The Dual Islamic-Israeli Threat

[00:00:14] Which is the greater threat to the common good and to Catholic interests? Radical Islam or Zionism? [00:00:23] Well, what about both? [00:00:25] That's what we're going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, your host and in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, you know what to do. [00:00:32] Smash that like button, subscribe to the channel. Other people know what we're doing. We just hit 15,000 subscribers on YouTube. [00:00:41] And so hopefully, and we have, you know, a lot of people who listen to the podcast off of YouTube as well. So I appreciate everybody who subscribes and continue to subscribe if you haven't. [00:00:52] Okay, so I want to talk today about two threats as I see them in the world today. [00:01:00] And that is radical, by the way. There's a little gnat flying right in front of me. I tried to get rid of it before we started and I couldn't. So it's going to bug me the whole time and I will somehow prevail. [00:01:11] So the two threats that I want to talk about are radical Islam and also Israel, which obviously most people, when they think of those two, they think of them as being against each other. But I want to talk about how they're both threats now. For decades, Catholics have been focused the Catholic Church, Catholic leaders have been focused on interreligious dialogue with dialoguing with other religions, finding common ground. That's the most important thing, according to many church leaders, according to main church documents, is the idea of we have dialogue with these other religions and we find common ground. Where do we agree with them? [00:01:52] This is especially true of both Judaism and Islam because those are the two non Christian religions that are closest to Catholicism as far as in their beliefs. [00:02:05] And the truth is there are reasons to ally with both Judaism and Islam in today's world. Now, this isn't exactly why the Vatican and other church leaders do it so much, but I would argue that I talked about these two threats, Israel and Iraq, Islam. But perhaps the greatest threat today is more of a secularism, an anti religious attitude, atheistic attitude, this secular attitude that basically wants to destroy all belief in God, all belief in afterlife and in the spiritual world, materialism, all that, that is a great threat, perhaps the greatest threat in the west today. [00:02:49] Now. And both Judaism and Islam are opposed to that. Now, the truth is, in reality, a lot of Jewish people are actually secularist. They're agnostic or they're atheist, although they are, they consider themselves Jews. And so they're really on the side of the secular enemy more than they are. You know, on the side of Judaism. [00:03:14] But it makes sense for religions, various religions at times to come together and be allies against a common threat, against the threat of atheism, secularism, you know, globalism, things like that. [00:03:29] But we've forgotten, I feel like we've forgotten in modern times, at least, that we can't be 100% allies with any religion other than Catholicism. We're not on the same side completely with any other religion. Now, the more religions like Catholicism, the more we can be allies with it. Obviously, Eastern Orthodoxy, very close to Catholicism compared to every other religion. Protestantism, also relatively close. You keep going out, you know something, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and go. And the list goes on. [00:04:04] The more another religion is like Catholicism, yes, the more we can ally with them and set aside differences at times for a common enemy. [00:04:12] But we cannot forget that these religions are not Catholicism, and they are opposed to Catholicism in many ways. Yes, we have some common beliefs, some common desires in the world, but they do not have the same end goal as Catholicism does. Catholicism's end goal is the conversion of all people to Christ in the Catholic Church. [00:04:37] And that includes Jews, that includes Muslims, that includes everybody who's not Catholic needs to become Catholic. Everybody who is Catholic needs to work harder to be a saint. That's the goal. And so because of that, we have to recognize that both Islam, particularly radical Islam, by the way, that distinction I'm making there. [00:05:00] There's a lot of Muslims today who basically live their life kind of like we would say an average Catholic in America lives his. His religion in that they're not really a threat to anybody. They pay their taxes, they're nice neighbors, all that. We still want to confirm Catholicism, don't get me wrong. But they're not like some existential threat. [00:05:21] Radical Islam are those who take the teachings of their church much more seriously than not their church. They take the teachings of their religion much more seriously and much more literally. And so they're definitely a threat. [00:05:35] And so when I say radical Islam, I mean primarily them as being the threat. Now, here's the thing. In our political world of left and right, of red and blue in America, radical Islam's like the boogeyman of the right. [00:05:51] Most