What's The Point Anyway?
It seems like much of the Western world is lost. The interesting trend over the last few years is that more and more people are working that out.
More people have worked out that endless materialism and chasing things that never actually satisfy us aint it.
So what’s the point of it all, anyway?
What's The Point Anyway?
Episode #35 - Discussing Catholic Apologetics with Elijah Yasi
As guests who have been listening to recent episodes have noticed, I'm in the midst of a deep dive into Catholicism, so my guest today was a well renowned Catholic apologist Elijah Yasi.
We started out by discussing how a Catholic faith impacts worldview and perspective on 'whats the point anyway' in a way which might be different to other Christian denominations. We delved into the complexities of church authority, the interpretation of early church writings, and the evolution of doctrine over centuries. We also discussed the role of church fathers, the implications of Vatican councils, and the centrality of the papacy in Catholicism versus Protestantism and Orthodoxy. In my opinion, the papacy is the central question when evaluating Catholicism's claims and this is an issue that Elijah has studied in great depth, so he was able to provide some perspectives that were highly insightful, particularly around the concept of unity in the Church.
Check out more of Elijah's content at his YouTube channel.
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Please like, rate, subscribe and share if you enjoyed this episode and think others will get value from listening to it too.
Okay. did a recording with a guy on Monday and I think he's just not that tech savvy because he joined and he's like, I can't see you. then we did the whole thing. I usually just upload audio only anyway and then I just do some YouTube shorts and that sort of stuff. Nah, it's not live. But yeah, I put it down to just his lovely guy that I think technically incompetent. I'm glad that you're my next guest in SEND, so the fact that you've joined and it works fine gives me a great sense of relief. Yeah, no, was pretty simple. Just put my name and give it access. Yeah, go ahead. I find it really good platform. So what do you do with your YouTube? What do I use you mean like StreamYard? Yeah. Pretty much. mean, this is the first time I ever used this and it's pretty much the same idea. StreamYard has like different subscriptions. So you have free version and then you have like paid versions and stuff like And you do heaps of lives, don't you? Do I do a live you said? You do it live. Yeah. Let me turn off my headphones. Yeah, I do everything live. I'm not really good at doing what you do, like editing and stuff like that. I just let, I let the AI thing do the editing for me. Yeah. I look, they're sort of free flowing conversation. So I don't do the editing is fairly simple. It's just sort of cuts out, excessive pauses. And then I add a little intro and outro sort of thing at the end. So it's minimal, but it's pretty, I sort of hate AI. I hate what it does for culture, but in terms of what it does for your own output. It's pretty good. Like I finished the episode and I hit like one button and it says generate and it adds my, adds logo, does all the pauses, fix ups, any background noise. So yeah, it's pretty powerful. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining me. So I'm, I'm really excited. I'm really excited to talk to you because yeah, you popped up on my ex and I was sort of digging deep into a bunch of your feeds and then have listened to a bunch of your content and sort of you're right in the wheelhouse of a topic that I'm studying at the moment. So, so I'm not Catholic, but interestingly, I've probably interviewed someone on this show, maybe eight episodes back and I was pretty typical sort of anti Catholic Protestant, even though to be honest, like a total church nomad Protestant, it's not that I necessarily adhere to any. any particular denomination, I always just assumed that Catholicism sort of was not it. And then listeners to this show I've seen, I've sort of since interviewed a couple of Catholic, you know, recent sort of converts to Catholicism and I'm really now trying to work out whether I've been wrong in my assumptions on it. So, so I come, I come here in peace to ask you questions that I'm genuinely interested in hearing, but at the same, at the same time, I think, you'll provide a really good insight for this show because it is, the question is, what's the point anyway? I speak to people with all different types of worldviews. You're someone that's, you know, well and truly Catholic, been Catholic for a significant period of time. And I hope you can give a good insight into what that means from a worldview. What is life like? What is, how does it affect your perspective? So maybe we'll start there. I usually ask that as the first question. And then we'll break it down. What's the point anyway? That's a great question. What's the point of being Catholic? Well, it affects every aspect of my life, everything, right? So my family, my wife, my kids, we practice the faith. We go to church together, we pray, we try to follow the teachings of the church, all the recommendations that the church makes, the requirements. Holy day of obligations, making sure that we're living a virtuous life to the best of our ability, that our kids know what the Catholic Church is and who God is. And we teach our kids the faith from, as I told you, my daughter's five, my son is three, and then we have a baby. And then my daughter, she, it's incredible what she knows at five years old. And I'm sure you have the same experience with your family, right? Yeah, we've basically got the same dynamic, very inquisitive older daughter who's five, who asks lots of questions and then two crazy boys that are three and one. Exactly. Yeah, so it's you know how it is right, but it really surprises me how much they can pick up and understand like She was four years old. It was a year ago, you know my my wife asked My daughter and this she taught her this right but the fact that she was able to grasp it was really cool. She said She said who is God she's got his father's son Holy Spirit she said and then she said my wife asked her, who made God? And she said, nobody made God. And she said, why not? She says, because if somebody made God, then that person that made God would be God. And if whoever made God, if he was made, then he wouldn't be God. I'm like, wow. Like the fact that she was able to say that, I'm like, she understands, right? But the Catholic faith is beautiful because there's so many different. tastes of it, so many different aspects. There's the Eastern traditions, that's where I come from, the Chaldeans and the Syriacs. So my father is a Syriac Catholic, which are Syriacs, who used to not be Catholic, but they came into the Catholic Church. Not all of them, they're still Syriac Orthodox that are not in communion with Rome. And then there's Chaldeans, same thing, there's the Assyrians that are not in communion and there's Chaldeans. And so my wife's Scythian, I'm half Scythian, half Scyriac. My father's Scyriac, my mom's Scythian. And so it's really beautiful to see different liturgies where you have the same idea. know there's two parts to the liturgy. There's the liturgy of the word. Well, we read the Bible and the priest gives a homily. And then the second part is the Eucharist, right? The institution of the Eucharist and... And the beauty of that is every liturgy in the Catholic Church and even all the apostolic churches, right? They all have those two levels, those two aspects. And that goes back to St. Justin Martyr in the 150 AD. He talks about the liturgy and he explains the liturgy and what that's like. And yeah, I mean, it's even in my work, right? I try to treat my employees the way I've been taught in the faith. don't treat them as like I own a company, right? So I don't try to treat them as like people that are making me money, right? I try to treat them as people that God loves. So I try to do, and it tries to, I try to do that in every aspect and every encounter. Of course I fail a lot, right? I'm a sinner. