July 29, 2025 • 60 mins
I unpack what it means to be innocent in a world that no longer believes in innocence. From a surprising (and partly bizarre) podcast clip featuring Barack Obama (‘on raising sons’) to memories of James Evans Sr. saving the day in Good Times, I explore masculinity, fatherhood, the erosion of family authority, and the danger of outsourcing a child’s moral compass to “better parents.”
In the second segment of the show, I open the Mass readings and get into the topic of Innocence, with a sprinkling of Thomas Aquinas’s take, and my prescription for how you can reclaim purity of heart—no matter how far you’ve fallen. Oh, and there's a big announcement: introducing The Waypoint Dispatch, a new newsletter that bridges the gap between the fast food of social media and the rich meal of Substack.
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🗒️ Chapters and Show Notes
* 00:00 Audio chaos, mic magnets, and the reverb from the abyss
* 03:00 Barack Obama’s comments on gay professors, empathy, and co-parenting
* 08:15 Why the “diversity of dads” idea is more dangerous than it seems
* 13:30 Pop culture fathers: James Evans Sr. vs. Mike Brady
* 18:45 Modern progressivism and the family as target #1
* 22:10 The special announcement: introducing The Waypoint Dispatch newsletter
* 28:00 Innocence in Scripture: Abraham, Sodom, and the Gospel
* 33:00 Aquinas on innocence: it's not just about not sinning
* 36:10 How we actually reclaim innocence: grace, penance, persistence
* 40:00 Modern culture’s assault on innocence—from store displays to PG-13 content
* 47:00 A call to arms: prayerfulness, penance, and building back spiritual muscle
Mentioned:
* Good Times and James Evans Sr. as a masculine ideal
* The cultural gap between social media and longform Catholic thought
* New newsletter: The Waypoint Dispatch
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
CA (00:03):
Welcome everybody. Welcome to the Catholic experience. I'm
your host, the CatholicAdventurer. Thank you very much
for joining me. This isbroadcast live everywhere.
I wish you could hear what I'mhearing right now. I'll get into
that in a second. But recordedlive Sunday, July 27. In the
(00:23):
year of our lord, lord, lord,lord, 2025. And I say, thank
thank thank you.
You you you. Catholic churchchurch church. None of you are
getting that joke because youdon't hear what's coming through
my headset. But you catch theyou catch it, though. Right?
You can you can kind ofunderstand what I'm saying.
(00:44):
Right? You understand where I'mcoming from with that joke.
Right? I'm getting just theslightest bit of echo up in here
up in here.
I don't know what's up withthat. But Hello? Hello? Yeah.
Okay.
Just now faded out. That was soweird. Today, we're talking
about modern day no. There it isagain. Today, we're talking
about modern day innocence.
What does that mean? And is itreally hopeless at the end of
(01:09):
the day? Modern day innocence.Is it just hopeless? It's not so
hopeless as you think.
We're gonna get into that. I'malso gonna talk to you a little
bit about a recent I don't knowif it was recent, to be honest
with you. Barack Obama showed upon a podcast talking about
manhood, raising sons. Said acouple of things that were a
(01:31):
little bit weird that might notsurprise you. The fact that it
was weird might not surpriseyou.
But he did say one or two thingsthat I I think were valid, and
we're gonna talk about that atthe top of the show. Also, I'm
going to make a specialannouncement in my finest
(01:53):
broadcaster's voice, which goesbeautifully, lovely, rich, and
creamy in my headset that'sreverbing just the slightest
bit. It's a little bit morereverb than old school AM radio,
and just son of a bitch. Andjust a little bit less than a
(02:14):
sports arena. I have to tellyou, this is comical.
I have this microphone which hasa magnetic clip in my pocket.
Don't ask me why. And I have ametal clip, a wristband on my
watch. So every time my and thethe magnet is very strong. So
every time my wrist gets tooclose to my shirt pocket, it
goes that's what you caught justa moment ago.
(02:37):
That's why I said SOB where Iprobably shouldn't have. Sorry
for any grannies out there whodon't like that the Catholic
adventurer says things like, sonof a bleep. So let's get on with
it. Let me at least preface thespecial announcement because if
you are a regular fan, listener,viewer of my podcast,
(03:00):
particularly if you catch me onsocials, this is all about you.
So I'm just going to drop it thebasics right now, then we're
gonna start the show, and thenI'll get into the particulars
and details.
Here's the thing. Let me see ifI can do my super cool drama cam
(03:22):
right about now. I guess whathappens is when I'm really loud,
it's reverbing. I think I knowwhy it's doing that. But I I
promise this is the last timeI'll mention it.
So here's the thing. I do okayon social media. Just okay, and
I really mean just okay. But Iget some traction on social
media. The problem is mostpeople on social media, I don't
(03:47):
wanna say most people, but agood number of people, don't
want to listen to a full episodeof a podcast, or they don't want
to cross over to Substack.
Forget about subscribing. Theyjust don't wanna even cross over
to Substack or to any site atall. Even if you tell them all
of the secrets to the universeare there. They just won't do
(04:10):
it. It's not a character flaw.
It's just something with peopleon the Internet. I don't
understand it. It's just howpeople on the Internet are. It's
not a character flaw. I'm notinsulting anybody.
Okay. So how do we do that? Howdo I get somebody to here's the
thing. Social media is far toolimited for what I do. Far, far,
(04:34):
far too limited for what I do.
I can do a clip inside of aminute and thirty seconds. It'll
be entertaining. But to reallyget the gold nugget out of that
clip, you need to watch likefour or five minutes. But if you
publish something that's four orfive minutes long, the algorithm
will just barely distribute youdistribute you. Of course, it it
(04:55):
does vary from platform toplatform.
But anyway, The algorithm is areal pain in the neck. It's
really a difficult competitor.There are people who, who enjoy
my work on socials, but that'swhere they stay. You can ask
them, beg them, plead, threaten,doesn't matter. They're not
leaving that platform.
(05:15):
Understandable. Well, how do Ibridge that gap? How do I bridge
the gap between the shallow endof the pool that is social
media, and the deep end of thepool that is my substack and or
the long form podcast on podcastnetworks? How do I bridge that
gap? Here's what I've come upwith.
(05:36):
I'm going to start a newsletterthat specifically bridges that
gap. It's basically a microsubstack. Micro substack. It's
it's not as deep or as rich oras broad as this as my substack,
But it's also broader and richerthan what you're gonna get from
me on socials. What that's goingto be, how that's going to work,
(05:59):
I'll get into later on in theshow.
You know, it's almost a funnything, and I do mean almost a
funny thing. I tried doing aproper newsletter. I don't know,
maybe a year ago I started one.It was called Notes From The
Field. I worked really hard onit, but it was damn hard getting
(06:20):
people to sign up.
And every time I'm I'm not evenexaggerating. I worked for each
one of those, I worked it had tobe at least an hour or two that
I was working on each one ofthose. Because there was a lot
of writing in it. You have towrite the blurbs, and I did a
piece on the church fathers orsomething else that was
(06:40):
doctrinal or scriptural orsomething. I mean and it looked
nice, and it takes time todesign something to look nice.
I worked ease easily an hour onit. An hour from of designing,
setting up, and and sending it,plus at least forty five minutes
writing the major piece that Iincluded in there. And then
plus, you know, the blurbs frommy thing. So it was basically,
(07:02):
let's say, two hours of work.And after two hours of work, you
don't know how heartbreaking itis that people unsubscribe after
they receive it.
It's really kind of funny, butdamn heart wrenching. And after
a while of that, I said, I'm I'mdone. It's just costing me money
to operate a newsletter, andit's just insulting when people
(07:25):
unsubscribe after you've workedso hard to make something nice
and beautiful and rich andwhatever. So it's almost funny
that I'm trying my hand at at,news lettering again. But, it's
not just a newsletter.
There's more to it, but I'll getinto that later on in the show.
(07:46):
Let's talk about Barack Obama.Barack Obama, well, again, I I
don't remember when this was.This has made its way onto the
socials over the past week. I'veseen it on TikTok.
I've seen it on Instagram. Ithink I even saw one or two
things on x. And as far as I'mconcerned, everyone was missing
(08:08):
the mark. Everyone wascommenting on the wrong thing,
and they missed something thatthey should have been paying
attention to. We're gonna getinto that right now.
I just wanna make sure I queueup the right, the right thing
because if they're out of order,we're gonna miss the effect.
Just give me a moment here.Please and thank you. Let's see
Obama (08:33):
what's happening. I don't remember, maybe, when I was a
really young child, other thanthe idea that guys were strong,
they didn't whine. I do like thething you brought up though
about being a protector. At itsbest it then counterbalanced the
idea of being strong. You'restrong not to pick on people,
(08:58):
not to be a bully, not todominate others.
Instead, it's strength in orderto protect.
CA (09:08):
Okay. So that's an example of something good that he said.
That queued a a little ahead ofschedule, so, I didn't get to
intro it. But that was somethinggood that he said. I agree.
It's important for men to bestrong, but for the right
reasons. There was a show in theseventies, early eighties called
(09:29):
Good Times. Good Times was abouta black family that lived in the
ghetto of Chicago, Illinois inThe United States Of America.
And they lived in a housingproject, and, they were very
poor. It it was a comedy.
It was a sitcom. Very popular inAmerica in the seventies. I
guess probably in in Europe aswell. It was one of my favorite
(09:51):
shows ever. I loved it loved itloved it when when I watched it
as a kid.
One of the main characters inthere was the head of the
family, James Evans senior,played by John Amos. Very funny
guy, great actor, greatcharacter. He was just
tremendous in that in that role.Now James Evans Junior was a
(10:14):
senior was a tough, toughcookie. Sometimes he raised his
voice, you know, sometimes hethreatened his children with a
with a whooping with a belt.
James Evans Junior was seniorwas not James Evans was not to
be messed with, but and youwouldn't know it if you're not
familiar with the show just fromhearing that characterization of
him. But the character was veryfunny. He was also very strong.
(10:38):
He was a good provider. Therewas a scene in one episode where
his son, JJ, James Evans Junior,son JJ was being, I don't know,
harassed or accosted by a localgang in the building.
And of course, it's a sitcom, sothey make it funny, this scene
where JJ is getting messed withby the gang, but they also make
(11:03):
it menacing. And you're worriedabout JJ's well-being right now.
You're worried about his welfarein this scene. And then in walks
his father, James Evans senior.And it was recorded live before
a studio audience, so whenpeople cheered, it was real.
And everyone cheered andclapped, and it was just a roar
(11:25):
of of hurrahs and hurrahs. Why?Because they knew James Evans
was the one. He was the mang ofthe house. They knew that James
Evans was strong, And they knewthat James Evans was now coming
to save the day.
(11:46):
The character had just walkedinto the scene. I think he was
on the way back from the storeor something. He had, like, a
bag of groceries. You know? Sohe so the character walked into
this situation by accident, butnow he was going to lay down the
law.
That was the thing about JamesEvans. Yes. He was loud. He was
(12:07):
tough. You know, so what?
But by today's standards, wetell people they shouldn't
father that way. That's toxicmasculinity. Right? But listen.
And I thought the character MikeBrady was a good father.
(12:28):
But who do you think who wouldyou have felt more confident
that things were going to beokay when JJ was being harassed
by those gang members? If MikeBrady had walked into the scene,
would you have felt safe? ButJames Evans walked into the
scene, so everyone felt rescued.I thought the character Mike
(12:51):
Brady was a good father. I Iwish I could be more like the
character Mark Mike Brady.
From from Good Times, for thoseof you who are too young to
remember it. Not Good Times,from The Brady Bunch. So I
actually agree with what BarackObama is saying here. You have
to be strong, but for the rightreasons. You can't use your
(13:12):
strength for the wrong reasons.
There's a difference. It's justlike any characteristic of the
human person. Anger. Anger's agood thing. We were built with
it.