conservatives look at them as being one of the gravest threats we face. [00:05:57] Whereas on the left, especially the more radical left, they look at Israel as the great threat, not Islam, which is, there is an irony to that, because if Islam gets in control, those radical leftists aren't getting anything they want. [00:06:13] So it's just crazy that they ally align with radical Islam more than they would Israel, for example, based upon what they believe. But that's just the way it is. The radical left sees Israel as a boogeyman. [00:06:27] The conservatives, the right sees radical Islam as the boogeyman. And by boogeyman, I don't mean that it's not a threat. I just mean that that's the greatest threat. [00:06:35] I believe as Catholics, we need to kind of escape from the binary, strictly binary political thinking of Americans, of left and right and the Western world in general and recognize that we need to be critical of both radical Islam and Israel at the same time. We can't just think that, okay, because radical Islam is a problem, we need to be 100% behind Israel or less likely. In this audience, in my audience, because Israel is a problem, we have to ally with radical Islam. [00:07:12] We have to understand that both are problems. Both really do work against the common good in general and against the interests of Catholicism in particular. [00:07:20] Let me break down each one of them and their threat and why I think they're both threats. So radical Islam, I know for my audience you're probably going to already be aware of this, but I want to make it clear that it really is a threat. I do think we've kind of forgotten a little bit how much of a threat it is in America particularly, because, let's be honest, Islam is taking over Europe. [00:07:44] It's taking over Europe. Just listen to any story from England, for example, and other countries, Germany, France, and you see that what the Islamic warriors centuries ago couldn't accomplish, their descendants are accomplishing now simply through immigration, through WOKE policies that refuse to stand for Christendom, refuse to stand for Christian principles, and instead allows just flood and floods of Muslims to come in. And then they don't require them to adapt to the culture. [00:08:20] So instead of you come to England and you start to live by English culture, which is Christian, instead you, you can just basically import your way of living, your religious way of living into this country and make everybody else abide by what you think. So there's this real takeover. [00:08:41] I just saw a story today that is a perfect example of how Islam is taking over Europe. [00:08:49] In Spain, this is from Catholic. I'm sorry, this is from European conservative. [00:08:54] I'll read a little bit of it here. [00:08:56] A priest in Spain is on trial, facing up to three years behind bars for alleged hate speech after publishing an article critical of Islam. [00:09:06] Father Custodio Ballister, known for his pro life stance and doctrinal conservatism, is accused of inciting hatred in a 2016. This is nine years ago 2016 text titled the Impossible Dialogue with Islam and later media remarks. The case, launched after a complaint by the group Muslims Against Islamophobia, has ignited fierce debate over free speech and claims that Spain's hate crime laws are applied selectively. Father Bellister responded to a pastoral letter from Cardinal Omela in 2016 that called for interreligious dialogue. The priest questioned the viability of such dialogue, pointing out that in countries where Islam is the dominant religion, Christians suffer systematic persecution. [00:09:53] What dialogue are we talking about when there are countries where those who do not profess Islam are murdered, he ask. [00:10:00] And so he set for trial for this article he wrote in Spain. [00:10:06] He faces up to three years in jail for this. [00:10:09] And another thing that's awful is the country's bishops, Spanish bishops, have not spoken out in his defense. [00:10:17] Now, this is a great example of how Islam is. I was going to say slowly, but it's happening pretty quickly. But is taking over without a shot being fired. If you can't even say that Islam rejects dialogue, that Islamic countries controlled by Muslims do not allow for religious freedom, and that there's no point in having any religious dialogue with them in your country because of that, if you can't do that without being potentially thrown into jail, Islam has won. [00:10:54] Because we know that if a Muslim were to criticize Catholicism in Spain, he's not getting thrown into jail. [00:11:02] So who's the dominant power there? [00:11:06] What's the dominant religion? And this is particularly galling for Spain because Spain spent 700 years overthrowing the Islamic yoke. [00:11:18] 700 years. Longest war in history was the Spanish trying to rid themselves of Islamic invaders. [00:11:28] Took them 700 years to do that. So now, after all the sacrifices brave men and women in Spain made for centuries to defend the faith, defend Catholicism, defend against the takeover from Islam, now their descendants of those brave men and women are basically opening the