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but my intention is to be, to grow in virtue and to be that, to encounter people and meet them and. show them that Christ loves them, right, in a sense. that's a good question. So what is the point? The point obviously is to go to heaven, right? To love God, to serve God, and to meet him one day up in heaven and to be with him and to make sure my family goes to heaven as well. So that's the ultimate point, is to worship, serve, to know him, and to love him. What do you think it means when you talk about the idea of the point being to go to heaven? I actually think in terms of my study of Catholicism, gets this, it answers this better than other denominations do. But I think one of the criticisms that can come from outside is that Christianity just appears as though it's some system where you tick boxes so that when you die, you... there's a bunch of rewards. But I think the message Jesus came to pronounce was a lot more about the here and the now and what it means for us in this very moment. It's not that we're kicking all these rewards down the road to what happens when we die. What are the, how much of your perspective and your faith is about what it brings and gives for you right here and now? man, a huge part of it is about what's here and now because as Christ says, the kingdom of heaven is near you. He says that in the gospels. It's within us. In the Catholic Church, we believe that the, and this is the same thing as Orthodox Church as well, we believe that the liturgy is heaven on earth, where we worship God. Where we believe the the Saints and the angels are there with us in the liturgy worshiping God, too And so and just besides the liturgical aspect of it We are we are to take what we have at our home and our home is supposed to be liturgical as well where you have the head The husband and then you have the wife and the kids who are submissive to the husband and the husband is supposed to serve and lead not not lord it over and overpower and and make it about himself. The leadership role is really not about him and it's not for him. It's service. It's like Christ came to serve, Exactly, yeah, he came to serve. And so everything that's in heaven, we kind of have a taste of it here, right, in a sense. And I don't know if you know, some Catholic saints have the... gifts that we would have in heaven that we would believe we would have in heaven. Like I don't know if you've ever looked into a saint named Padre Pio. I know a bit about him, I'm half Italian, I'm on my mum's side. basically any Italian has a photo of Padre Pio up on the wall. There you go. you've seen and he's an incredible saint, right? He has he has he has so many miracles. But there's things about him and he always reminds me of of God giving someone the grace to have a taste of heaven. in the morning, the most important thing is the way I'll put a bow on this is when we pray, right? Prayer is is bringing the kingdom of heaven is bringing Christ. within our myths, right? He's with us. And so, sometimes you'll have experiences in prayer to where you can't really explain. You just have this love for Christ, and you're just deep into prayer, and you're just in love with Christ, right? And that, I think, is like a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what we will feel in heaven for Christ, the love that we will have, right? And I think it's just like God giving us these little Tastes it's like just just stick with me. I trust me just stick with me and You will one day be with me and all of these things are just gonna be very tiny things of what I have in store for you, right? Yeah, makes total sense. I mean, the two guests that I've had on the show that are both, are both sort of somewhat fairly recent Catholic converts, both hold to the similar doctrine or view on the scriptures that I hold, which is sort of full preterism, which is, I think the New Testament is basically telling a story of old covenant Israel's eschatology. And that eschatology was fulfilled in the first century with the destruction of Jerusalem, which I would argue basically, and these two would argue as well, was the institution of the new heaven and earth and the new Jerusalem. Now, Mesh, who came onto the show and basically spoke about this, essentially made the point that that's not It's certainly not officially the Catholic Church teaching on eschatology. And over time, there's been lots of different views on eschatology. And one thing that I respect about Catholicism is unlike the absolute mess which is in the Protestant churches, which is so focused on us living in the end times here and now, the Roman Catholic Church boldly asserts its dominion as the, you know, as the representative of Christ here on earth, which I sort of see as that new heaven and earth. And I think, you know, in first century times, the old heaven and earth, the Jews sort of viewed that temple system as the heaven and earth. So the replacement of that with a kingdom that would come, that gives us experience here on earth with Christ present with us. and a new heaven, is still, you know, wherever we dwell when we die actually makes a lot of sense from a Catholic theology point of view. The challenge I'm trying to work out is that theology is leading me towards really thinking about Catholicism and yet at the same time, it's not specifically taught by the church. So Sean McMahon, came on, he's done a lot of work on this and he's done. a really great mind on it and he sort of come to his conclusions on it. But could you see something like that, that the new heaven and earth that's spoken about in the gospels is actually referring to this dominion that the church would have here on earth? Well, what do you say new heaven and earth are you talking about in Revelation? Yeah. So revelation does, first or second Peter, think references the new heaven and earth. Isaiah 65, 66 talks about the new heaven and earth and in, and in Isaiah's description of heaven and earth, there's sinners still existing there. There's people dying there. revelation 22 talks about the new heaven and earth. And it's interesting. I've heard John Berg's but given the exceptional explanation on Revelation 22 where there's the living waters that come down for the and the leaves on the trees for the healing of the nations which everyone thinks as being like this sort of future heavenly state and yet John Bergsmus talking about it as being this is sort of fulfilled in the Catholic Church here and now today and that the sacraments of the living waters so I I actually see the Catholic Church being very, very close to this idea of fulfilled eschatology, even though I don't necessarily have it all worked out. And I think it's arrogant of us to think that any of us have all of the answers to scriptures. yeah. No, I think that's beautiful because just as you're talking and I'm thinking about this, logically it makes sense, right? Because we believe in the sacraments. One of the sacraments is literally Christ being present. So that's literally heaven on earth. And we, like I said earlier, liturgy is heaven on earth. And so it extends that to also the church being heaven on earth, right? And that's the way the church is supposed to be lived out. So, you know, me and my family, you know, and other Catholics and their families, we're supposed to live out that heaven on earth. The reason why that concept might seem difficult for people is because most of us don't, right? We fail. And so it doesn't look like it's heaven on earth. But when we're supposed to be doing what we're doing, when we do what we're supposed to be doing, then that is heaven on earth. Another example is the sacrament of baptism. where the Holy Spirit enters into our soul and we become partakers of Christ and we enter into his church, right? We enter into that kingdom and confirmation to strengthen us on the journey. We receive the Eucharist. Obviously, if you falter and you fail, you go to confession. And so there is that aspect of heaven on earth. And eschatologically speaking, I would agree with what John, now this is not my area of expertise, but yeah, that's how I have understood it as well. That's our kingdom here. It's not just about what's in heaven. Christ did not just say, here's some instructions, here are my teachings and good luck. I'll see you guys in heaven hopefully one day. No, he's here with us. He's in our midst. Yeah. And I think it's like, this is the, I think this is the problem with particularly sort of, you know, I think if you look at like reform denomination, they're teaching on it is awkward in that they will say, no, we don't hold to once saved