We're made with it. But we haveto use our anger for good
reasons. Right? Anger has tostir us to justice, not to
(13:33):
destruction, not selfdestruction of the destruction
of property or the destructionof others. Right?
So that's an example ofsomething Barack Obama said that
I agreed with. Barack Obama isnot a moron. I disagree with his
politics, but he's a very smartguy. I the one thing that I did
like about him the one thingthat I did like about Barack
(13:56):
Obama was he was pretty much hewas fairly normal. You know, he
could crack a joke.
He could say things like what hewas saying there. He was kind of
an approachable character. Hehad an approachable personality.
Not an idiot. He really was notan idiot.
I disagreed with his policies,but so what? Not an idiot. Not a
(14:18):
terrible person. That was oneexample of a good thing that he
was talking about. Now, if I setthis up correctly, what I'm
going to play for you now issomething that he said that was
a little bit weird.
In fact, it was probably, Iguess you would say it was very
weird. But it wasn't the worstthing that he said, yet it was
what everyone was focused onwhen this dropped. Let's go to
(14:41):
it.
Obama (14:41):
One of the most valuable things I learned as a guy was I
had a gay professor in collegeat a time when openly gay folks
still weren't out of line, whobecame one of my favorite
professors and was a great guyand would call me out when I
(15:01):
started saying stuff that wasignorant. You need that. Show
empathy and kindness. And by theway Yeah. You need that person
Yeah.
In your friend group so that ifyou then have Mhmm. A boy who is
who's who's who's gay or or nonbinary or what have you, they
have somebody that they can go,okay. I'm not alone in this.
(15:22):
Yeah. Right?
CA (15:23):
I still don't know why gay and nonbinary are treated in the
same paragraph since they're twocompletely different things. So
if you have somebody who's agiraffe, an elephant, or a space
alien, those are threecompletely different things.
What the hell are you talkingabout? Okay. Whatever.
It it's whatever you want it tobe, progressives. Whatever you
(15:46):
want it to be, okay. That's whatit is. The same thing. Okay.
Because I thought one was acondition and the other was an
orientation. But, okay, we cantreat them both as just they're
the same club. Okay. You knowwhat? This isn't going out on
TikTok, so I can say this withsome security.
Cause on TikTok, they'll killyou for that. In fact, they just
again suspended my lifeprivileges. Screw them. But
(16:10):
anyway, let's get back to thepoint. This is what that was
what people focused on.
But they didn't focus on whatthey should have focused on,
which I'm going to play for youin a second. Of course, all
things gay tends to scandalizeand enrage the masses. And it
really should not. Especially ifyou're Catholic, you better
(16:30):
think a little bit better thanthat. That's really, really
sloppy thinking.
You have to do better than that,especially as a Catholic. Okay?
That was what triggered peoplebecause the word gay was in
there, and so they blew upeverything that he was saying.
Let me explain what Barack Obamawas saying there as I read it.
And it is a little weird, butit's not as outrageous as people
(16:52):
were treating it.
From what Barack Obama wassaying there, gay people are the
ones with empathy. I guess theycorner the market on empathy. So
if you want your child to beempathetic, he needs to have
more, gay professors in hislife. Okay, that's already
(17:14):
stupid, but we'll let it go. Theidea that boys need a diversity
of personalities to form theirown character development isn't
altogether crazy, except for thefact that we have already
reduced the importance ofparenting in progressive
(17:38):
politics.
We've reduced the importance ofparenting by reducing the
importance and authority ofparents. So if we're supposed to
supplement a child's parentingby the example of other co
parents. Well, if parenting hasno authority, then neither does
co parenting. Neither do coparents. The other thing, as I
(18:04):
said a moment ago, the idea thata child can only learn empathy,
whether it's Barack Obama orBobby Brady, a child can only
learn empathy and respectbecause he has gay people in his
life.
I'm sorry. I thought gay peoplewere just like every other
person on the planet except fortheir for their orientation,
(18:28):
their sexual attractions. Ithought gay people were just
people. Isn't isn't that stilltrue? So why are we handing them
the empathy flag?
Do you know why? And if thereare any liberals watching this,
I have to tell you, I I don'thate you. I really don't hate
you. But modern progressivism,and you may be you may be a
(18:51):
liberal who's not progressive,you may be an old school
liberal. Right?
Modern progressivism isliterally thoughtless, mindless,
and stupid. Because modernprogressives talk against
themselves all the time. Justhand them a microphone, pull the
string, watch them go. That'swhy. Now, I'm going to show you
(19:16):
and play for you what I thinkpeople should have been paying
attention to.
So this is Barack Obama talkingabout remember a moment ago, I
was talking about parents and coparenting? This is Barack Obama
talking about the importance ofco parenting and why every child
he doesn't use that word. I'musing that word. But why every
child, especially young boys,need that in their lives.
Obama (19:38):
That's one of the things that I think a lot of times boys
need, is not just exposure toone guy.
CA (19:47):
One dad.
Obama (19:48):
One dad. No matter how good the
CA (19:50):
dad is. Dad is. He can't
Obama (19:51):
be Like, he can't be everything. And then that boy
may need somebody to give theboys some perspective on the
dad. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Yeah.
CA (19:59):
Now that bothered me a lot. That boys need other dads to
give perspective on their ownfathers. Oh, no. I don't think
so. Now, let me be fair mindedabout this, and I'm gonna tell
you why this is actually themost disturbing thing he said,
but everybody missed it.
Actually, me go there first.This is the most disturbing
(20:22):
thing that he said. Because ittends to place other men on the
same level as a boy's ownfather. Right? It's the
parenting co parenting thing.
But again, if parents have noreal authority and no real
capacity and no real competence,then neither do the co parents.
(20:44):
So what's the point of this? Thepoint of this is to shift a a
shift boys, plural, attentionaway from their own fathers, and
a father stands in as Godhimself in the household. While
we shift attention away fromthat, and maybe have a look at
the other fathers in town.Because you might find one that
(21:07):
suits you better.
Not that you're going to move inwith a different family. But you
might find one where you mightsay, that's closer to the way I
want things to be. Which, folks,that's going to be a child's
natural disposition. If you'reat all strict with your
children, and these days strictwith your children means you
(21:28):
cannot have M and M's forbreakfast. Oh, you're so strict.
What a dirtbag of a parent youare. If you're particularly
strict with your children, allyour children want is someone
who's less strict than you are.That's all that they want. So if
they go across the street ordown the road to hang out with
(21:49):
their friends whose parents arehippies, who do you think the
more favorable the favorableparent is going to be? James
Evans?
Or Cheech and Chong? The gaydads from up the road, who are
really loose and liberal andeasygoing. That's why this is
the most disturbing. Because itdoes tend to remove children
(22:13):
from outside of theprotectorate, not just of their
parents as a unit, but as theirbut outside of the protectorate
of their father who is theprotector, which Barack Obama
just, in another clip admitted.It moves the child, at least
hypothetically, in theory,right, by suggestion, out of the
(22:33):
protectorate of their parents,specifically outside of the
protectorate of their fathers,and sets them loose and free to
choose better parents and betterparenting styles.
But a child doesn't know what abetter parent looks like. A
child doesn't know one parentingstyle from another. All they
(22:53):
know is which parenting stylewill enable my desires. I want
and I want and I want and Iwant. And I choose to feel and I
choose to do and I choose to goand I choose to and so on and so
on.
That's really what a childwants. Even into their teenage
years, probably, I would sayeven into their late teen years,
(23:17):
That's what a child wants. Doyou think JJ Evans, the son of
James Evans, do you think JJEvans could have identified
better role models from hisperspective as being a young
teenager? Probably. But didn'tJames Evans have the superior
father who was tough and strong?
(23:39):
And yes, okay, he was a littlehard and rigid. But he was the
father that could protect hisfamily that lived there in the
ghettos of Chicago. He workedhard. He earned. His family
never went hungry.
They struggled, but they paidthe bills. But maybe young JJ
would have preferred a MikeBrady or a Cheech and Chong.
(24:03):
Hippie parents who just let himbe what he wants to let him be
and let him do what he wants tobe and do. That was the most
disturbing thing that came outof Barack Obama's mouth. Not
that he had a gay Folks, it'sit's that's not shocking at all
that maybe people werepositively influenced by could
be a gay professor, be a gayteacher, could be, I don't know,
(24:27):
someone who's not gay, but moremore left leaning, more liberal,
let's just say.
It's possible that, someonewho's conservative can be
positively influenced influencedby someone who's liberal because
as I have said in past podcasts,nobody has all of the truth, but
everybody has some of it.Progressives not Progressive,
(24:51):
sorry. Conservatives have someof the truth, but we don't have
all of it. Liberals have some ofthe truth, but they don't have
all of it. So the best thing todo, and by truth I'm talking
capital t truth, not opinions,not favorable things versus
unfavorable things.
I'm talking about the truth,reality. So the best possible
way to be is to reconstitute thewhole of the truth by taking
(25:16):
things that are true fromconservatism, and taking things
that are true from liberalism,and making it one worldview, of
course with Christianity as itsbackbone, but that's, like,
that's obvious, right? It's aCatholic podcast. Obviously,
that's what I'm talking about.Right?
That's the best disposition tohave. Because God is neither
left nor right. He is the wholetruth. So what we, who are
(25:41):
finite human beings, should bedoing is reconstituting the
fragmented truth in a fallenworld by finding it wherever it
is and incorporating it. So it'snormal that some conservatives
or anybody might be positivelyinfluenced by someone who's more
liberal.
It's normal that someone who'smore liberal happens all the
(26:02):
time can be positivelyinfluenced in their ideas and
their thinking and theirconclusions. Positively
influenced by someone who'sconservative. That's normal. But
what Barack Obama did there washe almost made the gay professor
the authority on empathy. That'swhat I found disturbing about
it.
What everyone else founddisturbing about it seemed to be
(26:24):
that the professor was gay.Okay. I'm not gonna take it away
from you. Whatever you want. Butthat's not the worst thing I saw
in that.
And the worst thing I saw ingeneral was this idea that
children need a diversity ofparents. And I want to
acknowledge, it is true that ifif you are in a certain
situation where, let's say, yourfather is an alcoholic, maybe
(26:48):
your only image and model of agood father comes from Johnny
McCafferty's father, you know,from three miles away, that he
picked us up from Little Leagueor whatever, drove us home, and
he took us out for ice cream,and he was so nice and, you
know, he didn't threaten thekid. Maybe that context helps
(27:10):
you to see what a good father isso you understand that being an
alcoholic and a physical abuseris not what a good father is.
Yeah. In extreme cases likethat, of course.
Of course. But those are theexception, and Barack Obama is
talking about the rule. Ithappens that you can find
context where this father isbetter than that one in an
(27:32):
extreme situation because thekid's father is an abuser, the
kid's father is an alcoholic,whatever. But Barack Obama's not
talking about that. He's talkingabout the norm.
Okay. Enough of that nonsense.I'm going to talk to you in a
second about today's massreadings, and we're going to
talk about innocence. We hearthis a lot in the Bible, and I
(27:53):
think we often cast it offbecause we don't identify as the
innocent. We don't identify anambition to be innocent because
deep down we know we are sowretched.
We don't want to place too muchimportance on innocence. Because
if we come to acknowledge thatinnocence is really, really,
really important, we would haveto admit that my god, I'm so far
(28:17):
from the mark. By we, I mean,the Christian culture. But we're
gonna talk about what innocenthow how we should think about
innocence. I'm gonna throw insome scripture.
I'm gonna throw in a littleAquinas. I'm gonna throw in a
little bit of my own nonsense.First, let me talk to you about
the announcement I made just amoment ago for those of you
catching me late. Actually,let's go around the room. Say
(28:40):
hello to folks.
I don't see a whole lot ofpeople chatting, but I can say
hello to folks who are likelynot even still in the chat room.
Let's go to Instagram. Hello,Jay Rosinger. Thank you for
joining me today on thebroadcast. God love you, baby.