door saying, come on in. And you can not only come on in, you can take over. [00:11:52] You can make the culture yours. [00:11:55] I mean, that is a real threat. [00:11:59] So Europe is falling, if not already fallen. [00:12:02] And. And it's very likely, if we keep the progression we're going now, that many countries in Europe will be basically run by Muslims until they are Islamic countries, like a Saudi Arabia might be. [00:12:18] I don't think this is hyperbole. I don't think I'm like going crazy, you know, saying something that's just radically crazy. This is just the way it's been happening over the years. I mean, I'm old enough to know. I've seen it happen. I know 40 years ago this wasn't true, and now it is. [00:12:33] Then we talk about other countries such as Nigeria. That's in the news recently because of. Of all people, Bill Maher brought this up. [00:12:42] So this is from the Catholic News Agency says according to the Catholic Bishops of Niger conference of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, at least 145 priests have been kidnapped, 11 have been murdered and four remain missing since 2015. [00:12:58] However, Inter Society claims the reality is much worse. [00:13:02] According to its count, at least 250 Catholic clergy have been attacked, in addition to another 350 clergy from other denominations. [00:13:10] Furthermore, the report estimates that from the Boko Haram uprising in July 2009 to September of this year, 2025, 19,100 Christian churches in Nigeria have been destroyed. Over. Over 19,000 churches have been destroyed in Nigeria, looted or violently closed, representing an average of 1200 churches per year, 100 per month, or more than three per day. More than three Christian churches in Nigeria since 2009 have either been destroyed, looted or violently closed every single day in Nigeria in the past 16 years. [00:13:49] The persecution of Christians. The article continues in Nigeria has also led to a mass Exodus. At least 15 million people have been displaced, forced to abandon their villages, ancestral homes and churches to flee the massacres. [00:14:01] Some estimates say that more than 100,000 Christians have been killed since 2009 in Nigeria. [00:14:12] This is a real ethnic cleansing going on by Muslims. [00:14:18] And then now, then we talk about other. And that's happening in multiple countries in Africa, maybe not as bad as Nigeria. Then we talk about, like, what about countries that are actually Islamic, like in the Middle east, like Saudi Arabia? [00:14:30] In those countries, go try to proclaim the gospel, go try to set up a Catholic church somewhere, anywhere you want to see what happens. [00:14:39] You're not going to meet with religious freedom, you're not going to have dialogue, you're going to be shut down, you're going to be arrested, you might get kicked out of the country, you might get killed. [00:14:46] You simply. Christians do not have freedom in countries run their Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia. And remember, Saudi Arabia is a deep ally of the United States. That's a real problem. [00:15:00] And then of course, we have radical Islam here in America, the most famous example being 9 11, of course, in which radical Islamists, Muslims, they came and they attacked and they killed over 3,000 people. [00:15:15] And then we have like the city of Dearborn, Michigan. The city of Dearborn, Michigan. The mayor is Muslim. The majority of the city council is Muslim. The police chief issues Islamic Blessings. [00:15:29] More than 50% of the police force is Muslim. [00:15:32] The congresswoman who represents the area is Muslim. And they are not only Muslim, but they are pro Hamas, pro Hezbollah. [00:15:40] I mean, Dearborn is an Islamic city that is essentially run as a Muslim city. And this is in America. [00:15:49] Now, some might say, well, that's okay. We have diversity here in America. [00:15:53] We allow for religious freedom. This isn't religious freedom, though. This is a false religion taking over a city, and they're not going to be content with just one city. [00:16:04] That's the thing is like, religious freedom ultimately is somewhat of a lie. [00:16:09] Now, there is some truth to it in that there should be religious tolerance. The difference between tolerance and liberty is. Might be not clear, But Catholics have always allowed for religious tolerance, particularly when Catholics aren't running the entire country. [00:16:26] The idea that, yes, you can allow, for example, Muslims to gather and to pray together, even set up a mosque or something like that, but if they begin to take over the government, we know what's happened in history when they do, it becomes Sharia law. Eventually it becomes like, you have no rights if you're not Muslim in that area. [00:16:48] And this is happening at least in one city. And of course, Minnesota, which has a lot of Minneapolis, which has a lot of this as well. [00:16:56] So the point of this is that radical Islam we can't stop being vigilant against is a major problem for the west, particularly in Europe. [00:17:08] And it's something that we need to be cognizant of. [00:17:13] Now, I will say