or always saved. But then they do, they do believe that it is, know, faith gets you the tick and then you're in, you know, but they won't say that explicitly, but the teaching is that, you know, there's no going around that. But it takes away from the point that when Christ came, he gave the apostles and his followers a message to do something. was not like, just believe so that you have your entry ticket. It's like, be the light to the nations, be the salt of the earth. I'm giving you the spirit so that you will go and do these things. It's like, we have a very real purpose here today and I think when we deny that, people get, it's so easy to just get really lazy. Yes, absolutely. And I'm glad you said that, because that's what it sounds like to me as well. Once saved, always saved. Even if you say you don't, that's just what you're concluding at the end of the day, right? Because all you need is faith. But we also, as you know, being a Protestant, people can misunderstand that teaching from Protestants, right? Because they're not saying that I can just live a sinful life and then I'll be saved as long as I believe in Christ, right? I don't think a Protestant would believe that you can go and murder people on a daily basis and then as long as you believe in Christ you go to heaven. So even a Protestant... in, so in reform teaching, they get really stuck with any instance like that, where someone's a professing Christian for 30 years, and then they leave the faith, they commit murder, whatever it may be, and they would say, they essentially have to say that that's proof, I think from the first or second letter of John, that when they departed, that's proof that they were never actually saved. Yes, yes, but I, yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry. Which is awkward when, I mean, I had a conversation recently with a guy called Ellen Bondar, who was a pastor for 30 years, and now he's an atheist who's written a book, How to Kill God the Easy Way. Now, I mean, you can't say that that guy is saved. But then it's very hard to say that he wasn't a professing Christian, he was a full-time pastor for 30 years, you know? So it's... It's awkward, which I think, you know, I don't mean you're on X, I look at X. The Protestant, a lot of Protestant arguments against Catholicism, very hypocritical, because their own teachings aren't worked out. Yeah, especially Protestantism, yeah. I see a lot of arguments where they don't think things through, right, from Protestants. And with all due respect to Protestantism, I think Protestantism is, for me, not even in the picture of Christ setting up that church, with all due respect, right? Because I think the ones that can... that are in the picture are the ones that claim to be the original church that Christ started. Protestants don't even have that concept, right? And so for me, they're not even there because if Christ says, will be with you always and I will lead you to all truth and I'll send you the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is supposed to do all these things throughout the centuries. Well, do you have a Protestant that existed in the sixth century, for example, right? I can't find one, right? A full blown Protestant, but I can find Catholics, you know? Yeah. that to me, I don't know if you know, but I was Protestant for one year. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so. you grew up believing Christian. Kind of, yeah, mean, my parents taught us the faith in a very basic sense, right? I prayed every day, like, one Our Father, one Hail Mary. I didn't go to church. We went to church only on Christmas and Easter, yeah. So very sort of lukewarm, cultural sort of Christian. Yeah. What was the journey then as an adult? So I was about 20 years old and I have a twin brother. I don't know if you know him. His name is Enoch. He's a Catholic rapper. Yeah. So if you look him up, you know, he has a, he's pretty well known out there as well. So he started reading the scriptures, you know, just he started hanging out with some Protestant friends. And then I was like, oh, that's intriguing. Cause I've always wanted to do that, you know, like for the last few years, but prior to that, but I just never got myself to do it. And I started doing the same thing and then because we were hanging out with Protestant friends They lured us towards that type of Mentality, know, Mary is not important. She wasn't a virgin. She was she was a sinner The the Pope is just a man who's a sinner you don't need the Pope and you know There's no such thing as bishops Christ did not do any of this and and so that's how it started but then my father finds out about the fact that we were Protestant. I wasn't going to Protestant church, but I had Protestant beliefs. I was Calvinistic type of beliefs. And then so he finds out and he just loses his mind. Because as a Syriac, Iraqi Syriac, the faith is extremely important to hold on to. That's like your identity. Even though he wasn't practicing it religiously. He was still a man of faith. He believed in Jesus and the whole faith as much as he could understand it. So he's like, all well, you guys are going to go to a Catholic Bible study and you're going to learn Catholicism. And out of respect for our father, we're like, OK, fine. We'll do that. And so we go to a Bible study. The gentleman's name that was doing the Bible study, name is Chris O'Donnell. that man forever changed my life and my brother's life because he was teaching a Bible study and he was incorporating the early church fathers into it like what they thought about these scripture verses you know and it was like the gospel of Mark was the first thing he was teaching that we walked into and he was doing that every week you know a few verses or a chapter every week and you know he would get into passages I really can't remember but he would always quote the church fathers Hmm. of them and their interpretation of them sounded very Catholic, know, like baptism, Eucharist and all this stuff. And I'm like, who are these people? I've never heard of these people. And why haven't I heard of these people? And so when I looked into it, that became my obsession, the church fathers. And it's still till this day, my obsession, right? Church fathers. And looked into them and I'm like, wow, like these guys believed in the sacraments, the They believed in praying for the dead. They believed in, you know, the bishopric, the papacy, that there's a head bishop, that there's the priests and deacons and hierarchy. had a hierarchy and they have like, and all the way back to like 180, like that's that early, right? This is, this is not as as the ecclesiology goes at least. And I'm like, well, these guys were, they sound Catholic and I don't, I'm Protestant. And so where does this Protestantism thing come from? and who started it, right? And I started digging into it, and Martin Luther, to Calvin, all this stuff, which I kind of had a general idea about, but I didn't really know that, you you don't really think about these, and that's why I'm saying they don't think these through. And I was like, wow, these guys were Catholic, and they lived in closest to Christ. Who am I removed from Christ, so far away from knowing the person who was his disciple, and knowing, you know, who am I to say that they were wrong? Mm. How can I say that, right? So I was like, wow, I gotta be Catholic. Obviously this was like, you know, a few months, I'm kind of shortening it up, but I did study this for a few months. And I would be at work and I would just be listening to Catholic answers. I don't know if you've ever listened to Catholic answers, you know. And every day I would listen to Catholic answers and I would listen to Catholics becoming Catholic from Protestantism, just listening to their journey. would listen to Journey Home from EWTN, the channel. And I was like, wow. So being Catholic to me sounded like it was like the realization that this is Christ's church. And once you come to the realization, it's like, you can't go back. It's just a matter of time, which I think you're experiencing. Yeah, it's funny, I wouldn't say dismissed, but previously not put a lot of thought into the church fathers and the early church. Yes. But I, so how I've got to where I am is basically, if I believe in fulfilled eschatology, a victorious church, you know, that Christ came, he established something that would take over the