And hello to old school Danny.Now old school Danny's been
there a little while, but, oldschool Danny's one of those guys
that I always have to call out.God bless you, Danny. Thank you
(29:03):
for your friendship and for yourlongtime support of my work.
You're a good fellow.
Hello to Ellis the Critic.Speaking of, supporters of my
work, Ellis the Critic here onSubstack. Homebase is Substack.
Thank you very much. Lord, havemercy.
And hello to Nate Spratt. Thatalmost sounds like a fake night
name. I hope it's not an aliasbecause that wouldn't be cool.
(29:23):
And KMJ6 joining me here at homebase of Substack, John Francis
Herring. I have to do this,crowd roaring sound effect
because I'm still getting thereverb in my, headset, so it
kind of fits.
It makes it a little bit lessannoying to pretend to pretend
that I'm in a ball field. Yeah.I don't love sports, but I do
love, baseball. Baseball andboxing, that's about all I do.
(29:46):
I'm also simulcasting toTwitter, but nobody ever catches
me on Twitter.
Twitter, you are a son of ableep. Not the people, just the
platform. Alyssa Grittig onSubstack says the family is the
building block of society. Theseare people whose religious
beliefs dogmatically oppose theprogressive I'm I'm kinda
(30:08):
filling in, but the what he'ssaying, the progressives are, as
he says, people whose religiousbeliefs dogmatically oppose the
family. This is why this is whytheir radicals, like the race
communists, are openly antihuman.
Oh, me. Thank you for that,Ellis the critic. Yeah. The
(30:35):
bottom line the bottom line isyou gotta stop doing that, man.
The bottom line is, the familyis the building block of of
society, a culture, a nation.
And the family is a very, verypowerful force of nature. It's a
tremendously powerful force ofnature, which is why the
(30:59):
cultural Marxists identified thefamily as the pillar to be
destroyed first. The family,educational institutions, and
religious institutions were thethree pillars that had to go and
or that had to be infected orconverted. Because as long as
those pillars stand, Marxism andcommunism has no chance of
(31:24):
rising or surviving unless byforce. We've seen that already.
The family is a powerful forceof nature. What breaks my heart
and probably breaks the heart ofGod and the blessed mother is
that though it's a powerfulforce of nature, most families
are fat and lazy. They're notleveraging their power. They're
(31:46):
not praying together. They'renot going to church.
They're not eating together.They're fat and lazy. The most
powerful force of nature is thefamily. But modern day families
are fat and lazy. You gotta getwith it, and you gotta get
serious.
Watch a few episodes of TheBrady Bunch. Watch a few
episodes of, Good Times, andcome on with it. Alright. Let's
(32:11):
talk about innocence. Jugglingso many things.
Oh, I was going to tell tell youmore about my announcement.
Okay. Let me do that. Thespecial announcement I mentioned
at the top is something toelaborate on now, and I I intro
it that way for the sake ofthose or for the benefit of
those who are not here at thetop of the show. I'm starting a
new newsletter, and it's goingto be outside of Substack.
(32:34):
It's not going to be a Substacknewsletter. It's gonna be a
third party newsletter. It'sgoing to be called the waypoint
dispatch. A waypoint is a pointalong a journey. Are you
familiar with that word?
It's a point along a journeywhere sometimes it's a
rendezvous point, sometimes it'sa point that's predetermined
that once we get there, we'regoing to stop and camp and eat
(32:55):
whatever, or we're gonna takestock, whatever. So it's the
waypoint dispatch. The point ofthe waypoint dispatch is to
provide something to socialmedia, the social media
audience, that's a little morethan what you could ever get on
social media without beingflooded or overwhelmed by an
(33:16):
hour and a half podcast or by avery long article, whatever.
Sometimes there's stuff thattakes off on socials, on my
socials, on TikTok, forinstance. And it's like, you
know what?
I'm glad that sixty second cliptook off, but damn, if they only
if if they would only just sitfor another minute and a half,
(33:40):
they would have gotten somethingreally, really fantastic. But I
know they won't sit that long,and I know if I make it too
long, the algorithm won'tdistribute it. So instead of
giving them a beautiful steakdinner, I have to give them beef
jerky. And they're gonna clapand cheer for it. But, oh boy,
if they only know if they onlyknew what they missed.
(34:02):
There are some people on socialswho would sit for that extra
time time period. They would sitfor two, three, four, ten
minutes. Once they they theybecome familiar with you, which
some have become familiar withme, They trust you. They trust
your your what what you'resaying. But social media doesn't
provide a space for that.
(34:23):
Social media doesn't provide aspace for putting links in in
your descriptions or making verylong descriptions, sort of like
a very very short blog with moreinformation and stuff. Social
media doesn't provide the spacefor that. So the Waypoint
Dispatch is going to be a placeto point people to where they
can get longer versions of theclip that they like, They can
(34:47):
get longer descriptions, akavery short blogs. They can get
abbreviated versions of stuffthat I post on Substack. Maybe
the first three paragraphs of anarticle instead of all 10
paragraphs.
I don't know. I'm just making anexample. Abbreviated versions of
what I put on Substack,elongated, richer, fuller
(35:10):
versions of what I'm putting onsocials. And because it's a
newsletter, it can be subscribedto, which bypasses the
algorithm. Bypasses thealgorithm.
So, instead of the algorithmdeciding what you get to watch
or what you get to not watch,you decide. Because every time I
put out another dispatch,another newsletter, it goes
(35:33):
right to your inbox. What'sgoing to be in these
newsletters? What's going to bein this dispatch? Basically, two
things.
It's going to be a weeklyroundup of of the stuff that
I've published. Not everythingthat I've published, but the
stuff I think people would beinterested in. Okay? Might be an
episode, an article, I don'tknow, one of my more popular
(35:55):
social media clips that took offthat week, stuff like that. A
brief weekly roundup of thingspeople would be interested in.
Nothing too long and nothing toodrawn out. It's also going to be
deeper dives into stuff thatpeople have been enjoying on my
social media channels. Insteadof a a forty five second clip,
they'll be able to go to see onthe waypoint dispatch, they'll
(36:17):
be able to see maybe a threeminute version of that same
clip. And the three minutes isreally where the business is at,
but the social networks will notlet you watch a three minute
clip. You can post it, butthey'll barely show it.
You know? Or here's a let's I'mjust throwing out a number.
Here's a 20 paragraph thing thatI wrote on Substack. But I know
(36:38):
you're coming from social media,and you just wanna keep moving.
Okay.
Here's a link to three of thoseparagraphs. The first three. Or
a three paragraph description ofwhat I wrote on substack. Stuff
like that. It bridges the gapbetween the shallow end of the
pool that is social media andthe deep end of the pool that is
substack.
If you are subscribed to mySubstack by the way, the reason
(36:59):
I'm doing this off of Substackis because Substack is very
limited in what it lets you dowith your posts, in terms of
what you can include in there,what what you can, basically,
can do with them, how you candesign them, what you can embed
in them. Very, very limited, andand it it it works. It works
very well. But what I wanna dowith the waypoint dispatch is
(37:19):
not going to be possible onsubstack. So I'm doing it off of
Substack.
If you are subscribed to mySubstack already, you may not
benefit from the WaypointDispatch, especially if you're a
paid subscriber. You may notbenefit from it. Because
everything that I'm putting inthere, you're getting in full
already. Every time I publishthe Substack, you're already
(37:42):
getting it emailed to you. Itmay not benefit you.
The thing that might benefit youin the Waypoint Dispatch, if
you're a a subscriber to mySubstack, the thing that might
benefit you is that WeeklyRoundup, which I don't think I'm
gonna do on Substack. I thinkI'm only gonna do the Weekly
Roundups on the WaypointDispatch. That might benefit
you, or you might not care aboutit. The people this is really
(38:05):
meant for are people who arecatching me on social media.
Okay?
So, there's a channel wherepeople who enjoy my work on
socials can get more of it, or agreater volume of it, and they
can get it more reliably becauseevery time I publish a dispatch
or a newsletter, they getnotified of it. It's really
cool. I've been building it outfor about a week or so here and
(38:27):
there. I think I've ironed outall the bugs. If you would like
to check out where it is now, Iguess I'll drop a link in my bio
for this on demand version.
Subscribing, as always, is free.I do plan on having a paid tier
at some point, like $2 a monthor something ridiculous like
(38:49):
that. Because I would rather Iwould rather get $2 a month from
people who want my special stuffthan to have to split that with
TikTok. TikTok is begging theplatform is begging me to, turn
on subscriptions. And the peopleon TikTok are pretty motivated
(39:11):
motivated about what I do.
They might actually subscribe,but I'm not giving TikTok half
of that revenue. It's theWaypoint Dispatch. It's a new
newsletter. It's a weeklyroundup. It's, and you can go
and check it out now.
I think I have two dispatches upthere, the the two test things
that I posted, and you can seethe kind of things that I'm
(39:31):
going to put in there. I don'thave a roundup in there yet, but
I do have two examples of, like,if there's something that that I
want to to share with you that'sricher than what you can get on
socials, but it's not going tooverwhelm you the way, you know,
a Substack post might, I havetwo examples of what that would
look like in there now. Okay? Sothat's the announcement. The
(39:55):
Waypoint Dispatch, a brand newnewsletter.
Subscribe or don't. Because mostof most of you who are like, if
you're catching me on onSubstack and you're subscribed
to my Substack, probably 95% ofwhat I'm doing with Waypoint
Dispatch won't change anythingfor you. But you might like that
Weekly Roundup. If you're onSubstack and not a subscriber,
(40:18):
shame on you. You're going tohell.
That's all I have to say aboutthat. If you are catching me on
social media, please check itout, man. Waypoint Dispatch.
It's a new newsletter. It'sfree.
It goes out once, maybe twice aweek. And it's got stuff in it
that you're already enjoying.You're already enjoying the
stuff that I'm gonna do with theWaypoint Dispatch, but you're
enjoying it in a very, very,very, very, very, very, very
(40:41):
limited way. I want you to beable to enjoy it better. To
enjoy more of it.
Okay. Let's get on with theshow. Let's get into the
readings today. The readings forthe seventh Sunday in ordinary
time, we're gonna mainly focuson the first reading, which
comes from Genesis chapter 18.We're talking about innocence in
the modern world.
(41:01):
What does that mean? Let's starthere. And I'm gonna move fairly
quick because I this show isgoing too long already. In those
days, the lord said, the outcryagainst Sodom and Gomorrah is so
great and their sin so gravethat I must go down and see
whether or not their actionsfully correspond to the cry
(41:22):
against them that comes to me. Imean to find out.
It's interesting to me that Godobviously knows all things. He
knows all this stuff. But thisis the way the story is being
told. You know, it's not it'snot a stenograph of what God
actually said, but this is theway I mean, God did say this,
but not word for word. You getthe idea.
(41:42):
It's interesting. This is theway the story is being told.
Let's go back to it. WhileAbraham's visitors walked on
farther toward Sodom, the Lordremained standing before
Abraham. Then Abraham drewnearer and said, will you sweep
away will you sweep away theinnocent with the guilty?
Suppose there were 50 innocentpeople in the city. Would you
wipe out the place rather thanspare it for the sake of the 50
(42:05):
innocent people? Far be it fromyou to do such a thing to make
the innocent die with theguilty. To make the innocent die
with the guilty. So the innocentand the guilty would be treated
alike.
Should not the judge of all theworld act with justice? And the
lord replied, if I find 50innocent people in the city of
(42:26):
Sodom, I will spare the wholeplace for their sake, for the
sake of those 50. As you know, Iguess he couldn't find 50 or
even 10 innocent people. Focuson that word. Innocent people
couldn't find 10 because hewound up destroying Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Let's go to the gospel. Jesuswas praying in a certain place,
(42:47):
and when he had finished, one ofhis disciples said to him, Lord,
teach us to pray as John taughthis disciples. And I'll skip and
fast forward. Suppose one of youhas a friend to whom he goes at
midnight and says, friend, lendme three loaves of bread. For a
friend of mine has arrived at myhouse from a journey, I have
nothing to offer him.