this. [00:17:15] I don't think it's the place of America to go to the Middle east, for example, and shut down, try to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia. [00:17:25] I mean, the fact is, as an American Catholic, I don't want, you know, the. The men of our military dying, fighting over there to overthrow their governments. That just doesn't work. It makes things worse. In fact, I would argue that a lot of modern radical Islam, not talking about historic modern radical Islam, is due to our involvement in the Middle East. It's what's fostered a deep hatred of the west by many Muslims and a radicalization of many of them. And in fact, it's one of the reasons for the great immigration crisis in Europe is because of the unrest that we have helped to bring about in the Middle east in Africa and other places, that many flee to Europe into America and to other places. [00:18:16] So I really don't think, you know, when I say radical Islam is a problem, I'm not saying we need to go in and change the government of Saudi Arabia. What I am saying though is we should not allow Muslims in our country or and Europe should not allow it to happen where they begin to take over and begin to change laws to favor Islam. That's the real issue here is we just have to, we have to stand up to that. So it's a real threat. [00:18:46] Now because of this very real threat, particularly because of 9 11, many Catholics, conservative Catholics, many conservative Christians, evangelicals, conservatives in general have said, okay, radical Islam just killed 3,000 people in our country, just attacked us. We need to make sure we ally with those who are against, against Raq Islam and Israel is on that list. [00:19:16] So we need to ally with Israel. [00:19:20] And they would argue who these people would argue that we have to defend and support Israel because they are the only defense for democracy, for freedom in the Middle east against the rise of radical Islam. [00:19:34] Now I understand that argument on some level. I'm not just dismissing it like it's the not. [00:19:40] It has no validity. [00:19:43] If you compare Israel to America and the nation of Israel to America and Saudi Arabia to America, yes, it's very true. Israel is more like America. Israel is a more natural ally than Saudi Arabia is. I grant that that should be obvious to everybody. [00:20:04] That being said though, the problem is because we think in binary terms, it's become unconditional support for Israel, that we support Israel no matter what they do or what they say or how they act. [00:20:18] Because if we don't, somehow that gives a leg up to radical Islam, the other threat. But the fact is is that they're both threats. Israel is also a threat, which I'll detail here in a minute. [00:20:32] Like I said, I understand the political argument for supporting Israel against radical Islam. I don't think it should foster at first. I don't think it's that true that we need to support Israel. In fact, I think our support of Israel fosters radical Islam, gets more people to be radicalized. [00:20:49] Because when all of a sudden Israel kills some young Muslims with American paid for or American built bombs, you're going to radicalize their relatives against Israel and against America. [00:21:05] So I don't really think we should support Israel to defend against radical Islam, but I understand the argument. [00:21:12] Another reason though there's so much support of Israel in our country is of course religious reasons. And this comes, this is based in heretical beliefs of evangelical Protestants that it's, you know, Christian Zionism, which sadly there are Catholics who, who embrace this heresy. [00:21:32] And I do call it heresy. I don't mean that in a, in a. I'm not just throwing out that term like you, you know, you say, oh, he's a heretic, whatever. And people say, without really meaning it or knowing what it means, I know what it means. And Zionism is a heresy in the Catholic Church. It's this idea that we don't need to evangelize the Jews, that somehow the Jewish people based upon the Old Covenant can be saved without really reference to Jesus Christ. Now even Catholic Zionists and Christian Zionists will say, oh, no, Jesus Christ is somehow involved. But in practice, a Jew does not have to acknowledge Christ at all. In fact, he can reject Christ explicitly. [00:22:16] And yet they would still say somehow he can be saved through the Old Covenant. This is not just read St. Paul. This is not. This is simply not true. There's not two covenants in the sense of two saving covenants. There's one covenant in which the Old Covenant, a series of old covenants, was fulfilled in the New Covenant. Often you hear it thrown out there. Oh, you believe in a replacement theology, which is, you know, been rejected by the church for years. [00:22:43] Well, it's just become a slur used to try to shut people up. [00:22:49] What I believe and what Catholics should believe and what the Catholic Church has taught historically, traditionally, is fulfillment theology. [00:22:58] The idea that Jesus Christ fulfills the Old covenant. [00:23:03] He fulfills it. [00:23:05] He is the new Adam. The Church