world and dominate the world and bring God here to earth. know, however we want to explain that. Then, and a lot of people that are preterists, struggle with this answer, then we're stuck to say that, well, if Protestantism is true, that it took 1600 years to even get close to working out ecclesiology. And then 400 years later, you still have 40,000 denominations and they kind of ground basic things like, what do need to do to be a Christian? There's no consensus on baptism. There's no consensus on whether one can keep their faith or lose their faith. There's no consensus on what you have to do. There's no, so I'm stuck saying, well, this is a pretty unsuccessful 2000 years of church or, the Catholic or, or if we take, I mean, a lot of Protestants will say Catholic Church is Mystery Babylon and all this, which is just total nonsense. I mean, I've studied enough of eschatology to know that it is not talking about the Catholic Church. So then I'm stuck with saying, what then, this entity that's established in the first few centuries that then has several billion people that have adhered to it over time. is a counterfeit church and it's been allowed to go on for this long. That's a, again, it's a very weak position if you believe in a victorious Christ in the first century. So I've started now reading a bit more of, and then the other option is you have to go down sort of conspiracy rabbit holes that are, mean, I don't know if you've come across this on X now, but you've got like people that believe in Satan's little season. that actually a church was established in the first century. The thousand years have happened here on earth. then Revelation 27 to 10 says then then Satan will be loosed to deceive the nations and then the end will come. then, so then that they'll say that actually the true church has existed, but it's been wiped from the history books. So you, you pretty much then have to say that history is totally incorrect. The other option then is you start actually reading some of this early church. know, Christ came, he established a church, in 300 years, it toppled the Roman Empire. This itinerant preacher from Nazareth with a bunch of peasant farmer followers have literally taken down the Roman Empire. And it's all true. That's a, that's a lot more victorious, at church for me than any other option. And you read the early church and you're right. They're all Catholic. mean, like I read, I was reading, yeah, Clement's letter to the Corinthians. it's, it's a Catholic letter. So we're stuck saying, well, I actually, either this guy was Catholic or, you know, or Orthodox and maybe we'll get into that topic from here or. all of the true Christians in the first couple of centuries, we've lost all their records and we've only got the counterfeit Christians. And that's an uncomfortable position and probably intellectually dishonest position for me to hold, which is why I'm deep in my study here now. But you're correct. They're all, all of the early writings are a hierarchical, you know, universal church with a mission to to do things here on earth and preserve a liturgy and a very specific way of practicing faith. Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that the difference between the Catholic and Orthodox way of reading the Fathers versus like the Protestant would read the Fathers, if they do read the Fathers, if they know about them. So the Catholics and the Orthodox, they read the Fathers to learn, to learn the Fathers. Like what did our Fathers teach to grow in our faith, to grow in our spiritual life, because we believe they have something to offer us. And it seems like the Protestant, reads the fathers, and please don't, I hope I'm not offending you when I say this. So it's almost like the same way that the serpent with Eve was questioning Eve. Did God really say blah, blah, blah? And it's kind of like, the fathers really mean this when they said it? Did the fathers really teach this? And it's kind of like they approach it with skepticism. Mmm. like a secularist atheistic sense of reading the fathers like they're not reading people that have this supernatural faith they're reading people that Yeah, you know sure they had faith in Christ, but I have more faith in Christ than they do So why should I listen to them? if I will if I will listen to them I will I will read them just so I can use them in apologetics and refute Catholics and That misses the thing that misses the whole point because what they do is they'll take like a father in the fourth century, a Latin father in fourth century, and a Latin father in the fifth century, and they try to pin them against each other. But these fathers are really continuing on the teaching from their last father, especially the Latin fathers, teaching the same thing. The Syriac fathers are teaching the same thing. But they don't treat them that way. They treat them as if they're people that are just sitting there interpreting the scriptures, like the way they would at home. It's like, that's just another interpretation. But that's not what these guys are doing. Most of these fathers are bishops. and their duty as a bishop is to teach and authoritatively teach. And they were writing homilies and teaching authoritatively and taking stances on dogmas and teaching their flock. They're not sitting there interpreting the scriptures on the same level as somebody like you or me or our fellow Protestant Catholics. That's what they miss. But they don't believe in any of this. So if you don't believe in any of this hierarchical thing, then you kind of miss that aspect of reading the Church Fathers. And then you're just reading them just to kind of refute the Thaulicism. And that kind of, you know, that's kind of depressing, reading the Fathers that way, because you're missing such a beautiful gem, you know? Do you think it's fair to say so? One thing that, I mean, not even, I don't even say this cynically, but almost just realistically and the way that I read the New Testament and Christ's closest followers, like I use the example of, you know, when Lazarus died and Martha and Mary, who are like, you know, Jesus's closest friends. And then, you know, he says, he's asking him and they're like, yeah, well, we know you'll raise him up on the last day. And he's like, well, I'm, I am the resurrection and the life. And it's clear there that, and then we can go to Peter, we can go to all of them. Like none of his closest followers had perfect understanding of scriptures. They were, they were working it out. And then you get to Acts post resurrection. And I think it's clear that the apostles through those four years continue to work things out, which to me feels like what you would expect from a living, breathing church. That yes, we have Christ and yes, we have the scriptures, but over time, our understanding and our maturity will change and also the culture around us will change. I think Orthodox seems to do this, which to me seems wrong. And but I'm not sure whether a Catholic would agree with me on this. but to me, it feels like what an Orthodox will do will look at, say, the church in the fourth century and say, that's the gold standard. And we need to preserve exactly what they believe there. Whereas I would say that as a living, breathing church that we can, a 21st century church can understand things differently to what the 4th century church was and that they weren't necessarily wrong, same as like in the 2nd century they hadn't worked out the Trinity, by the 4th century they had worked out the Trinity. It's like, I think we should embrace growing an understanding which might mean that we believe things now understand things now that are different to what we understood a thousand years ago. Do you think that's a fair comment? It is, absolutely. But we also have to, we can't just apply that generally to everything, right? So like what you're saying, I agree with in so many ways, in so many different aspects. Where we have to be careful is someone saying, well, if you're going to say that, well, we can have gay marriages. Everything's up for grabs, right? So that's what we have to be careful with. But I know that's not what you're saying. And the way you're presenting it, it's knowing you're a Christian and what you're saying is truth, right? It is true. We just have to kind of be careful with that, right? And you're right, like the dogmas. And what you see in the early church is an evolution