(43:09):
And he says in reply fromwithin, do not bother me. The
door has already been locked,and my children and I are
already in bed. That would beme. That would totally be me. I
cannot give get up to give youanything.
I tell you, if he does not getup to give the visitor the
loaves because of theirfriendship, he will definitely
get up to give him the loavesbecause of his persistence. Now
(43:32):
get this, folks. And I tell you,ask and you will receive seek,
and you will find knock, and thedoor will be opened to you. For
everyone who asks receives, andhe who seeks finds and the one
who knocks, the door will beopened. What father among you
would hand his son a snake whenhe asks for a fish, or hand him
(43:55):
a scorpion when he asks for anegg?
If you then, who are wicked,know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much morewill the Father in heaven give
the Holy Spirit to those who askhim? If you then, who are wicked
(44:15):
You know what the wicked are?They are not innocent. Are not
innocent. Saint Thomas Aquinas,I guess you could say he defines
innocence.
I hate that word. That's likesaying, you know, Webster's
dictionary defines innocence asI hate I hate that. I hate I
hate that technique. But SaintThomas Aquinas defines innocence
(44:41):
or explains innocence as thestate of man before the fall.
Adam and Eve before the fall.
Not just sinless, having notdone an act of sin, but also
innocent because of theirproximity to God, their
closeness with God. We live in aworld that is wicked, not just
(45:03):
because it does evil things, butbecause it is so far from God.
And the far farther you get fromGod, the more wicked your
actions. So important tounderstand that bit first. For
Aquinas, innocence was not justsinlessness, but it was absolute
(45:26):
purity, sinlessness.
And it was proximity, closenessto God. So who were the innocent
ones? Adam and Eve. After Adamand Eve, the only innocent ones
were Jesus Christ and theblessed virgin Mary. Now Jesus
(45:48):
tells us to be perfect as ourfather in heaven is perfect.
We're encouraged to grow ininnocence. Right? Diminishing
our vices, growing our virtues,and to grow in innocence. Well,
how is that possible? Because wecan never escape we can never
(46:09):
escape the state of sin.
We're fallen. Right? We'refallen. Even if we're baptized,
we're fallen. We our baptism andthe cross did not return us to a
state that Adam and Eve were inbefore they fell.
We're fallen. Baptism and thesacrifice of Jesus Christ on the
(46:31):
cross save us from the effectsof that fall. But we are fallen,
and we just can never get out ofthat until it's made right
through purgation on earth,purgation in in purgatory, and
until we come into contact withGod. So it's ultimately hopeless
(46:55):
if that's what innocence is. Andif God sees innocence as so
valuable that he'll spare theentire cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah if he only finds 10innocent people.
Clearly, innocence is veryimportant to God. And the gospel
of the son of God calledeverybody wicked. Right? Pretty
(47:16):
important. So, ultimately,there's just no hope for us.
Right? I wouldn't go that far.God knows that we can never be
Adam and Eve before the fall. Heknows that he's not a dummy.
What does it mean for us todayto become innocent?
(47:37):
How do we swing that? What doesit take to become innocent?
Anybody in the chat room wannachime in? How do we become
innocent today? Oh, JM Kasich.
KM Jasich just chimed in. How dowe return to innocence? Grace.
Okay. We're on the right track.
(47:58):
But it goes a little furtherthan that, my friend. It does go
a little bit further. Anybody onInstagram chiming in chiming in?
Looks like nobody's chiming inon Instagram yet. Anybody on
Substack?
Grace. Okay. Let me just goahead and answer because this
will get annoying for me to justbe pausing, pausing, pausing,
waiting for other people toanswer. How do we return to
innocence? First, it doesrequire grace.
(48:22):
We cannot do it on our of ourown strength or power. It
literally requires grace the waya car requires gasoline. Okay?
Actually, grace is bettercompared to not just the
gasoline, but the transmissionand the engine. And what we're
doing is we're just the frame ofthe of the car.
That's how important grace is.So we need grace in order to
(48:45):
return to innocence. We also Imean, we hear it at mass
sometimes. We can do acts ofpenance. Right?
We can restore by penance whatwe have lost by sin. That's a
real thing. Have you ever triedthat? This is listen, this is my
bombshell advice to you. Spend aweek doing penances.
(49:08):
Here's a prescription. Take acold shower in the morning. Skip
your breakfast if you're abreakfast eater, okay? Or skip
some other fairly important mealto you. If you like milk in your
coffee, skip the milk, or skipthe coffee and have tea, And
(49:30):
then do some kind of act ofpenance in in the evening.
Do three acts of penance orthree categories of acts of
penance. Like the coffee thing,you don't have one coffee a day.
Right? You might have two orthree or maybe even four. So
that's one category.
You get what I'm saying? Dothree acts of penance every day
(49:51):
for a week. Pair it withprayerfulness. Come find me in a
week and tell me how you feel.Think I'm kidding?
Give it a try. So that's one waythat we can restore ourselves to
a state of innocence, acts ofpenance. Another way is through
a prayer through a life ofprayerfulness, Getting closer to
(50:14):
God by spending more time withhim. Getting closer to God by
gazing upon him more frequently,spiritually in prayer, but also
with your eyes as you as you goto when you go to Eucharistic
adoration. Another way torestore innocence is to always
be trying.
Folks, if you're a regular at mypodcast, you will know I'm
(50:38):
always telling you, always try.Keep trying. Because perfect for
us is not being Jesus Christ orthe blessed Virgin Mary. That is
impossible. But you always haveto be trying, which means rising
after you fall, and rising againafter you fall again, and you
(51:01):
keep rising every time you fall.
That's what it is to be perfectas your heavenly father is
perfect. We'll never be perfectlike Jesus and Mary. We'll never
be innocent like Adam. Well, Imean, we will be, but not here.
Not here.
But the path to perfection is aforging and purging fire that
(51:23):
involves the pain that comeswith rising after you have
fallen. The pain that comes fromgetting back up and trying again
after you have failed. Whateverthe failure for you is. I'm
talking about, like, in themoral life, in in in in a life
that you're trying to ridyourself of sins and so on. It's
(51:45):
part of the process is theforging fire that comes from the
pain of standing up again afteryou have fallen.
The pain that comes with againand again telling your sins
goodbye forever. The the pain ofhaving to kiss your sins goodbye
again, goodbye forever, whateveryour sin is, whatever your sins
(52:07):
are, it brings us pain to haveto say goodbye to them. Right?
Especially if they're sins thatwe really enjoy. It brings us
pain to say, I have to get backon this horse.
Goodbye forever. Maybe in theback of your head, you know
you're going to fall to thatsame sin in a month. Tomorrow,
(52:27):
who knows? But then you tryagain. But you see what I'm
saying?
It brings pain to say goodbyeforever to those sins that you
love so much. That's part of theprocess, is the pain that's
involved. The more we surrenderourselves to that cycle of the
rising after the falling, andthe rising again after the
falling again, God is workingsomething out of us. And each
(52:53):
time we try harder, and eachtime we try again, we get a
little bit closer to innocence.Not innocence the way Aquinas
defined it.
Although Aquinas acknowledged inthe Summa that we can never he
basically said what I just toldyou. We can never get back to
Adam and Eve, so there's adifferent kind of innocence for
(53:16):
us, but it's not true innocence.And that is true. But there is a
different kind of innocence forus, and that's what it involves.
It involves a determination tono longer be wicked, and a
staunch determination really towant to be like Jesus.
(53:37):
What other model can you look toapart from the Blessed Virgin
Mary? But she's not divine. I'mtalking about God. Right? To
conclude, what happened tomodern day innocence?
We've stopped believing that itcan ever be real. We have
stopped believing that it canever be real. The kids are going
to do it anyway, so give themcondoms. Tell them about
(53:59):
abortion options, becausethey're going to do it anyway.
What an insulting thing to sayabout any child or to say to a
child, son, I know you're gonnado it anyway.
So here's a condom. Here's howyou use it. Don't be stupid.
Don't be stupid. Hold childrento a higher standard because
they can live up to it.
(54:21):
But they won't if daddy istelling them you're going to be
a failure anyway. So here's howyou can fail without suffering
the consequences, which, by theway, is a lie. There will still
be consequences. Grave ones. Notjust spiritual ones either, but
those two.
We've stopped believing ininnocence. We corrupt the youth.
We corrupt others. Have you seenoh my god. I was gonna say, have
(54:45):
you seen what's on TV and moviesthese days?
But and then it just broughtback a memory. I was with my
family shopping at I don't knowwhat you would call that. Is
that a strip mall? I I I don'tknow. It was outlets and stuff,
and we're shopping for stuff forschool.
Passing, I think it might havebeen the gap. There was this
(55:07):
huge post huge. It was twice myheight, at least. If that tells
you how tall it was. And then itwas proportionally wide.
Of a man in his underwear, andhis underwear were hiked down in
the front quite low. Youcouldn't see all of that. Right?
(55:29):
You couldn't see junk. Let'sjust put it that way.
But they were hiked down reallow. There are families shopping
in this damn place with youngchildren. Why would you why
would you put that? And it's noteven that it's not even like an
11 by 14. It was gigantic.
(55:49):
And then there was another oneat a different store in that
same place. I I I don't evenremember, but I'll I'll tell you
this. Between the thing in thegap and then this other thing, I
think it was I don't remember,but it was vulgar. It was very
vulgar. And it and it was like adouble whammy for me between
those two images.
(56:11):
This is broad daylight. This isa place where families come to
shop. And there's, frankly,pornography in store windows.
And that's just one stop. Wehaven't even talked about mean,
we don't we're not a TVhousehold.
We haven't talked about, like,things that we see on t that
people see on TV or in movies,PG 13 or even PG, stuff that
(56:31):
passes for PG, and it's like, ohmy god. They said that? Oh my
god. They did that in thatmovie? It's raped PG or even PG
13.
Unbelievable to me. We'vestopped believing in innocence.
Because we've stopped believingin innocence, we've stopped
holding ourselves to thestandard of innocence, the
standard of God. Because we'vebecome okay with this idea that
(56:53):
we'll never be the blessedvirgin Mary. We'll never be Adam
and Eve before the fall.
Okay. So we won't. So what? Godstill holds us to a very high
standard. And he holds us to astandard that we can live up to.
If only we will try and believe.We stop believing in innocence,
you and me as well, probably tolesser degrees though. Right? I
(57:15):
would think. I hope.
We stop believing in ininnocence so we don't aim for it
anymore. But my friends, youhave to start aiming for it
again and aim for it anew. Bringprayerfulness back into your
lives. Bring sacrifice back intoyour lives. Frequent penances,
and they don't have to beextreme.
They can be small, but as longas they're challenging. Frequent
(57:36):
penances, good works, obviously.Good works is a form of penance
even though it's an act ofcharity. And obviously the
sacraments, mass, and Eucharist.The point is we have to build
our way toward innocence, andthat has to start by a return to
a belief in it, that it is areal thing.
Oh, by the way, before I get outof here, if you're not already
(57:59):
following me on socials, youshould know I am the hardest
working man in Catholicpodcasting, probably the most
amazing Catholic communicatorsince Fulton Sheen. If you're
not following me on socials, youare crazy. Click that follow.
Tap that like. Just tap andfollow anything and everything
on on my account.
Follow, reshare it, restackeverything. Just just tap it.
(58:24):
Because Jesus is counting all ofthat stuff. Okay? He's keeping a
tally.
Every time you tap like, tapfollow on something that I'm
doing, everything. Just tapeverything except for
unsubscribe. Just tapeverything. Seriously though,
follow me everywhere you find meif you enjoy my stuff. Consider
checking me out on Substack.