is the new Israel. [00:23:09] The real Israel today is the Catholic Church, not some nation state created in 1948, and not even the people who call themselves Jews today. That's not the true nation of Israel. The true nation of Israel is, of course, the Catholic Church, because the Catholic Church is a fulfillment. It didn't replace the Old Israel as much as it transformed the Old Israel into the New Israel. [00:23:35] There is a difference here. I mean, honestly, I don't really care about if you want to say it's replacement. I know people want to, you know, use that term as, oh, that's hair. That that's wrong. The Church rejects that. [00:23:46] I think that the. The more accurate term is fulfillment. [00:23:51] The Old Covenant simply does not save anymore. It does not say, in fact, the Old Covenant never saved on its own. It only saved in the sense that it pointed to and directed people to Jesus Christ. That's how it saved all the people in the Old Testament, all the patriarchs, King David, Moses, Abraham, they were all saved through Jesus Christ by being, by, by embracing the Old Covenant, which pointed to Jesus Christ. Everything points to Jesus Christ, the old and the new. [00:24:19] So anybody who supports Any Christian who supports Israel, the modern state of Israel, on religious grounds. It simply is. [00:24:28] It's. You're embracing heresy. Whether I'm not saying you're a heretic, in fact, you're a formal heretic. You explicitly do it. You might not realize what you're doing, but it's not Catholic teaching. [00:24:38] The other issue we have with Israel that we don't have with radical Islam is you're simply not allowed to criticize Israel in many circles today, conservative circles particularly, and that's mostly due to the Holocaust. Now, I am not a Holocaust denier. I think the narrative about the Holocaust is largely true in the sense that, yes, millions and millions of people were killed by the Nazis, that the Nazis were horribly evil, Hitler was evil. No Catholic in any way support Hitler or the Nazis. And just ask Dietrich von Hildebrand, Maximilian Colby, Teresa Naumann. You know, plenty of faithful Catholics at the time opposed Hitler. So the idea that some Catholics have today of kind of like cozying up in the Nazis, saying, oh, they weren't so bad, they had a lot of good things, is just ridiculous. [00:25:30] But millions of people were killed, including millions of Jews. I was just reading a book, and it was about the commandant of Auschwitz. When Maximin Colby was there and got killed, he actually testified. He was arrested after the war, and he actually testified that at Auschwitz alone under him, 2 million people were killed, mostly Jews. 2 million. [00:25:52] And I think he said 3 million total, if you include like, all the deaths that weren't just, like, people they explicitly killed. But the point is, it was millions just at Auschwitz. [00:26:01] So I want to make it clear, I completely accept the narrative, the dominant narrative of the Holocaust. I see no reason to dispute it. [00:26:09] But the problem is what we've seen is because of that grave evil, we are no longer allowed to criticize in any way, shape or form. Anybody who's Jewish or any Jewish group or any Jewish nation were simply not allowed to do it. The problem, of course, is this is the pendulum swinging the other way where now they can do no wrong. You're just not allowed. You just. No matter what they do, you can't say anything because that's anti Semitism. [00:26:35] Benjamin Netanyahu order some immoral attack on a city in Palestine. Oh, and you dare say that you're an anti Semite. You basically want to go back to the Nazis. You're a Nazi. You're. You supported the Holocaust. That's basically the level of argumentation, and that is part of the problem and why the nation of Israel today is a threat to Catholics and to American interest. [00:27:02] Because if you simply can't criticize another nation, if you have to ally with them 100% unconditionally, that's a real problem. Because that does not put your country's interests first. It puts the other countries into interest first. It becomes Israel first rather than America first. [00:27:20] And there's nothing wrong with the Catholic being America first. Now, as Catholics, we do have a more global, universal view of the world. We want the good for everyone. [00:27:29] But there's a healthy patriotism that recognizes we owe a debt of justice to our country in which we live, the country in which we're born into. [00:27:40] And so if another country naturally is going to have interests that are not the same as your country's, this is not like some grand conspiracy, some evil. Just to say that that's just simply because every country has different needs, different. Different wants, different design, different things. It needs to succeed. [00:27:57] And so we can't put another country before our own. Now, it doesn't mean we go attack the other country, just means we don't put their interest in front of ours. [00:28:05] So Israel, though the reason it's a threat isn't because it's necessarily killed as many people as radical Islam has. It hasn't. [00:28:13] Or that it's like