of an understanding. So if I read the fathers, right, if I go to the first century, right, or second century, I can't deduce a lot of the things that we believe today. explicitly spelled out. They're there, like very, very implicitly. For example, like the Catholics believe in the Immaculate Conception, right? There's no father in the first century or second century that wasn't even thinking about saying, Mary was immaculately conceived in an explicit way, right? They have that idea of her being the new Eve, and that's how the development started, right? So if the old Eve... she was sinless, she was created sinless. then the new Eve, she's a new Eve then, and she's greater than the old Eve, so she should have greater privileges. So you kind of have these developments, understanding things better and better and better. And that goes with even Eastern Orthodox teachings, right? You can't find Eastern Orthodox teachings full blown right there in the first or second century. Sometimes you gotta go to like third, fourth, fifth century, and that's because these guys, It's practical, right? It's practical. Like in the first three centuries, they were being persecuted. Fourth century, Until like in the 300s where it of became legal to be cursed. Yeah. So then they have more freedom to write and not to be hidden and stuff like that. And so that's when you start seeing the faith more explicit. And the more you go into the centuries, the more you can find explicit understanding. and explanation of the faith versus before, where it's just like, it's very implicit. And I can understand a Protestant be like skeptical of that's really what that Church Father taught, because it's not really spelled out. And the reason why I think it is what he taught is because that's what the next century and the next century, next century deduced out of it. And they explicitly formalized that teaching, like you said, in a developmental way. So they developed it. And now we understand it. Now we're not creating new teachings, so we have to be careful, right? And I think sometimes a Catholic has to be careful with that and they aren't very careful with that. Because it's kind of like, I'm going to slap the development card on it and be like, all right, well, that's, you know, it's a development, right? So if there's like any things that seem like something changed, it's like, no, it didn't change. It's just a development, right? And I think that's a wrong mentality. We just have to be careful. things like that because like you said, it can open up windows to, well, if you're gonna change this and call it development, why can't I change that and calling that a development, right? But have you read Vincent of Larenz on this? Vincent of Larenz, or are you aware of? He talks about this. I believe he was in the fourth century or fifth century, but he talks about the development of dogma early on. Vincent of Larenz, yeah. I've got him. I'll have a look into that. fathers. You'd be interested in reading what he has to say on this because he, Orthodox think that we just made this up, but it's right there in the early church and that's how they understood things as well. Yeah. So do you think with like the development of dogma and the, and the Roman Catholic position as being the, the true church that has the magisterium and the true teachings, does that allow, does it allow for a chance that it may be wrong on a dogma or, or is that if it's wrong on a dogma, it's not the true church. Correct, yeah, if it's wrong on the dogma, then it falsifies it completely. And that's, it puts itself up there, right? So we're like, all right, you can test me, because if I'm wrong, and that's what Protestants think, like they're wrong, right? So it's not the true church, right? But it kind of puts it, it makes it vulnerable to being falsified very easily, right? But the way we have to understand is that it's not the priests, bishops, and the popes, and all these people that are preserving us in the truth, it's the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, that's who we're trusting, right? When we believe in the ecumenical councils, the infallibility of the councils, when they teach on faith or morals, I'm not believing in, know, St. Jerome or St. Augustine and the people that were at the councils or the ones that were influencing the councils. That's not that works through them. Yeah. Yeah. So we all believe in God, we all believe God preserves the truth, it's just how does he do it is what we disagree on, right? So what about the, like the Orthodox claim that Vatican two, um, contradicts Vatican one. Cause I, you know, I've heard that from like a J dire that, and I, and I don't know it in any great detail. And I know you've, I know you've, uh, you've reached out to Jay and have a few disputes there, but, but I have heard that that, Hey, these two councils contradict each other. And that alone is proof that this church is a, is corrupted one. Well, I don't think they would say Vatican I and Vatican II contradict each other. I think they would just say pre-Vatican II versus post-Vatican II or during Vatican II because Vatican I and Vatican II did not contradict each other. And anyone who says that, they just haven't read the councils and there's nothing there to contradict. Vatican I just taught papal infallibility and papal supremacy and Vatican II reaffirmed that and then just kind of explained it in a more fully detailed way with the bishops involved in it. But there is this claim that know, the Catholic Church believed in A, B, C, and then pre-Vatican II, and then post-Vatican II believed in X, Z. And I completely understand that. I understand where the person's coming from who teaches that, because from a eye test, it does appear like there is a different church here, pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II. But that goes back to what you were saying earlier, which you kind of hit it on the mark. is when you're living in a different time period, different centuries, you're dealing with different people. Like the modern man has never been this way. The man has never been this way the way the modern man is. And the church has to teach and preach and talk to that type of man, right? And so, and that could make it seem like it's contradicting itself from before and after Vatican II. But really, it's really just trying to be relevant to the humanity of today, who we are as people. Which Paul, I mean, Paul did that, you know, to the Greek, became a Greek, to the Jew, became a Jew. Yeah. Yeah. what's really happening. Now, again, I completely understand a person who makes those claims and points at the finger at the Catholic Church says, look, you guys used to believe this and now you changed it to this, right? What you think, what's one of the main criticisms that you hear in terms of changing of teaching or beliefs? me think of something here. I know Brother James, I don't know if you've heard of Divine Mercy apologetics, he wears a mask. He just recently did a video on, what did they do a video on? I think he did a video on whether Muslims worship the same God as us. And he showed that the Eastern Orthodox Saint Gregory Palamas he explicitly taught that they did, not necessarily Muslims, but like pagans, right? And he was like showing like, you're gonna point the finger at us with this, but you believed in the same thing with your saint. But as far as one of the examples that J. Dyer gives, I believe one of them is Ut Unam Sint, where it talked about the Pope being a temporal leader and a spiritual leader. And then, Vatican too kind of stepped away from that and moved away from that and it kind of emphasized the fact that he is a spiritual leader and No longer is saying that hey, he's a he's a temporal leader, right? Because you know, had kingdoms back then and stuff like that. That was relevant at the time You don't have that. I mean, okay, if you say he's a temporal leader today, what does that even mean? He has like a little State, you know Vatican little small tiny country He has no influence there, right? So it's like it kind of sounds ridiculous to say that but again, Jay Dyer was like Jadir looks at the Catholic Church and assumes it's false and plays off of that, right? Rather than looking at it from a benefit of the doubt, a positive perspective where he's not assuming that it's evil and that it has evil intentions. And that's the difference between