(58:44):
If Substack is a little bit tooheavy for you, check me out at
the, website of my newnewsletter, the waypoint
dispatch.Waypointdispatch.beehive.com.
Beehive is spelled weird,beehiiv.com. I I don't I don't
understand what people arethinking with with, like, name
(59:05):
conventions like that. I let meget the hell out of here.
I'm tired. This has been anepisode of the Catholic
Experience simulcast live beforea studio audience on Instagram,
(59:27):
Twitter, and home base atSubstack. I hope this wasn't too
much rambling and jibber jabberfor you. It's been a long day,
and I had to get on and, do thisbroadcast. Like, I really wanted
to connect with you guys today.
I had the time to do it, and Iwanted to do it. Might not be
able to do it again for anothercouple of days. Who who knows?
God bless you, folks. I hope youenjoyed it.
(59:47):
God be with you all. Check itout. The Waypoint Dispatch. Hope
to see you there. God bless youall.
Bye bye.
Welcome everybody. Welcome to the Catholic experience. I'm
your host, the CatholicAdventurer. Thank you very much
for joining me. This isbroadcast live everywhere.
I wish you could hear what I'mhearing right now. I'll get into
that in a second. But recordedlive Sunday, July 27. In the
(00:23):
year of our lord, lord, lord,lord, 2025. And I say, thank
thank thank you.
You you you. Catholic churchchurch church. None of you are
getting that joke because youdon't hear what's coming through
my headset. But you catch theyou catch it, though. Right?
You can you can kind ofunderstand what I'm saying.
(00:44):
Right? You understand where I'mcoming from with that joke.
Right? I'm getting just theslightest bit of echo up in here
up in here.
I don't know what's up withthat. But Hello? Hello? Yeah.
Okay.
Just now faded out. That was soweird. Today, we're talking
about modern day no. There it isagain. Today, we're talking
about modern day innocence.
What does that mean? And is itreally hopeless at the end of
(01:09):
the day? Modern day innocence.Is it just hopeless? It's not so
hopeless as you think.
We're gonna get into that. I'malso gonna talk to you a little
bit about a recent I don't knowif it was recent, to be honest
with you. Barack Obama showed upon a podcast talking about
manhood, raising sons. Said acouple of things that were a
(01:31):
little bit weird that might notsurprise you. The fact that it
was weird might not surpriseyou.
But he did say one or two thingsthat I I think were valid, and
we're gonna talk about that atthe top of the show. Also, I'm
going to make a specialannouncement in my finest
(01:53):
broadcaster's voice, which goesbeautifully, lovely, rich, and
creamy in my headset that'sreverbing just the slightest
bit. It's a little bit morereverb than old school AM radio,
and just son of a bitch. Andjust a little bit less than a
(02:14):
sports arena. I have to tellyou, this is comical.
I have this microphone which hasa magnetic clip in my pocket.
Don't ask me why. And I have ametal clip, a wristband on my
watch. So every time my and thethe magnet is very strong. So
every time my wrist gets tooclose to my shirt pocket, it
goes that's what you caught justa moment ago.
(02:37):
That's why I said SOB where Iprobably shouldn't have. Sorry
for any grannies out there whodon't like that the Catholic
adventurer says things like, sonof a bleep. So let's get on with
it. Let me at least preface thespecial announcement because if
you are a regular fan, listener,viewer of my podcast,
(03:00):
particularly if you catch me onsocials, this is all about you.
So I'm just going to drop it thebasics right now, then we're
gonna start the show, and thenI'll get into the particulars
and details.
Here's the thing. Let me see ifI can do my super cool drama cam
(03:22):
right about now. I guess whathappens is when I'm really loud,
it's reverbing. I think I knowwhy it's doing that. But I I
promise this is the last timeI'll mention it.
So here's the thing. I do okayon social media. Just okay, and
I really mean just okay. But Iget some traction on social
media. The problem is mostpeople on social media, I don't
(03:47):
wanna say most people, but agood number of people, don't
want to listen to a full episodeof a podcast, or they don't want
to cross over to Substack.
Forget about subscribing. Theyjust don't wanna even cross over
to Substack or to any site atall. Even if you tell them all
of the secrets to the universeare there. They just won't do
(04:10):
it. It's not a character flaw.
It's just something with peopleon the Internet. I don't
understand it. It's just howpeople on the Internet are. It's
not a character flaw. I'm notinsulting anybody.
Okay. So how do we do that? Howdo I get somebody to here's the
thing. Social media is far toolimited for what I do. Far, far,
(04:34):
far too limited for what I do.
I can do a clip inside of aminute and thirty seconds. It'll
be entertaining. But to reallyget the gold nugget out of that
clip, you need to watch likefour or five minutes. But if you
publish something that's four orfive minutes long, the algorithm
will just barely distribute youdistribute you. Of course, it it
(04:55):
does vary from platform toplatform.
But anyway, The algorithm is areal pain in the neck. It's
really a difficult competitor.There are people who, who enjoy
my work on socials, but that'swhere they stay. You can ask
them, beg them, plead, threaten,doesn't matter. They're not
leaving that platform.
(05:15):
Understandable. Well, how do Ibridge that gap? How do I bridge
the gap between the shallow endof the pool that is social
media, and the deep end of thepool that is my substack and or
the long form podcast on podcastnetworks? How do I bridge that
gap? Here's what I've come upwith.
(05:36):
I'm going to start a newsletterthat specifically bridges that
gap. It's basically a microsubstack. Micro substack. It's
it's not as deep or as rich oras broad as this as my substack,
But it's also broader and richerthan what you're gonna get from
me on socials. What that's goingto be, how that's going to work,
(05:59):
I'll get into later on in theshow.
You know, it's almost a funnything, and I do mean almost a
funny thing. I tried doing aproper newsletter. I don't know,
maybe a year ago I started one.It was called Notes From The
Field. I worked really hard onit, but it was damn hard getting
(06:20):
people to sign up.
And every time I'm I'm not evenexaggerating. I worked for each
one of those, I worked it had tobe at least an hour or two that
I was working on each one ofthose. Because there was a lot
of writing in it. You have towrite the blurbs, and I did a
piece on the church fathers orsomething else that was
(06:40):
doctrinal or scriptural orsomething. I mean and it looked
nice, and it takes time todesign something to look nice.
I worked ease easily an hour onit. An hour from of designing,
setting up, and and sending it,plus at least forty five minutes
writing the major piece that Iincluded in there. And then
plus, you know, the blurbs frommy thing. So it was basically,
(07:02):
let's say, two hours of work.And after two hours of work, you
don't know how heartbreaking itis that people unsubscribe after
they receive it.
It's really kind of funny, butdamn heart wrenching. And after
a while of that, I said, I'm I'mdone. It's just costing me money
to operate a newsletter, andit's just insulting when people
(07:25):
unsubscribe after you've workedso hard to make something nice
and beautiful and rich andwhatever. So it's almost funny
that I'm trying my hand at at,news lettering again. But, it's
not just a newsletter.
There's more to it, but I'll getinto that later on in the show.
(07:46):
Let's talk about Barack Obama.Barack Obama, well, again, I I
don't remember when this was.This has made its way onto the
socials over the past week. I'veseen it on TikTok.
I've seen it on Instagram. Ithink I even saw one or two
things on x. And as far as I'mconcerned, everyone was missing
(08:08):
the mark. Everyone wascommenting on the wrong thing,
and they missed something thatthey should have been paying
attention to. We're gonna getinto that right now.
I just wanna make sure I queueup the right, the right thing
because if they're out of order,we're gonna miss the effect.
Just give me a moment here.Please and thank you. Let's see
Obama (08:33):
what's happening. I don't remember, maybe, when I was a
really young child, other thanthe idea that guys were strong,
they didn't whine. I do like thething you brought up though
about being a protector. At itsbest it then counterbalanced the
idea of being strong. You'restrong not to pick on people,
(08:58):
not to be a bully, not todominate others.
Instead, it's strength in orderto protect.
CA (09:08):
Okay. So that's an example of something good that he said.
That queued a a little ahead ofschedule, so, I didn't get to
intro it. But that was somethinggood that he said. I agree.
It's important for men to bestrong, but for the right
reasons. There was a show in theseventies, early eighties called
(09:29):
Good Times. Good Times was abouta black family that lived in the
ghetto of Chicago, Illinois inThe United States Of America.
And they lived in a housingproject, and, they were very
poor. It it was a comedy.
It was a sitcom. Very popular inAmerica in the seventies. I
guess probably in in Europe aswell. It was one of my favorite
(09:51):
shows ever. I loved it loved itloved it when when I watched it
as a kid.
One of the main characters inthere was the head of the
family, James Evans senior,played by John Amos. Very funny
guy, great actor, greatcharacter. He was just
tremendous in that in that role.Now James Evans Junior was a
(10:14):
senior was a tough, toughcookie. Sometimes he raised his
voice, you know, sometimes hethreatened his children with a
with a whooping with a belt.
James Evans Junior was seniorwas not James Evans was not to
be messed with, but and youwouldn't know it if you're not
familiar with the show just fromhearing that characterization of
him. But the character was veryfunny. He was also very strong.
(10:38):
He was a good provider. Therewas a scene in one episode where
his son, JJ, James Evans Junior,son JJ was being, I don't know,
harassed or accosted by a localgang in the building.
And of course, it's a sitcom, sothey make it funny, this scene
where JJ is getting messed withby the gang, but they also make
(11:03):
it menacing. And you're worriedabout JJ's well-being right now.
You're worried about his welfarein this scene. And then in walks
his father, James Evans senior.And it was recorded live before
a studio audience, so whenpeople cheered, it was real.
And everyone cheered andclapped, and it was just a roar
(11:25):
of of hurrahs and hurrahs. Why?Because they knew James Evans
was the one. He was the mang ofthe house. They knew that James
Evans was strong, And they knewthat James Evans was now coming
to save the day.
(11:46):
The character had just walkedinto the scene. I think he was
on the way back from the storeor something. He had, like, a
bag of groceries. You know? Sohe so the character walked into
this situation by accident, butnow he was going to lay down the
law.
That was the thing about JamesEvans. Yes. He was loud. He was
(12:07):
tough. You know, so what?
But by today's standards, wetell people they shouldn't
father that way. That's toxicmasculinity. Right? But listen.
And I thought the character MikeBrady was a good father.
(12:28):
But who do you think who wouldyou have felt more confident
that things were going to beokay when JJ was being harassed
by those gang members? If MikeBrady had walked into the scene,
would you have felt safe? ButJames Evans walked into the
scene, so everyone felt rescued.I thought the character Mike
(12:51):
Brady was a good father. I Iwish I could be more like the
character Mark Mike Brady.
From from Good Times, for thoseof you who are too young to
remember it. Not Good Times,from The Brady Bunch. So I
actually agree with what BarackObama is saying here. You have
to be strong, but for the rightreasons. You can't use your
(13:12):
strength for the wrong reasons.
There's a difference. It's justlike any characteristic of the
human person. Anger. Anger's agood thing. We were built with
it.
We're made with it. But we haveto use our anger for good
reasons. Right? Anger has tostir us to justice, not to
(13:33):
destruction, not selfdestruction of the destruction
of property or the destructionof others. Right?
So that's an example ofsomething Barack Obama said that
I agreed with. Barack Obama isnot a moron. I disagree with his
politics, but he's a very smartguy. I the one thing that I did
like about him the one thingthat I did like about Barack
(13:56):
Obama was he was pretty much hewas fairly normal. You know, he
could crack a joke.
He could say things like what hewas saying there. He was kind of
an approachable character. Hehad an approachable personality.
Not an idiot. He really was notan idiot.
I disagreed with his policies,but so what? Not an idiot. Not a
(14:18):
terrible person. That was oneexample of a good thing that he
was talking about. Now, if I setthis up correctly, what I'm
going to play for you now issomething that he said that was
a little bit weird.