taking over Europe by, you know, immigration or something like that. The problem is, is that it is committing grave evils in our name or at least with our support. [00:28:26] That's. That's also an evil. When Raqqa Islam, like people in Nigeria, they kill lots of people. [00:28:34] That's a grave evil. And we, we should oppose it, but we're not supporting it in any way, at least that I know of. If there is a way that the American government's supporting it, we need to stop that, obviously, and condemn it. But we're not, you know, we don't have Congress supporting the Islamic government, Islamic forces in Nigeria in their slaughter of Christians. [00:28:59] Yes, some, we might be ignoring it somewhat, but we're not supporting it. The same is not true of Israel. Its atrocities it's committing in Palestine, we are actually supporting and endorsing. [00:29:11] We're complicit with their crimes in a way that is not seen with Islam. So yes, it might kill Israel, might kill less in Iraqwa Islam, but with more of our support. So both are real threats. And by threat, I mean a threat to our soul, a threat to our integrity as a nation. [00:29:29] There's just too much influence of Israel in this country. You, yes, Islam's influence is growing in this country. Not as much as in Europe. Not as much as in Europe. [00:29:39] But I would say Islam, I'm sorry, Israel's influence on America is just as bad as Islam's influence on England or Spain or France or Germany. They're both problems. [00:29:56] You can have that thought. You can believe both are problems. You don't have to be like, well know, we have to support Israel because we're against Raqqa Islam or vice versa. They're both problems. [00:30:06] And I would say Israel in some ways is. I don't want to say it's a greater threat, but it's a different type of threat because I think more good people don't see it as the threat it is. [00:30:17] I find very few good Catholics who are supportive of radical Islam, but I see a lot of good Catholics who support atrocities committed by Israel simply because they're like, well, we have to fight against radical Islam. We had to fight against Hamas, things like that. [00:30:34] You can't throw out the line, well, Hamas is evil. I just went on for how long? About how evil radical Islam is. [00:30:41] That does not condone everything done in response to it, particularly what Israel is doing. [00:30:46] So I would say the Catholic attitude, the more like, broad, like, you know, attitude is this. It's like a both and type of situation. We don't side with any other religion or any other country unconditionally. [00:30:59] We support our own religion first and our own country first. So, yes, a Canadian Catholic should put Canada before America. If you're listening, Kennedy hall, go ahead. [00:31:11] An English Catholic should put his country in front of America. That's all fine, but you put Catholicism first, your religion first, and your country first. [00:31:22] We shouldn't look at the world like a comic book that there's, okay, these guys are bad guys, therefore these guys are good guys. That's not how it works. There can be multiple bad guys who are both bad, and the bad guys can hate each other and fight each other. [00:31:36] That doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong. They can both be wrong. [00:31:41] We also have to tell ourselves, what are we responsible for? [00:31:45] It is true. [00:31:47] I don't get as upset or concerned or engaged about Islamic atrocities happening in Africa that we had nothing to do with, as I do at Israeli atrocities that we supported. My tax dollars helped support, my politicians, I voted for supported, because one I have nothing to do with, the other one I have at least some connection to. [00:32:15] And so, yeah, so when they always say, like, oh, I've seen this argument a few times, a million times, even recently, like, why is it that These people don't seem to care about what's happening in Nigeria to Christians, but they get all upset with what's happening in Gaza. What could it be? And we know what they're, they're implying. It's anti Semitism, it's hatred of Jews. There's no other possible explanation. It's the only thing it could be. [00:32:42] That's ludicrous. I'm not supporting in any way, shape or form what's going on in Nigeria, but I am sadly supporting with my tax dollars at the very least what's going on in Gaza. [00:32:58] And so, yeah, I am going to talk more about that than I am about what's going on in Nigeria. Both are evils. [00:33:03] And one might be more evil in the sense of just more people dying, being killed, things like that, but I'm not supporting that one in any way. [00:33:11] So ultimately, the final kind of point I want to make, and we'll go to the live chat here in a second, is simply this. [00:33:19] As Catholics, we should want the conversion of all people. [00:33:25] Nobody is a full. No other religious, no other religion is a full and unqualified ally. [00:33:31] We, we can ally with them for certain things. [00:33:35] And at times it might be prudent not to emphasize our differences. I more than grant that. But ultimately the goal is the conversion