knowing the truth and finding the truth versus being blind to the truth is you just have this hatred for something. And let's say the Catholic Church is true. His hatred will never allow him to see that. Yeah. And that's the way you're doing things, and that's why I like talking to folks like you. You seem like you have humility to learn, and you're open, and you see things from a perspective that's logical. You're not seeing things from an angry person where you're just like, no, no, no, it can't work. You don't just lash out. You just step back and like, hmm. There's a reason why they're doing that and what is the reason and let's ask the question and then see what the answer is, right? Yeah. come from, I don't mean I say this not to, I'm not pumping up my own tires at all. Anyone that knows me, like I'm pretty brash with some of my views, but, and, and have been, it's just, I've been wrong too many times. So as I get older and more humility and more things happen, it's, I might see something. like with, you know, the initial speaking to people, Cause you know, the view, like the view of Protestant how is Catholics are just sort of people that don't read Bibles. And then when I spoke to a couple of people that I knew knew their Bibles better than anyone I knew that were Catholic. was like, hang on. Well, what have they seen that I've, what have I missed? So it has to be, how could I be wrong unless let's test the limits of how I'm wrong here? Because if it's not, you just dismiss it like anything else and you'll never. I'm not having this conversation with you to actually understand what you're trying to say. I'm trying to refute you the whole time and it becomes a bit pointless. Yeah, absolutely. I, so, you know, I'm involved in these online discussions, debating, you know, it be Petrus and Jay Dyer. I'm trying to get debates set up. I don't prefer debates. I don't, I prefer this. Like let's, let's have a conversation, but that's not the kind of people I'm dealing with. The kind of people I'm dealing with have an audience that they want to see blood baths and WWE, MMA. Yeah, he does. Yeah. Except for me. He doesn't, he wants to debate somebody with, with a well-known. which I understand, but that's not the problem I had with it, is I asked him if he would debate, I don't know if you know Eric Ibarra. Yeah, yeah. I asked him if he would debate Eric Ibarra. He said yes. And he has like not that many followers as I do. like he doesn't have that much more than I do. Let's put it that way. And he's willing to debate him, but he's not willing to debate me. That's where I'm like, hmm, that's interesting. Is it, is it fair to say on the, I don't think it's just Catholicism verse Eastern Orthodox, but I think it's Catholicism verse everything. The key questions, the papacy, isn't it? I think every single argument lives and dies by the papacy. So what's your, what, do you break down your argument in favor of the papacy, both to a Protestant and to an Eastern Orthodox? Cause I guess both will have a different perspective. Eastern Orthodox at least. admits a hierarchy and bishop structure, a Protestant will reject that entirely. Yeah, that's a good question. So Protestant scholarship, you read the scholarship on the Gospels, they will admit that Peter was the head. That's obvious, right? That's straight from scriptures. So already we have a Protestant admitting that there is a headship among the apostles, right? They don't believe in this idea of passing on a hierarchy, right? So they kind of stop there and like, all right, once they die, then it's every man for himself. Yeah. Generally speaking, obviously, Protestants who believe in ecclesiology, like high church Anglicans and things like that, that's a different story. Most Protestants were just like, all right, apostles died, now it's every man for himself, we can take the scriptures and the Holy Spirit will lead me to understand the scriptures, But they actually admit that headship is there in the gospels. Now the Eastern Orthodox admit the headship was there as well. And they do believe in the ecclesiology that gets passed on from the apostles, right? And so they have a bigger issue of trying to get out of the explaining away the papacy, this headship that existed in the first millennium. And you can't get away from it. And that's why I say, like somebody like Ubi Petras, who knows his history, the first millennium, he knows it very well. You know, he's not a dumb guy. He's a smart guy. And he studied this. And his view on the ecclesiology is actually like maybe one or two steps below Catholicism. Yeah. Whereas if you talk to Eastern Orthodox who haven't really studied the history, they kind of know generally speaking, you know, some of the talking points of the early church and they'll be like, he was first among equals. Well, that's because you haven't really looked into the details, the nitty gritty of all the debates in the early church, the conversations they had, the beliefs they had, Ulvi Petrus has, and that's why he's the closest Eastern Orthodox or any Orthodox I've ever seen. to Vatican one type of ecclesiology because he believes that the Pope is the head. And I don't know if you saw his debate with Eric Ibarra that they did on pites with Aquinas. So he admits things in there that Eastern Orthodox, there's an Eastern Orthodox priest that did a review with Eric Ibarra and he had a problem with what Ubi was saying. He's like, no, that's too Catholic. He's like, he's admitting your position and he lost the debate because he admitted your position. He says, we believe that the Pope is a supreme head. Okay, he says, we believe that the Pope has the authority to confirm and to deny. So without his consent, you don't have a universal teaching. So the bishops can teach something, but if the Pope does a consent to it, then you don't have a universal teaching, right? And so. He admits too much, right? Because again, like I said, if you study the history, you're gonna get there. You can't just brush that off. So what is the purpose of the papacy and why is it important? Number one, the reason why it's important is because Christ instituted it. That's the only reason. Christ instituted it. It's a divine institution. And we see that right in Matthew 16, as you know, and he says, are rocking on this rock. I will build my church. And then Luke 22, you know, talks about, confirmed the brethren. I prayed for you so that the phil... your faith may not fail you. And then the other passages, John, I think it was John 24 or Luke 24 or John 22 or John 24. I'm forgetting, but he was feed my sheep. Yeah, feed my lamb, feed my sheep. Yeah, so, and the fathers and especially the popes, they use those three to show that they have this responsibility to teach universally. and make sure all the bishops are in line and all the people in the church are in line with Christ's teaching. They use those things, right? So the purpose of the papacy is to ensure unity. That is the purpose of the papacy, is to ensure unity, right? Now, now we have to ask questions, right? How can a pope ensure unity if he has no authority? Impossible. Yeah. if I was ensuring unity in my family, I have no authority to do so. My sons wouldn't listen to me, my daughter wouldn't listen to me, and my wife wouldn't listen to me. That's not unity, right? I have to have real authority to ensure that there's unity in our family. And so you ask these questions, okay, so if the Pope has to ensure unity, right? And the fathers unanimously speak this way about the headship. They will say that there were 12 apostles and Christ sent out one among the twelve as the head for why? Because he wanted to ensure unity and that divisions may not arise, right? Okay, so if the pope has that authority, if he has that responsibility, I should say, then he must have an authority to do that. So in a situation where the church is split, you know, like the Arianism, right? Let's say it was split in half, half the church are Arians and now half the church are Orthodox. Now you need somebody to kind of settle that matter. If you can't have a majority in that case, right? Or some people think the majority was Arianism. That's even worse. So that means the minority was in the right. And so who's gonna ensure that unity? Who's gonna bring back the truth and say, here's the truth? Well, if you don't have authority to kind of break the tie, then you're gonna have