In fact, it was probably, Iguess you would say it was very
weird. But it wasn't the worstthing that he said, yet it was
what everyone was focused onwhen this dropped. Let's go to
(14:41):
it.
Obama (14:41):
One of the most valuable things I learned as a guy was I
had a gay professor in collegeat a time when openly gay folks
still weren't out of line, whobecame one of my favorite
professors and was a great guyand would call me out when I
(15:01):
started saying stuff that wasignorant. You need that. Show
empathy and kindness. And by theway Yeah. You need that person
Yeah.
In your friend group so that ifyou then have Mhmm. A boy who is
who's who's who's gay or or nonbinary or what have you, they
have somebody that they can go,okay. I'm not alone in this.
(15:22):
Yeah. Right?
CA (15:23):
I still don't know why gay and nonbinary are treated in the
same paragraph since they're twocompletely different things. So
if you have somebody who's agiraffe, an elephant, or a space
alien, those are threecompletely different things.
What the hell are you talkingabout? Okay. Whatever.
It it's whatever you want it tobe, progressives. Whatever you
(15:46):
want it to be, okay. That's whatit is. The same thing. Okay.
Because I thought one was acondition and the other was an
orientation. But, okay, we cantreat them both as just they're
the same club. Okay. You knowwhat? This isn't going out on
TikTok, so I can say this withsome security.
Cause on TikTok, they'll killyou for that. In fact, they just
again suspended my lifeprivileges. Screw them. But
(16:10):
anyway, let's get back to thepoint. This is what that was
what people focused on.
But they didn't focus on whatthey should have focused on,
which I'm going to play for youin a second. Of course, all
things gay tends to scandalizeand enrage the masses. And it
really should not. Especially ifyou're Catholic, you better
(16:30):
think a little bit better thanthat. That's really, really
sloppy thinking.
You have to do better than that,especially as a Catholic. Okay?
That was what triggered peoplebecause the word gay was in
there, and so they blew upeverything that he was saying.
Let me explain what Barack Obamawas saying there as I read it.
And it is a little weird, butit's not as outrageous as people
(16:52):
were treating it.
From what Barack Obama wassaying there, gay people are the
ones with empathy. I guess theycorner the market on empathy. So
if you want your child to beempathetic, he needs to have
more, gay professors in hislife. Okay, that's already
(17:14):
stupid, but we'll let it go. Theidea that boys need a diversity
of personalities to form theirown character development isn't
altogether crazy, except for thefact that we have already
reduced the importance ofparenting in progressive
(17:38):
politics.
We've reduced the importance ofparenting by reducing the
importance and authority ofparents. So if we're supposed to
supplement a child's parentingby the example of other co
parents. Well, if parenting hasno authority, then neither does
co parenting. Neither do coparents. The other thing, as I
(18:04):
said a moment ago, the idea thata child can only learn empathy,
whether it's Barack Obama orBobby Brady, a child can only
learn empathy and respectbecause he has gay people in his
life.
I'm sorry. I thought gay peoplewere just like every other
person on the planet except fortheir for their orientation,
(18:28):
their sexual attractions. Ithought gay people were just
people. Isn't isn't that stilltrue? So why are we handing them
the empathy flag?
Do you know why? And if thereare any liberals watching this,
I have to tell you, I I don'thate you. I really don't hate
you. But modern progressivism,and you may be you may be a
(18:51):
liberal who's not progressive,you may be an old school
liberal. Right?
Modern progressivism isliterally thoughtless, mindless,
and stupid. Because modernprogressives talk against
themselves all the time. Justhand them a microphone, pull the
string, watch them go. That'swhy. Now, I'm going to show you
(19:16):
and play for you what I thinkpeople should have been paying
attention to.
So this is Barack Obama talkingabout remember a moment ago, I
was talking about parents and coparenting? This is Barack Obama
talking about the importance ofco parenting and why every child
he doesn't use that word. I'musing that word. But why every
child, especially young boys,need that in their lives.
Obama (19:38):
That's one of the things that I think a lot of times boys
need, is not just exposure toone guy.
CA (19:47):
One dad.
Obama (19:48):
One dad. No matter how good the
CA (19:50):
dad is. Dad is. He can't
Obama (19:51):
be Like, he can't be everything. And then that boy
may need somebody to give theboys some perspective on the
dad. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Yeah.
CA (19:59):
Now that bothered me a lot. That boys need other dads to
give perspective on their ownfathers. Oh, no. I don't think
so. Now, let me be fair mindedabout this, and I'm gonna tell
you why this is actually themost disturbing thing he said,
but everybody missed it.
Actually, me go there first.This is the most disturbing
(20:22):
thing that he said. Because ittends to place other men on the
same level as a boy's ownfather. Right? It's the
parenting co parenting thing.
But again, if parents have noreal authority and no real
capacity and no real competence,then neither do the co parents.
(20:44):
So what's the point of this? Thepoint of this is to shift a a
shift boys, plural, attentionaway from their own fathers, and
a father stands in as Godhimself in the household. While
we shift attention away fromthat, and maybe have a look at
the other fathers in town.Because you might find one that
(21:07):
suits you better.
Not that you're going to move inwith a different family. But you
might find one where you mightsay, that's closer to the way I
want things to be. Which, folks,that's going to be a child's
natural disposition. If you'reat all strict with your
children, and these days strictwith your children means you
(21:28):
cannot have M and M's forbreakfast. Oh, you're so strict.
What a dirtbag of a parent youare. If you're particularly
strict with your children, allyour children want is someone
who's less strict than you are.That's all that they want. So if
they go across the street ordown the road to hang out with
(21:49):
their friends whose parents arehippies, who do you think the
more favorable the favorableparent is going to be? James
Evans?
Or Cheech and Chong? The gaydads from up the road, who are
really loose and liberal andeasygoing. That's why this is
the most disturbing. Because itdoes tend to remove children
(22:13):
from outside of theprotectorate, not just of their
parents as a unit, but as theirbut outside of the protectorate
of their father who is theprotector, which Barack Obama
just, in another clip admitted.It moves the child, at least
hypothetically, in theory,right, by suggestion, out of the
(22:33):
protectorate of their parents,specifically outside of the
protectorate of their fathers,and sets them loose and free to
choose better parents and betterparenting styles.
But a child doesn't know what abetter parent looks like. A
child doesn't know one parentingstyle from another. All they
(22:53):
know is which parenting stylewill enable my desires. I want
and I want and I want and Iwant. And I choose to feel and I
choose to do and I choose to goand I choose to and so on and so
on.
That's really what a childwants. Even into their teenage
years, probably, I would sayeven into their late teen years,
(23:17):
That's what a child wants. Doyou think JJ Evans, the son of
James Evans, do you think JJEvans could have identified
better role models from hisperspective as being a young
teenager? Probably. But didn'tJames Evans have the superior
father who was tough and strong?
(23:39):
And yes, okay, he was a littlehard and rigid. But he was the
father that could protect hisfamily that lived there in the
ghettos of Chicago. He workedhard. He earned. His family
never went hungry.
They struggled, but they paidthe bills. But maybe young JJ
would have preferred a MikeBrady or a Cheech and Chong.
(24:03):
Hippie parents who just let himbe what he wants to let him be
and let him do what he wants tobe and do. That was the most
disturbing thing that came outof Barack Obama's mouth. Not
that he had a gay Folks, it'sit's that's not shocking at all
that maybe people werepositively influenced by could
be a gay professor, be a gayteacher, could be, I don't know,
(24:27):
someone who's not gay, but moremore left leaning, more liberal,
let's just say.
It's possible that, someonewho's conservative can be
positively influenced influencedby someone who's liberal because
as I have said in past podcasts,nobody has all of the truth, but
everybody has some of it.Progressives not Progressive,
(24:51):
sorry. Conservatives have someof the truth, but we don't have
all of it. Liberals have some ofthe truth, but they don't have
all of it. So the best thing todo, and by truth I'm talking
capital t truth, not opinions,not favorable things versus
unfavorable things.
I'm talking about the truth,reality. So the best possible
way to be is to reconstitute thewhole of the truth by taking
(25:16):
things that are true fromconservatism, and taking things
that are true from liberalism,and making it one worldview, of
course with Christianity as itsbackbone, but that's, like,
that's obvious, right? It's aCatholic podcast. Obviously,
that's what I'm talking about.Right?
That's the best disposition tohave. Because God is neither
left nor right. He is the wholetruth. So what we, who are
(25:41):
finite human beings, should bedoing is reconstituting the
fragmented truth in a fallenworld by finding it wherever it
is and incorporating it. So it'snormal that some conservatives
or anybody might be positivelyinfluenced by someone who's more
liberal.
It's normal that someone who'smore liberal happens all the
(26:02):
time can be positivelyinfluenced in their ideas and
their thinking and theirconclusions. Positively
influenced by someone who'sconservative. That's normal. But
what Barack Obama did there washe almost made the gay professor
the authority on empathy. That'swhat I found disturbing about
it.
What everyone else founddisturbing about it seemed to be
(26:24):
that the professor was gay.Okay. I'm not gonna take it away
from you. Whatever you want. Butthat's not the worst thing I saw
in that.
And the worst thing I saw ingeneral was this idea that
children need a diversity ofparents. And I want to
acknowledge, it is true that ifif you are in a certain
situation where, let's say, yourfather is an alcoholic, maybe
(26:48):
your only image and model of agood father comes from Johnny
McCafferty's father, you know,from three miles away, that he
picked us up from Little Leagueor whatever, drove us home, and
he took us out for ice cream,and he was so nice and, you
know, he didn't threaten thekid. Maybe that context helps
(27:10):
you to see what a good father isso you understand that being an
alcoholic and a physical abuseris not what a good father is.
Yeah. In extreme cases likethat, of course.
Of course. But those are theexception, and Barack Obama is
talking about the rule. Ithappens that you can find
context where this father isbetter than that one in an
(27:32):
extreme situation because thekid's father is an abuser, the
kid's father is an alcoholic,whatever. But Barack Obama's not
talking about that. He's talkingabout the norm.
Okay. Enough of that nonsense.I'm going to talk to you in a
second about today's massreadings, and we're going to
talk about innocence. We hearthis a lot in the Bible, and I
(27:53):
think we often cast it offbecause we don't identify as the
innocent. We don't identify anambition to be innocent because
deep down we know we are sowretched.
We don't want to place too muchimportance on innocence. Because
if we come to acknowledge thatinnocence is really, really,
really important, we would haveto admit that my god, I'm so far
(28:17):
from the mark. By we, I mean,the Christian culture. But we're
gonna talk about what innocenthow how we should think about
innocence. I'm gonna throw insome scripture.
I'm gonna throw in a littleAquinas. I'm gonna throw in a
little bit of my own nonsense.First, let me talk to you about
the announcement I made just amoment ago for those of you
catching me late. Actually,let's go around the room. Say
(28:40):
hello to folks.
I don't see a whole lot ofpeople chatting, but I can say
hello to folks who are likelynot even still in the chat room.
Let's go to Instagram. Hello,Jay Rosinger. Thank you for
joining me today on thebroadcast. God love you, baby.
And hello to old school Danny.Now old school Danny's been
there a little while, but, oldschool Danny's one of those guys
that I always have to call out.God bless you, Danny. Thank you
(29:03):
for your friendship and for yourlongtime support of my work.
You're a good fellow.
Hello to Ellis the Critic.Speaking of, supporters of my
work, Ellis the Critic here onSubstack. Homebase is Substack.
Thank you very much. Lord, havemercy.
And hello to Nate Spratt. Thatalmost sounds like a fake night
name. I hope it's not an aliasbecause that wouldn't be cool.
(29:23):
And KMJ6 joining me here at homebase of Substack, John Francis
Herring. I have to do this,crowd roaring sound effect
because I'm still getting thereverb in my, headset, so it
kind of fits.
It makes it a little bit lessannoying to pretend to pretend
that I'm in a ball field. Yeah.I don't love sports, but I do
love, baseball. Baseball andboxing, that's about all I do.