of all people to the Catholic Church. [00:33:45] So we should be asking the Blessed Mother to really intercede for the conversion of Muslims, the conversion of Jews, the conversion of everybody who's not Catholic to the Catholic Church. We should be begging our Blessed Mother for that. That's something we should be doing no matter what. So it's not just a matter of we take one side or the other. Our side is the Catholic side. If you're America, your side's the American side. If you're Canada, your side's the Canadian side or whatever the case may be. If your country's doing something evil, you call it out. But you want the best for your country. Nothing wrong with that. [00:34:20] Okay, let me go to the live chat here real quick. [00:34:23] Theodore Seabor says it's not just ethnic or religious. The Sudan and Nigerian genocides are also very deeply skin color racist Arabs killing off what blacks they can't enslave. Okay, that's good to know. It's not just, it's not just religious or ethnic. Ethnic. I mean, what's going on is awful. It's horrible. [00:34:40] I mean, the fact is a lot of horrible things go on around the world. And I've never been one who thought the American America should be the policeman. We definitely shouldn't do anything to support these countries, and I'd be willing to bet that we do in some ways through our international aid. So at least before Trump, we were so. [00:34:57] Okay, B. B.P. koch says I pray for both for conversion. Yes, that's what I said at the end. Exactly. You're absolutely right. We, we pray for the conversion of all people to the Catholic Church. John B. Says Catholics should preach about Rabbi Zoli who converted. Yeah, I mean, the, the, there's a lot of. [00:35:15] I mean, there's been some beautiful conversions of Jewish people and Muslims to the, the Catholic faith, and we should really proclaim those. I've seen a number of stories about Muslims converting Catholicism in recent years. Let's hear the stories also about Jewish people converting. The problem is we don't try to convert them. Our church leaders tell us not to try to convert Jews particularly. I mean, there's actually been Vatican statements that have suggested that we shouldn't try to convert. There should be no evangelization efforts to Judaism. I think that's ridiculous. That goes flies in the face of what St. Peter did, what St. Paul did. I mean, the whole history of the church. We do it the same way we do with every other non Catholics. We don't do it by force. We don't do it through, you know, some type of pressure that is untoward, but we do it through prayer, we do it through penance, and we do it through evangelization proclamation of the gospel to them. [00:36:12] Okay. Michael Grillo says the Islamists are the biggest threat. They need to be evangelized. The Mohammedans are colonizing Western Europe. [00:36:19] Again, I don't, I mean, you've heard my arguments this whole podcast. I, I don't. They're, they're a great threat. I don't disagree with you. Are they the biggest threat? I don't know. I mean, what we're doing in, in. I, I would argue that it's interconnected. [00:36:32] What we're doing to support Israel grows hatred of the west among Muslims and it turns regular Muslims, who. I'm, I'm saying they should be converted, but they're not radical Muslims. It's. It turns them into radical Muslims and. But you're absolutely right, though, Michael. What they're doing Western Europe is awful. [00:36:51] Noel Daly says mainstream education in much of the west has totally erased the great role of the church in building our civilization. Young people take much for granted and so can't perceive foreign threats. That's a great point. Very, very, very true. Our education is such A mess. And it basically makes it like, like you'll hear about like all these great scientific and mathematical advancements by Islam back in the day and they'll just ignore the advancements made in the west, the, the pre Christian west, like Aristotle, Plato, things like that, you know, in ancient Israel and then of course in Christianity. I mean we built the Western civilization, the Catholic Church did, and yet that's forgotten and ignored by much of, of the world. And it allows them because it's like you can see the, the kind of, the, the progression. It starts with kind of underplaying the role of Christianity in Western civilization, what's good about Christianity. Then it becomes of we have to be accepting of other religions. We take tolerance so far that we say okay, we'll be accepting. Then we start to be like, okay, we will allow other religions, particularly Islam to kind of run things the way they run them and we'll start to undermine our own beliefs, our own laws and traditions for theirs until eventually what happens is they are in control. [00:38:06] That's the kind of progression all starts with an undermining of, of our own what we believe and a, a ecumenism, interreligious dialogue that just start only looks for the good in other religions and doesn't recognize that there are errors, very dangerous errors in other religions. So. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time everybody. God love you, Sam.