy lives with good and holy families. [00:22:06] And so I can't just dismiss them and only look at the human elements of what's going wrong because I see God is working in them as well. [00:22:13] And so because what happens is when you, when you look, when you black pill and you only look at the human elements, what happens is you take matters into your own hands. [00:22:24] You can't trust that God will take care of it. [00:22:28] I'm not saying you fall into quietism, that that's the thing you do, you just sit there passive, do nothing. Obviously, for years now, I've been trying to do something by writing books, writing articles, doing podcasts, things like that, talking to people. [00:22:41] And so it's not, I'm not saying you don't do anything, but at the same time, if you, if you decide to take matters in your own hands and you go against the church basically in order to solve the problem of the church in the church, that's black pilling. Whether it be, I'm just going to say the Pope isn't really the Pope, or I'm going to defy a direct order from the Pope. Either way, I would say it's from black pilling that this happens. And I think honestly that some of this comes from a common mistake. And that is a demand for, Okay, I won't say a demand for a perfect church. I wrote that in my notes. A demand for perfection. I know that like your typical SSPX person is not demanding a perfect church. They know there's going to be problems at church. They have problems in their own parishes. They know that. I'm not saying that. I do think some of say Vacantis might demand a perfect church, the way they talk and way they act, but they want a church made in an image that they're comfortable with that is at least good enough that they can. [00:23:44] They're not scandalized by it, to be honest. [00:23:48] And I think, though our Lord, he made very clear in his parable of the wheat and the shaft that, that we're going to be intermingled with. We're going to be in communion with a lot of bad people and we're the bad people ourselves sometimes. [00:24:02] But they have this idea that they want to recreate the, the church in an image that is more acceptable to them and they become bitter. And I mean, you see this when it leads to, you know what it leads to. It leads to you actually not going to Mass, or I should say it leads you to encouraging others not. And actually advising us not to go to Mass. State of a contest, for example, would say you don't go to Mass if it's a Mass that, that recognizes the Pope as Leo. And that's all. There's very few places you can go to Mass where they don't recognize Leo. And so they'd say if you're out in the middle of nowhere or out in, you know, Los Angeles, there's no city chapel, you just don't go to Mass. [00:24:41] So you literally don't receive the sacraments. [00:24:45] And let's Be honest, The Society of St. Pius X does this as well because they basically recommend not going to a Novus Ordo parish and even not going to, you know, a Clay Dei communities like Fraternity of St. Peter or Diocesan TLMs or something like that. If you got to the point where you're literally recommending people not to go to Mass, I think you're black pilling. I mean, I think, I don't see how you concede anything other than black pilling at that point. [00:25:15] So how do we keep from black pilling? What is the kind of solution? [00:25:18] I just want to make sure, I want to make this clear. I think I said earlier, but I'll make clear I'm giving this advice to myself first. [00:25:25] That's the danger of running a magazine called Crisis Magazine. We've seen it with other people before. [00:25:32] Our friend Steve Schocheck with 1 Peter 5 who I think, you know, I consider him a friend. I'm not going to say anything against him or bad about him, but he, you know, he ran 1 Peter 5 and then he up leaving the Catholic faith because he saw so much going wrong with it. And I don't want to make it simple. I'm not trying if Steve, you're listening, I'm not trying to make it a simplistic thing that you just like, oh, you couldn't handle it or something like that. No, I don't, I'm not trying to say that. But I am saying the dangers, Rod Dreher, same thing. [00:26:00] And we all know people who have gone out. Probably we do because they black pilled basically. [00:26:07] So how do we stop from black pilling? I think obviously the first thing is always prayer. I don't care how much I say, I don't care how much I repeat myself. I'm going to say it every time. [00:26:16] If you're not praying at least an hour a day, I would say you shouldn't be online commenting on what's going on in the church. I think it's a minimum, a minimum of an hour a day or you shouldn't be commenting. And I think it should be the first thing you do every day before you even look at a screen. You're praying. [00:26:32] That's the first one. I think God will, because God will