(29:46):
I'm also simulcasting toTwitter, but nobody ever catches
me on Twitter.
Twitter, you are a son of ableep. Not the people, just the
platform. Alyssa Grittig onSubstack says the family is the
building block of society. Theseare people whose religious
beliefs dogmatically oppose theprogressive I'm I'm kinda
(30:08):
filling in, but the what he'ssaying, the progressives are, as
he says, people whose religiousbeliefs dogmatically oppose the
family. This is why this is whytheir radicals, like the race
communists, are openly antihuman.
Oh, me. Thank you for that,Ellis the critic. Yeah. The
(30:35):
bottom line the bottom line isyou gotta stop doing that, man.
The bottom line is, the familyis the building block of of
society, a culture, a nation.
And the family is a very, verypowerful force of nature. It's a
tremendously powerful force ofnature, which is why the
(30:59):
cultural Marxists identified thefamily as the pillar to be
destroyed first. The family,educational institutions, and
religious institutions were thethree pillars that had to go and
or that had to be infected orconverted. Because as long as
those pillars stand, Marxism andcommunism has no chance of
(31:24):
rising or surviving unless byforce. We've seen that already.
The family is a powerful forceof nature. What breaks my heart
and probably breaks the heart ofGod and the blessed mother is
that though it's a powerfulforce of nature, most families
are fat and lazy. They're notleveraging their power. They're
(31:46):
not praying together. They'renot going to church.
They're not eating together.They're fat and lazy. The most
powerful force of nature is thefamily. But modern day families
are fat and lazy. You gotta getwith it, and you gotta get
serious.
Watch a few episodes of TheBrady Bunch. Watch a few
episodes of, Good Times, andcome on with it. Alright. Let's
(32:11):
talk about innocence. Jugglingso many things.
Oh, I was going to tell tell youmore about my announcement.
Okay. Let me do that. Thespecial announcement I mentioned
at the top is something toelaborate on now, and I I intro
it that way for the sake ofthose or for the benefit of
those who are not here at thetop of the show. I'm starting a
new newsletter, and it's goingto be outside of Substack.
(32:34):
It's not going to be a Substacknewsletter. It's gonna be a
third party newsletter. It'sgoing to be called the waypoint
dispatch. A waypoint is a pointalong a journey. Are you
familiar with that word?
It's a point along a journeywhere sometimes it's a
rendezvous point, sometimes it'sa point that's predetermined
that once we get there, we'regoing to stop and camp and eat
(32:55):
whatever, or we're gonna takestock, whatever. So it's the
waypoint dispatch. The point ofthe waypoint dispatch is to
provide something to socialmedia, the social media
audience, that's a little morethan what you could ever get on
social media without beingflooded or overwhelmed by an
(33:16):
hour and a half podcast or by avery long article, whatever.
Sometimes there's stuff thattakes off on socials, on my
socials, on TikTok, forinstance. And it's like, you
know what?
I'm glad that sixty second cliptook off, but damn, if they only
if if they would only just sitfor another minute and a half,
(33:40):
they would have gotten somethingreally, really fantastic. But I
know they won't sit that long,and I know if I make it too
long, the algorithm won'tdistribute it. So instead of
giving them a beautiful steakdinner, I have to give them beef
jerky. And they're gonna clapand cheer for it. But, oh boy,
if they only know if they onlyknew what they missed.
(34:02):
There are some people on socialswho would sit for that extra
time time period. They would sitfor two, three, four, ten
minutes. Once they they theybecome familiar with you, which
some have become familiar withme, They trust you. They trust
your your what what you'resaying. But social media doesn't
provide a space for that.
(34:23):
Social media doesn't provide aspace for putting links in in
your descriptions or making verylong descriptions, sort of like
a very very short blog with moreinformation and stuff. Social
media doesn't provide the spacefor that. So the Waypoint
Dispatch is going to be a placeto point people to where they
can get longer versions of theclip that they like, They can
(34:47):
get longer descriptions, akavery short blogs. They can get
abbreviated versions of stuffthat I post on Substack. Maybe
the first three paragraphs of anarticle instead of all 10
paragraphs.
I don't know. I'm just making anexample. Abbreviated versions of
what I put on Substack,elongated, richer, fuller
(35:10):
versions of what I'm putting onsocials. And because it's a
newsletter, it can be subscribedto, which bypasses the
algorithm. Bypasses thealgorithm.
So, instead of the algorithmdeciding what you get to watch
or what you get to not watch,you decide. Because every time I
put out another dispatch,another newsletter, it goes
(35:33):
right to your inbox. What'sgoing to be in these
newsletters? What's going to bein this dispatch? Basically, two
things.
It's going to be a weeklyroundup of of the stuff that
I've published. Not everythingthat I've published, but the
stuff I think people would beinterested in. Okay? Might be an
episode, an article, I don'tknow, one of my more popular
(35:55):
social media clips that took offthat week, stuff like that. A
brief weekly roundup of thingspeople would be interested in.
Nothing too long and nothing toodrawn out. It's also going to be
deeper dives into stuff thatpeople have been enjoying on my
social media channels. Insteadof a a forty five second clip,
they'll be able to go to see onthe waypoint dispatch, they'll
(36:17):
be able to see maybe a threeminute version of that same
clip. And the three minutes isreally where the business is at,
but the social networks will notlet you watch a three minute
clip. You can post it, butthey'll barely show it.
You know? Or here's a let's I'mjust throwing out a number.
Here's a 20 paragraph thing thatI wrote on Substack. But I know
(36:38):
you're coming from social media,and you just wanna keep moving.
Okay.
Here's a link to three of thoseparagraphs. The first three. Or
a three paragraph description ofwhat I wrote on substack. Stuff
like that. It bridges the gapbetween the shallow end of the
pool that is social media andthe deep end of the pool that is
substack.
If you are subscribed to mySubstack by the way, the reason
(36:59):
I'm doing this off of Substackis because Substack is very
limited in what it lets you dowith your posts, in terms of
what you can include in there,what what you can, basically,
can do with them, how you candesign them, what you can embed
in them. Very, very limited, andand it it it works. It works
very well. But what I wanna dowith the waypoint dispatch is
(37:19):
not going to be possible onsubstack. So I'm doing it off of
Substack.
If you are subscribed to mySubstack already, you may not
benefit from the WaypointDispatch, especially if you're a
paid subscriber. You may notbenefit from it. Because
everything that I'm putting inthere, you're getting in full
already. Every time I publishthe Substack, you're already
(37:42):
getting it emailed to you. Itmay not benefit you.
The thing that might benefit youin the Waypoint Dispatch, if
you're a a subscriber to mySubstack, the thing that might
benefit you is that WeeklyRoundup, which I don't think I'm
gonna do on Substack. I thinkI'm only gonna do the Weekly
Roundups on the WaypointDispatch. That might benefit
you, or you might not care aboutit. The people this is really
(38:05):
meant for are people who arecatching me on social media.
Okay?
So, there's a channel wherepeople who enjoy my work on
socials can get more of it, or agreater volume of it, and they
can get it more reliably becauseevery time I publish a dispatch
or a newsletter, they getnotified of it. It's really
cool. I've been building it outfor about a week or so here and
(38:27):
there. I think I've ironed outall the bugs. If you would like
to check out where it is now, Iguess I'll drop a link in my bio
for this on demand version.
Subscribing, as always, is free.I do plan on having a paid tier
at some point, like $2 a monthor something ridiculous like
(38:49):
that. Because I would rather Iwould rather get $2 a month from
people who want my special stuffthan to have to split that with
TikTok. TikTok is begging theplatform is begging me to, turn
on subscriptions. And the peopleon TikTok are pretty motivated
(39:11):
motivated about what I do.
They might actually subscribe,but I'm not giving TikTok half
of that revenue. It's theWaypoint Dispatch. It's a new
newsletter. It's a weeklyroundup. It's, and you can go
and check it out now.
I think I have two dispatches upthere, the the two test things
that I posted, and you can seethe kind of things that I'm
(39:31):
going to put in there. I don'thave a roundup in there yet, but
I do have two examples of, like,if there's something that that I
want to to share with you that'sricher than what you can get on
socials, but it's not going tooverwhelm you the way, you know,
a Substack post might, I havetwo examples of what that would
look like in there now. Okay? Sothat's the announcement. The
(39:55):
Waypoint Dispatch, a brand newnewsletter.
Subscribe or don't. Because mostof most of you who are like, if
you're catching me on onSubstack and you're subscribed
to my Substack, probably 95% ofwhat I'm doing with Waypoint
Dispatch won't change anythingfor you. But you might like that
Weekly Roundup. If you're onSubstack and not a subscriber,
(40:18):
shame on you. You're going tohell.
That's all I have to say aboutthat. If you are catching me on
social media, please check itout, man. Waypoint Dispatch.
It's a new newsletter. It'sfree.
It goes out once, maybe twice aweek. And it's got stuff in it
that you're already enjoying.You're already enjoying the
stuff that I'm gonna do with theWaypoint Dispatch, but you're
enjoying it in a very, very,very, very, very, very, very
(40:41):
limited way. I want you to beable to enjoy it better. To
enjoy more of it.
Okay. Let's get on with theshow. Let's get into the
readings today. The readings forthe seventh Sunday in ordinary
time, we're gonna mainly focuson the first reading, which
comes from Genesis chapter 18.We're talking about innocence in
the modern world.
(41:01):
What does that mean? Let's starthere. And I'm gonna move fairly
quick because I this show isgoing too long already. In those
days, the lord said, the outcryagainst Sodom and Gomorrah is so
great and their sin so gravethat I must go down and see
whether or not their actionsfully correspond to the cry
(41:22):
against them that comes to me. Imean to find out.
It's interesting to me that Godobviously knows all things. He
knows all this stuff. But thisis the way the story is being
told. You know, it's not it'snot a stenograph of what God
actually said, but this is theway I mean, God did say this,
but not word for word. You getthe idea.
(41:42):
It's interesting. This is theway the story is being told.
Let's go back to it. WhileAbraham's visitors walked on
farther toward Sodom, the Lordremained standing before
Abraham. Then Abraham drewnearer and said, will you sweep
away will you sweep away theinnocent with the guilty?
Suppose there were 50 innocentpeople in the city. Would you
wipe out the place rather thanspare it for the sake of the 50
(42:05):
innocent people? Far be it fromyou to do such a thing to make
the innocent die with theguilty. To make the innocent die
with the guilty. So the innocentand the guilty would be treated
alike.
Should not the judge of all theworld act with justice? And the
lord replied, if I find 50innocent people in the city of
(42:26):
Sodom, I will spare the wholeplace for their sake, for the
sake of those 50. As you know, Iguess he couldn't find 50 or
even 10 innocent people. Focuson that word. Innocent people
couldn't find 10 because hewound up destroying Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Let's go to the gospel. Jesuswas praying in a certain place,
(42:47):
and when he had finished, one ofhis disciples said to him, Lord,
teach us to pray as John taughthis disciples. And I'll skip and
fast forward. Suppose one of youhas a friend to whom he goes at
midnight and says, friend, lendme three loaves of bread. For a
friend of mine has arrived at myhouse from a journey, I have
nothing to offer him.
(43:09):
And he says in reply fromwithin, do not bother me. The
door has already been locked,and my children and I are
already in bed. That would beme. That would totally be me. I
cannot give get up to give youanything.
I tell you, if he does not getup to give the visitor the
loaves because of theirfriendship, he will definitely
get up to give him the loavesbecause of his persistence. Now
(43:32):
get this, folks. And I tell you,ask and you will receive seek,
and you will find knock, and thedoor will be opened to you. For
everyone who asks receives, andhe who seeks finds and the one
who knocks, the door will beopened. What father among you
would hand his son a snake whenhe asks for a fish, or hand him
(43:55):
a scorpion when he asks for anegg?