a perpetual split in the church. And you don't know where the truth is. And as a layman, imagine being a layman in those times. Like you kind of look at it like, I don't know which side is right, right? Because I don't know these things. I don't know the scriptures as well as these bishops do. I don't have the Bible in my house. You know, I can barely read, right? So some of these people, like they're just depending on these bishops to teach them. And the, you know, the logical answer, the logical deduce from it is that you have to have a head and Christ gave this headship the ability to teach infallibly on matters that pertain to the universal church, right? And that's where papal infallibility comes from. And it's a very logical idea. It's a scriptural idea and it's also a patristic idea, right? The church fathers also believed in it. And so now you're probably wondering, well, what kind of unity is there when there's all these splits? Yeah. in the church, right? So Christ promised the church would be one. He said that he didn't promise that, but he prayed that they may be one. Let's say, I pray that they are one just as you and I are one, speaking to the Father. Now let's think about this for a second. Christ's prayer cannot fail, right? The church is one, the church will always be one, and the church will always be one, and it has always been one, right? Now you're saying, well, how can it be one if you have like Eastern Orthodox who split from the church or Oriental Orthodox or Protestants, right? And I would answer and say, the church didn't split. The church remained one. And the way that you know where the church is is where Peter is, where the headship of Peter is, that's where the true church is. And it makes it easy for the layman to know where the true church is. Now you don't have to start figuring it out, right? All you have to do is learn if the papacy is true or not. And if it's true, then that's all you need to look at. Yeah, none of the other doctrine matters. It doesn't matter whether you agree with it. It's why for me, like stuff like the Marian dogmas and all that, it's neither here nor there. If the papacy is true, I need to come up to speed with everything that's taught. It's not a matter of the church agreeing with my positions on things. And I think when I look at... believing that the church was established to fulfill a mission here on earth. Unity is crucial because you can't do it without unity. There's jump on X, know. Christians debating interpretations of verses against each other isn't doing a whole lot to heal the nations and to do good in the world, stop doing anything. it is another lesson. This is sort of how I'm thinking about it. which might sound like it sort of downplays the Pope a little bit, but if the first Pope was Peter, one of the main things we learn, cause you know, people, a lot of people really dislike Francis and, and to be honest, I would look at Francis and I'm not overly inspired by this guy's the head of the church, but, if we look at it, if we look at Peter is the lesson there that Peter made all sorts of errors. along the way. He made errors in judgment initially on what to do with the Gentiles. He denied Christ three times that the head of the church, the papacy, was not a matter of a perfect person that would do the right thing all the time. That it's the establishment of the office and the people needing to submit to that office is the important part of it. And the lesson is that you're actually gonna have bad popes at periods in time. Not saying Peter was a bad pope, but he made some bad decisions at times. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's a great point. And it's really about what they're teaching on an official level, right? Because Peter was, like you said, how did he deal with the Gentiles? He didn't do a good job with that, right? But is that what he was going around teaching? Or was he just being a hypocrite, right? That's the difference. So you can have hypocritical popes, you can have popes that you can even teach the wrong things, right? You can have a heretical pope. We don't deny that popes can be her... Heretics, we don't deny that. And some people think we do, the Pope can't be a heretic, but we have to clarify and distinguish between these things. There's two things. The Pope can be a heretic, but the Pope cannot bind the church into heresy. That's the difference, right? So that's what he's not able to do according to the dogma of Vatican One and papal infallibility, because to say that the Pope can lead the church into heresy, is saying that the Holy Spirit failed because we believe that he is protected by God to not declare heresies. He's not necessarily led into the truth. He's a human being and he can fail. So if the Pope one day wanted to wake up and decree a dogma that's heretical, God will impede him. He's not going to change his mind. He's not going to say, no, no, He's not going to talk to him or give him an inspiration or a revelation. We don't believe that there's revelation. Revelation stopped. The last apostle died. It's called a divine assistance. It's a gift, and it's a negative gift. And he's prevented from speaking error. And this is why I'm so big on, I'm sure you've seen these debates on the minimalist and the maximalist. The pope is not, he doesn't have all the answers. It's a minimalistic viewpoint of the papacy is that he goes and seeks the answer. Mm-hmm. from the church, from the fathers, from the scriptures, from all the sources that are in front of him. Before he decrees, he goes and he has to understand what he's decreeing and making sure that what he's decreeing is the truth. Because it's good for him to do that because if it's wrong, if he has supernatural faith, then he would believe that he would be impeded by God, which could mean that he can drop dead before he decrees something. Yeah. So do you, do you believe, are you a fan of Vatican too? And what did you, do you think you can be a Catholic and reject teachings from Vatican too? Yeah. I I don't, don't, to me, I don't think that position makes sense either. Yeah. Yeah, because the Pope and the bishops were all for it. And again, like, who am I to say, you they're wrong? You know, as long as you're believing in what Christ instituted, the hierarchy here on Earth, I'm no longer at fault here if I accept it. So if I go to heaven, or if I die, I'm being judged. It would be kind unfair if God says, well, you believe the Vatican too, so you're going to hell. I'm like, you set up this church, it's your church, right? And you told me to listen to these people, I listen to these people, right? So it's, yeah, for me, I'm not, it's not my favorite counsel, but I think it taught a lot of good. Like for example, it contextualized Vatican One's one-sidedness of emphasizing the power of the Pope. And that wasn't done on purpose, that was done because of a war that stopped the Council of Vatican One. So I don't know if you know, but Vatican One was never officially closed. Right, okay, no, I didn't know that. Yeah, so Vatican II, the first thing they did before they started the council was they closed Vatican I. Vatican II. And so Vatican I, they actually had preparations to contextualize the papacy and talk about the bishop's role and their authority, not just the pope. That was the next session. That was the next thing they were going to do. But the war stopped that. And so they couldn't get back to that until Vatican II. And when Vatican II was opened, in Lumen Gentium, when they started talking about ecclesiology again, that was the conversation they picked up from Vatican One where they left off and they started talking about the authority of the bishops and not just the authority of the pope. And it contextualized Vatican One. And that's why Vatican One gets a lot of bad rep, because if you're reading it in isolation of that understanding, you could deduce from it a maximalist interpretation. You could, and I don't deny that. Yeah. And I don't knock anyone for thinking it sounds maximalist because it does, right? But once you study the history of it and you study the backgrounds of it and you study the interpretations of it, how the Pope's viewed it after the fact. And these are things that people don't have every day that they're reading, right? So you kind of have to dig a little deeper than reading in a face value what appears to be, you know, maximalist. Then