reveal things to you. He will make you be able to handle the bad things that are happening at church in a more peaceful way, in a more charitable way. [00:26:44] Second, I would say get out of your bubble. Get out of your bubble, especially your social media bubble. Remember, the algorithm puts you in A bubble. [00:26:51] It puts you in a bubble and it only lets you see things it wants you to see. You don't see the good things going on because the algorithm knows that's not going to get you. It's not going to get your emotions up. You're not going to get upset and want to post. When you see something good happening, you're not as likely to say, oh, I can't believe that's happening, or something like that. [00:27:06] And so you don't get as much engagement, but also get out of your, your own bubble in real life. If you just. If you attend a triad parish, that's great. By the way. I attend a TLM mass and I have for years and I. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. I recommend to everybody, but also recognize that you're not see when you, when you're only. [00:27:28] When your only exposure to a Novus Ordo parish is what you hear online, that is not fair to the Novus or parish, is what I'm trying to say. I have said many negative things about Novasora parishes. I will continue to see many negative things about Novasora parishes because there are many things, negative things to say about Novus or parishes. I'm not backing down from that. [00:27:47] They're the reason we have so many people leaving the church. But if you act like it's only bad things happening, there aren't real acts of, of grace happening in them and good things happening and priests that are holy and, and just sacrificing their lives for their people, then you need to get out and touch grass a little bit. [00:28:05] So you need to get out of your bubble also. I would say get out of your historical bubble. What I mean by that is learn history. [00:28:13] I mean, I, I just think people, I just think people, they freak out and they act like this is the worst time in the world. And honestly, we're all spoiled children about that. [00:28:24] We're all a bunch of spoiled children. I just recently read a book about the Maronite Church. Maronite Church, they're, you know, two thumbs up. They're great. [00:28:32] I, I would, I want to go on a tangent, but I won't. About the Maronites. [00:28:36] But if you know the history of the Maronites and what they've gone through and like the 1860 massacre, the, the famine of 1915 through 1918, the Lebanese civil war from 1975, I think it was in 1990. All the things they've gone through, they have been gone through apocalyptic events that have decimated large sections of their church. Church. I am sure if you were a Maronite in 1860, I would not blame you if you thought the end of the world was happening because it was happening for you. [00:29:17] Yet you know what they did? They kept on. They just kept on. They remained faithful. They kept on passing on the faith. [00:29:24] The same thing is true if you live during Protestant revolution, if you live during the panocracy, if you live during Aryan crisis, if you live different times and also not even the big ones that we all know about. But there have been localized times where things have just been awful for Catholics in a localized area. And it might have seemed like the end of the world, but they just remain faithful and they have far worse than most of us have it yet. We, because of, because of media and being able to see every single bad thing going on in the world, it tends to make it seem like this is the worst time ever. And I don't think it is. I think there are very good things about being alive today. I think there are bad things. We are in a major crisis. But I don't think this is like the worst time ever. Like, I do think this is my honest opinion and obviously it's my opinion. It's subjective and other people can have opinions that change with this. I honestly think the, the idea that we're living in the end times right now because of what's going in the world, I think is ridiculous. [00:30:20] I just don't, I don't see it. I mean, I think bad things are happening, don't get me wrong. But the idea that we're in some apocalyptic time, that's different from. That's more apocalyptic, more obviously the end times and other times, I just don't think that's true now again, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. And if the Lord returns soon, I. I will rejoice and be ecstatic. For those of you who are old as I am, as you get older, you're not to. You won't be too upset about that at the end of the world. So anyway, but the point is have a knowledge of history, read more history. Not hey geography, geographies of saints and things like that, but real history of how bad things have been in the past. And recognize that yeah, things are bad now, but that's