If you then, who are wicked,know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much morewill the Father in heaven give
the Holy Spirit to those who askhim? If you then, who are wicked
(44:15):
You know what the wicked are?They are not innocent. Are not
innocent. Saint Thomas Aquinas,I guess you could say he defines
innocence.
I hate that word. That's likesaying, you know, Webster's
dictionary defines innocence asI hate I hate that. I hate I
hate that technique. But SaintThomas Aquinas defines innocence
(44:41):
or explains innocence as thestate of man before the fall.
Adam and Eve before the fall.
Not just sinless, having notdone an act of sin, but also
innocent because of theirproximity to God, their
closeness with God. We live in aworld that is wicked, not just
(45:03):
because it does evil things, butbecause it is so far from God.
And the far farther you get fromGod, the more wicked your
actions. So important tounderstand that bit first. For
Aquinas, innocence was not justsinlessness, but it was absolute
(45:26):
purity, sinlessness.
And it was proximity, closenessto God. So who were the innocent
ones? Adam and Eve. After Adamand Eve, the only innocent ones
were Jesus Christ and theblessed virgin Mary. Now Jesus
(45:48):
tells us to be perfect as ourfather in heaven is perfect.
We're encouraged to grow ininnocence. Right? Diminishing
our vices, growing our virtues,and to grow in innocence. Well,
how is that possible? Because wecan never escape we can never
(46:09):
escape the state of sin.
We're fallen. Right? We'refallen. Even if we're baptized,
we're fallen. We our baptism andthe cross did not return us to a
state that Adam and Eve were inbefore they fell.
We're fallen. Baptism and thesacrifice of Jesus Christ on the
(46:31):
cross save us from the effectsof that fall. But we are fallen,
and we just can never get out ofthat until it's made right
through purgation on earth,purgation in in purgatory, and
until we come into contact withGod. So it's ultimately hopeless
(46:55):
if that's what innocence is. Andif God sees innocence as so
valuable that he'll spare theentire cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah if he only finds 10innocent people.
Clearly, innocence is veryimportant to God. And the gospel
of the son of God calledeverybody wicked. Right? Pretty
(47:16):
important. So, ultimately,there's just no hope for us.
Right? I wouldn't go that far.God knows that we can never be
Adam and Eve before the fall. Heknows that he's not a dummy.
What does it mean for us todayto become innocent?
(47:37):
How do we swing that? What doesit take to become innocent?
Anybody in the chat room wannachime in? How do we become
innocent today? Oh, JM Kasich.
KM Jasich just chimed in. How dowe return to innocence? Grace.
Okay. We're on the right track.
(47:58):
But it goes a little furtherthan that, my friend. It does go
a little bit further. Anybody onInstagram chiming in chiming in?
Looks like nobody's chiming inon Instagram yet. Anybody on
Substack?
Grace. Okay. Let me just goahead and answer because this
will get annoying for me to justbe pausing, pausing, pausing,
waiting for other people toanswer. How do we return to
innocence? First, it doesrequire grace.
(48:22):
We cannot do it on our of ourown strength or power. It
literally requires grace the waya car requires gasoline. Okay?
Actually, grace is bettercompared to not just the
gasoline, but the transmissionand the engine. And what we're
doing is we're just the frame ofthe of the car.
That's how important grace is.So we need grace in order to
(48:45):
return to innocence. We also Imean, we hear it at mass
sometimes. We can do acts ofpenance. Right?
We can restore by penance whatwe have lost by sin. That's a
real thing. Have you ever triedthat? This is listen, this is my
bombshell advice to you. Spend aweek doing penances.
(49:08):
Here's a prescription. Take acold shower in the morning. Skip
your breakfast if you're abreakfast eater, okay? Or skip
some other fairly important mealto you. If you like milk in your
coffee, skip the milk, or skipthe coffee and have tea, And
(49:30):
then do some kind of act ofpenance in in the evening.
Do three acts of penance orthree categories of acts of
penance. Like the coffee thing,you don't have one coffee a day.
Right? You might have two orthree or maybe even four. So
that's one category.
You get what I'm saying? Dothree acts of penance every day
(49:51):
for a week. Pair it withprayerfulness. Come find me in a
week and tell me how you feel.Think I'm kidding?
Give it a try. So that's one waythat we can restore ourselves to
a state of innocence, acts ofpenance. Another way is through
a prayer through a life ofprayerfulness, Getting closer to
(50:14):
God by spending more time withhim. Getting closer to God by
gazing upon him more frequently,spiritually in prayer, but also
with your eyes as you as you goto when you go to Eucharistic
adoration. Another way torestore innocence is to always
be trying.
Folks, if you're a regular at mypodcast, you will know I'm
(50:38):
always telling you, always try.Keep trying. Because perfect for
us is not being Jesus Christ orthe blessed Virgin Mary. That is
impossible. But you always haveto be trying, which means rising
after you fall, and rising againafter you fall again, and you
(51:01):
keep rising every time you fall.
That's what it is to be perfectas your heavenly father is
perfect. We'll never be perfectlike Jesus and Mary. We'll never
be innocent like Adam. Well, Imean, we will be, but not here.
Not here.
But the path to perfection is aforging and purging fire that
(51:23):
involves the pain that comeswith rising after you have
fallen. The pain that comes fromgetting back up and trying again
after you have failed. Whateverthe failure for you is. I'm
talking about, like, in themoral life, in in in in a life
that you're trying to ridyourself of sins and so on. It's
(51:45):
part of the process is theforging fire that comes from the
pain of standing up again afteryou have fallen.
The pain that comes with againand again telling your sins
goodbye forever. The the pain ofhaving to kiss your sins goodbye
again, goodbye forever, whateveryour sin is, whatever your sins
(52:07):
are, it brings us pain to haveto say goodbye to them. Right?
Especially if they're sins thatwe really enjoy. It brings us
pain to say, I have to get backon this horse.
Goodbye forever. Maybe in theback of your head, you know
you're going to fall to thatsame sin in a month. Tomorrow,
(52:27):
who knows? But then you tryagain. But you see what I'm
saying?
It brings pain to say goodbyeforever to those sins that you
love so much. That's part of theprocess, is the pain that's
involved. The more we surrenderourselves to that cycle of the
rising after the falling, andthe rising again after the
falling again, God is workingsomething out of us. And each
(52:53):
time we try harder, and eachtime we try again, we get a
little bit closer to innocence.Not innocence the way Aquinas
defined it.
Although Aquinas acknowledged inthe Summa that we can never he
basically said what I just toldyou. We can never get back to
Adam and Eve, so there's adifferent kind of innocence for
(53:16):
us, but it's not true innocence.And that is true. But there is a
different kind of innocence forus, and that's what it involves.
It involves a determination tono longer be wicked, and a
staunch determination really towant to be like Jesus.
(53:37):
What other model can you look toapart from the Blessed Virgin
Mary? But she's not divine. I'mtalking about God. Right? To
conclude, what happened tomodern day innocence?
We've stopped believing that itcan ever be real. We have
stopped believing that it canever be real. The kids are going
to do it anyway, so give themcondoms. Tell them about
(53:59):
abortion options, becausethey're going to do it anyway.
What an insulting thing to sayabout any child or to say to a
child, son, I know you're gonnado it anyway.
So here's a condom. Here's howyou use it. Don't be stupid.
Don't be stupid. Hold childrento a higher standard because
they can live up to it.
(54:21):
But they won't if daddy istelling them you're going to be
a failure anyway. So here's howyou can fail without suffering
the consequences, which, by theway, is a lie. There will still
be consequences. Grave ones. Notjust spiritual ones either, but
those two.
We've stopped believing ininnocence. We corrupt the youth.
We corrupt others. Have you seenoh my god. I was gonna say, have
(54:45):
you seen what's on TV and moviesthese days?
But and then it just broughtback a memory. I was with my
family shopping at I don't knowwhat you would call that. Is
that a strip mall? I I I don'tknow. It was outlets and stuff,
and we're shopping for stuff forschool.
Passing, I think it might havebeen the gap. There was this
(55:07):
huge post huge. It was twice myheight, at least. If that tells
you how tall it was. And then itwas proportionally wide.
Of a man in his underwear, andhis underwear were hiked down in
the front quite low. Youcouldn't see all of that. Right?
(55:29):
You couldn't see junk. Let'sjust put it that way.
But they were hiked down reallow. There are families shopping
in this damn place with youngchildren. Why would you why
would you put that? And it's noteven that it's not even like an
11 by 14. It was gigantic.
(55:49):
And then there was another oneat a different store in that
same place. I I I don't evenremember, but I'll I'll tell you
this. Between the thing in thegap and then this other thing, I
think it was I don't remember,but it was vulgar. It was very
vulgar. And it and it was like adouble whammy for me between
those two images.
(56:11):
This is broad daylight. This isa place where families come to
shop. And there's, frankly,pornography in store windows.
And that's just one stop. Wehaven't even talked about mean,
we don't we're not a TVhousehold.
We haven't talked about, like,things that we see on t that
people see on TV or in movies,PG 13 or even PG, stuff that
(56:31):
passes for PG, and it's like, ohmy god. They said that? Oh my
god. They did that in thatmovie? It's raped PG or even PG
13.
Unbelievable to me. We'vestopped believing in innocence.
Because we've stopped believingin innocence, we've stopped
holding ourselves to thestandard of innocence, the
standard of God. Because we'vebecome okay with this idea that
(56:53):
we'll never be the blessedvirgin Mary. We'll never be Adam
and Eve before the fall.
Okay. So we won't. So what? Godstill holds us to a very high
standard. And he holds us to astandard that we can live up to.
If only we will try and believe.We stop believing in innocence,
you and me as well, probably tolesser degrees though. Right? I
(57:15):
would think. I hope.
We stop believing in ininnocence so we don't aim for it
anymore. But my friends, youhave to start aiming for it
again and aim for it anew. Bringprayerfulness back into your
lives. Bring sacrifice back intoyour lives. Frequent penances,
and they don't have to beextreme.
They can be small, but as longas they're challenging. Frequent
(57:36):
penances, good works, obviously.Good works is a form of penance
even though it's an act ofcharity. And obviously the
sacraments, mass, and Eucharist.The point is we have to build
our way toward innocence, andthat has to start by a return to
a belief in it, that it is areal thing.
Oh, by the way, before I get outof here, if you're not already
(57:59):
following me on socials, youshould know I am the hardest
working man in Catholicpodcasting, probably the most
amazing Catholic communicatorsince Fulton Sheen. If you're
not following me on socials, youare crazy. Click that follow.
Tap that like. Just tap andfollow anything and everything
on on my account.
Follow, reshare it, restackeverything. Just just tap it.
(58:24):
Because Jesus is counting all ofthat stuff. Okay? He's keeping a
tally.
Every time you tap like, tapfollow on something that I'm
doing, everything. Just tapeverything except for
unsubscribe. Just tapeverything. Seriously though,
follow me everywhere you find meif you enjoy my stuff. Consider
checking me out on Substack.
(58:44):
If Substack is a little bit tooheavy for you, check me out at
the, website of my newnewsletter, the waypoint
dispatch.Waypointdispatch.beehive.com.
Beehive is spelled weird,beehiiv.com. I I don't I don't
understand what people arethinking with with, like, name
(59:05):
conventions like that. I let meget the hell out of here.
I'm tired. This has been anepisode of the Catholic
Experience simulcast live beforea studio audience on Instagram,
(59:27):
Twitter, and home base atSubstack. I hope this wasn't too
much rambling and jibber jabberfor you. It's been a long day,
and I had to get on and, do thisbroadcast. Like, I really wanted
to connect with you guys today.
I had the time to do it, and Iwanted to do it. Might not be
able to do it again for anothercouple of days. Who who knows?
God bless you, folks. I hope youenjoyed it.
(59:47):
God be with you all. Check itout. The Waypoint Dispatch. Hope
to see you there. God bless youall.
Bye bye.
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