you're like, I see what they were saying here. They're not saying this. they're saying that. if you don't mind, can give you an example. It said that, you know, it'll say ex cathedrals are in and of themselves irreformable and not from the consent of the church. So the pope, when he decrees that his decree is true in and of itself, it's irreformable, it's true and not from the consent of the church. And then so somebody will say, well, see, the pope doesn't need the consent of the church because ex cathedrals are infallible once he decrees them. consent of the church is irrelevant. That's not what it's saying. It's actually refuting Gallicanism, which said that the Pope's decrees are reformable if they don't have the consent of the church. So they're actually literally refuting Gallicanism, which says that the Pope has to have consent from the church, that word consent means permission in that sense. He has to have permission from the church or else his ex-cathedra doesn't count. Now, what is that doing? It's taking away from the fact that God is the one that protects heirs from teachings to be erroneous, right? He's the one who's protecting the Pope from decreeing anything erroneous. So when we say the consent of the church is an absolute necessity behind his decrees, meaning that he has to go seek that permission first, now you're saying... that the permission is what makes his teachings infallible, not God. That's what they're dealing with. Now, here's how to read it. They're irreformable and not from the consent of the church. However, the consent of the church, and that's not what, it doesn't write that, but this is what it's saying. But the consent of the church is necessary and will be behind his teachings. It's just not what makes that infallible. That makes sense, so. that's what they're trying to emphasize, that infallibility comes from God. That's what they're trying to emphasize, which we all believe, right? Even Orthodox believe that when there's an ecumenical council, the infallibility doesn't come from the bishops. And that's all it's saying. Infallibility does not come from these bishops. It comes from God alone, and that's it, right? Yeah. you think, what's your current view on the state of the Catholic Church right now and what do you think's ahead? What do I think is ahead and what do I think is the state? The state of the Catholic Church, think is Poor to be honest with you. It's it's not very good and I think Before like maybe a year ago if you asked me what I think is ahead. I would say that it's gonna get worse But I'm not so sure anymore I think the next Pope is going to be a surprise to all of us and I hope I'm right here because I used to think that he's gonna be worse than Pope Francis is But I think I've changed my mind. The reason why I think that is because I do see this shift in the world of the new cool being Christianity. The new cool being like, you know, following, like kind of going against the tide, going against the, you know, what they're trying to feed us. And I see that. And I think the I think that's also going to kind of flow into the Catholic Church. And I think the next pope is going to be a good pope. Mm-hmm. So I'm hopeful that the next pope is going to be a good pope. I wouldn't be surprised if he's not because my previous stance was that he's going to be worse than Pope Francis, but I'm very hopeful. But right now, yeah. is it Dr. Taylor Marshall that sort of has the view that, you know, Mason's infiltrated the papacy and yeah. Do you think that's a reasonable, I mean, is that a reasonable position to hold as a Catholic or is that, is that over the edge and that's bearing into sort of heresy to say that such a thing could happen? I think it's reasonable to think that there is infiltration and influence in the church, in the higher ups and the prelates. I think it kind of gives testimony to what the church has been saying is even though you have evil men infiltrating the prelates, right? They're trying to kind of whispering in their ears and some of them are actually prelates. They don't have supernatural faith. You still see that the Catholic church teaches the truth when it's time to teach. Like everyone thought that the Catholic Church was going to ordain females, right? Everyone, like expecting it, right? And they came out and said, no, we're not doing that, right? We're not, we're not, that's, that's, that's, we can't have that, right? And then, you know, trans, transgenderism and stuff like that. They came out and said they were, they're against that. So when it's time to actually teach officially, they take the right teaching, the right stance, right? It's just these perceptions that the way that someone wants to make you think the church is teaching otherwise, right? It gives that perception, right? a lot, I mean, there's a lot of propaganda against the Catholic Church and a lot of statements that are taking a straw man and taking totally out of context over and over again. Yeah. correct. Yes. You know, some of it is warranted. Some of it is not. Right. And this is why I told you earlier, it's like where Peter is, that is a church. Right. And I am confident in God and I know God is not going to allow the ark of the church to sink. Right. We could have storms like they had in the Gospels. But that Ark is always going to be held by Christ to make sure it doesn't sink. And I believe that. And every time it's official, what we're teaching officially, and it's universal, it's binding on everyone, they get it right. And I think certainly if you read the old Testament, it's not unreasonable to think that we're given bad leaders as a test for the church and that we can grow through that. Would you agree with that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the saying? It's like you don't get the leaders you vote for, you get the ones you deserve. Exactly right. Yeah. Definitely. Well, thanks so much, Elijah. I've really enjoyed. your perspective, your wealth of information on this. I've learnt a lot and it's good to actually sort put a face to the name and hopefully now I can start following you a little bit more and understanding your perspective. So what's on, obviously a massive weekend ahead for a Christian of any sort, particularly a Catholic, so what's on for you for the next few days? so, Thursday, tomorrow's Thursday. Today's Thursday for you. Yeah. Tomorrow's Thursday for me. Yeah. the washing of the feet, you know, the, the liturgy there. And then we have a good Friday service on Friday. and, my friend and I are going to do a three day, no, no food fast from Friday to Sunday. and so I've never done that before. So that's going to be my first time. So that's gonna be interesting. And then Sunday, you know, Easter mass and family time in laws, direct parents and stuff like that for my side. Yeah, so we try to go to all the services. Hopefully I can make it to all the services with three kids. You know how it is. It's just difficult to get to church on Sunday, which we obviously do. But when there's other extra masses that we want to attend to, it's like, if this baby hasn't had his nap, man, we can't go. maybe I'll just go by myself and wife stays home, so we'll see. Yeah. meant to ask earlier, what mass do you go to? Do tread Catholic or Eastern rites? my official parish that I'm signed to is the Institute of Christ the King, which is the traditional Latin Mass is what they do. And that's the one we try to go to. It's about 35 minutes from my house and it's like a two hour mass. So it's very difficult for my kids to sit through that, but that's the one we try to go to as much as we can. then there's another Latin Mass that's literally five minutes, not even like three minutes away from my house. on Sundays, so then we'll go to that one. If we can't go to these two, we'll go to the Chaldean mass. And occasionally, we'll also go to the Novus Ordo. So I kind of have a taste of everything, yeah. But my preference, honestly, is the Latin mass. That's my preference. Well, thanks so much, Elijah. I've loved having a chat and getting to know you and have a very blessed few days ahead to you and your family and thanks so much for your time. Thanks for having me and it's been a pleasure talking to you and if you want to do it again, I'm open for it. Yeah, definitely. Please expect me to hit you up with a few questions here and there. Thanks, brother. I'm just going to hit stop.