just how the way the world is. [00:31:06] That's the way it's always been. Also, obviously we have to trust in God. [00:31:11] Trust that, you know, he is still working. Don't look at just the human stuff. [00:31:15] The bad things look and Have a bigger picture. Look at the greater aspect of how God's working. [00:31:23] When you know, a family and they just had a baby and they just hadn't baptized. [00:31:29] Recognize that is a bigger deal than just about anything you read on social media. [00:31:35] The angels are rejoicing about that soul being baptized. When you, when you are an Easter vigil and you have 40 people come into the church at your parish, that is a far, far bigger deal than anything you're going to see on social media. [00:31:51] That's negative. That is God working, saving souls. And we have to remember that. We have to remember that it's okay to recognize the problems in the church today. I'm not saying don't do that. It's okay to fight against them. Just don't see it in human terms. Don't see it in human terms. [00:32:06] And I think it's a danger for all of us. I know I do it at times. And I think we just need to really resist that and also resist thinking that the only way we can solve these problems is through human ways. We don't sit back and just say, okay, God will take care of it all. [00:32:22] We do work for God's glory and for his kingdom. So. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. I do want to look at the live chat here. I don't have my. Usually I have somebody here helping me out, pulling up the comments, but I want to pull them. I'll pull them up myself here. Hope I can handle this. Anna Kate says it reminds me of Mr. Rogers saying the children seeing scary things on TV always look for the helpers in the crisis in the church. Look to the holy examples and look for the good happening in church. Amen. That's exactly right. [00:32:49] Exactly right. Don't look at just the. The bad stuff going on. There are good things happening. [00:32:55] Kate also says I don't understand all the hate for Trad Inc. For refusing to black pill. Go seti. Yeah, the whole Trad Inc. Thing is just such. I mean, it's just hard to take it seriously. It really is. It's really like the funny thing is all the things they say about trading, they're doing like they're saying we're doing these things only because we want to get engagement or whatever monetized wherever, but. And they're doing the same thing. So it's like we're all doing it. So it really. It is kind of. It. It is weird. I do think it's weird to be upset at somebody for not being totally ticked off. Like, why does that bug you so much that somebody else isn't as ticked off as you are and isn't freaking out like you are? It just, it's a weird, it's a weird thing. [00:33:39] Gracie says I'm amazed by how a lot of SSPX folks so quickly turn on Taylor Marshall. It's wild. They are unreasonable. They come off as prideful and so immature. Yeah. You know, Gracie, I've, I've been very disappointed in that too. [00:33:50] I mean, Taylor took a lot of heat for attending an SSPX chapel. Sometimes after Covid, he took a lot of heat from that, from anti SSPX people. He defended them. He's done more to help kind of promote them. But then he just in, in good conscience, he just decided, no, I cannot support the consecrations. And that's okay. I mean, there's, it's not like, of course, it's like so many people were like, you're, you hate the sspx. You're anti sspx. You're just doing it for money. You're just doing it because somebody told you to. You're, you're a controlled oppos position or whatever. I mean, I've literally been told that I'm a freemason, I'm a Jew, I'm doing it for money. All because I oppose the consecrations. And so is Taylor. And it's just, it's just, it's sad. [00:34:33] And by the way, I'm not saying all. I don't think Gracie is either. I'm not saying all the SSPX people said that. [00:34:39] I'm just saying that, you know, there were a, a sizable vocal minority that were saying things like that. Gracie also said light site news and Father Altman, no one should give them a time of day. They're definitely black pilling and poisoning souls. [00:34:54] Father Altman. Yeah, he's just gone off the deep end. He's jumped the shark. Do not follow him. He's a wolf in, in shepherd's clothing. [00:35:02] I like John Henry Weston. I have a good relationship with him. But I, I am very disappointed in what LifeSite News has been pushing out there lately. And I'll just leave it at that. [00:35:12] Cameron o'. Hearn. My man Cameron. Yes. Meditate every day. Absolutely. And just let me do a little bit to make sure what I say when I say prayer. You should pray the rosary, obviously, every day, but also do meditation where you're actually, you know, maybe a spiritual like Saint Teresa of Avila would say. You read like a spiritual reading something from the Bible or Spiritual. Spiritual author. And then you meditate on it. You really have to, you know, that's, that's very healthy to do that. So, okay, what else? We go home. [00:35:41] God is my judge. There are signs that the season is near. [00:35:44] I mean, they're definitely signs, but I feel like there's always been signs. This is probably talking about the end times. And so I, and I don't want to act like, you know, oh, there's no way it could be the end times now. Of course it could be. I just don't know. I mean, Joshua Charles and I disagree on this. And Joshua Charles is very smart man. He's very holy man. And so I, I don't want to, like, I mean, he might know more than I do, and I'm willing to admit that. And a. Kate, it was Chesterton who said, the church is dying, as usual. Yeah, that's a good quote right there, Gracie. Yes, Eric, agree versus age. When you turn 60, you really, really, Joyce, you're closer to home. It's really. It's a funny thing because when I was younger, the idea death, don't get me wrong, I, I have a lot I left to do in this life. I have children still at home. I do not want to go anytime soon. But when you're younger, the idea of death really terrifies you. As you get older, you get. You welcome it a little bit more, you know, in God's time that it's not. Not as bad as you might think otherwise. [00:36:40] Okay. Kevin says black pilling theologically becomes a lot easier when the world around you is also in such a rough state. When you're jaded about. [00:36:48] I'm not sure what col is education, housing, that can salespill over in the faith. Yeah, I think that's true. Like, I see this, like, for example, the Candace Owens things. I mentioned this on X. I don't. I didn't mention it here, though. But, like, for the first time ever in the history of this podcast, five years of doing this, I've actually lost more subscribers than I've gained in the past month, all because of my Candace Owens podcast against her, you know, criticizing her for. For what she's doing. I had a ton of people unsubscribe due to that podcast. And like, okay, like, I'm totally down with the idea that everybody's free to subscribe whoever they want to. There's so much content out there. I do not think anybody's obliged to subscribe to anybody. I, I respect everybody's choices. I, I don't want to act like I don't, but I do think it's weird that me saying something against the Internet personality is what leads so many people to, to, to say I'm, I can't follow this guy anymore. [00:37:45] I mean, I've had some controversial takes over the years and people have disagree with him, but they keep following me. But boy, you say someone gets Candace Owens all of a sudden it's like, boy, that's, that's, that's the line. But my point of that is, yeah, if you're, if you're listening to Candace Owens all the time and like you, you come up with some pretty crazy conspiracy theories that are like really, I shouldn't say even crazy as much as dark, very dark. I mean you're literally talking about the idea of Erica Kirk potentially murdering her husband in the broad daylight, basically having her husband murdered with Israel behind all this stuff that can lead you some dark places if you're, if you're doing that. So you know. Absolutely, it all ties together. [00:38:28] Last comment here. Anna Kate says in converts, remember your own conversion. What a miracle. Think of what God has done in your life and know that he will heal his church too, just as you heal your heart. You know, you're right as a convert, Anna Kate. I think that's true. I can't help but remember that without God's grace, I would be in total darkness. I mean, I guess you could say Protestantism is in like not total darkness, but it's a lot of darkness. [00:38:51] I wouldn't have the grace of the sacraments. I'd be a much worse person than I am now. And people who know me might be like, wow, that'd be pretty bad. [00:38:58] But the point is it's like, yeah, you try to remember that if you're a convert, remember that, that God saved you and he brought you into church. Now of course, if you're not convert, God saved you as well. He just did it in a different way. [00:39:11] And so be very thankful for that miracle and that should give you a positive outlook towards things and not, not be black pilling. So, so I just, I wanted to talk about that. Like I said, I think that's a problem in, for our audience, the crisis audience more than it's a, you know, it's not the biggest problem in the church today, but it is something we have to fight against. And so that's why I wanted to talk about it. Don't black pill. [00:39:33] Recognize the Christ in the church, but recognize the good and the graces that are happening in church. Today, so. Okay. Well, thanks, everybody who joined me for the live chat this evening. I really appreciate it. Until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the poor.