Ep. 7 | Mr. George (Part 2)

In this episode of Quiet in the Halls, we welcome back Mr. Nick George, Theology Teacher and Strength Coach, to continue the conversation about what it means to be Catholic, his time in the seminary, his favorite pope, and finally answer whether or not aliens exist. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Three, two, one. Welcome back to Quiet in the Halls episode eight, my last and final episode of my senior year here at Catholic Central. It's been an amazing ride here for the podcast club. I really think uh I'm the most who put out the most videos so far in terms of student body. So I hope that future student body, if you're watching this, that you take it over and do an even better job than me. And we have Mr. George as our last guest. I decided to run it back with him. I didn't believe I gave him the justice of being able to speak as clearly as possible. I feel like I cut him off a lot. And I think he has a perfect good theological mind, and I love his relationship with Christ. So hopefully we can learn a lot and just make this one big grand family. So, Mr. George, welcome on. Thank you. Great to be back. Yes. I'm so excited. Uh yeah, as I said a little earlier, I felt like I cut you off in a second one, the second podcast I did. So I just wanted to run it back and really give you uh the chance to really speak. Uh I'm super thankful that you know you were on that one because it helped me learn a lot in podcasting. So no, I thoroughly enjoyed it. No, I really enjoyed it a lot. It's great to be back again today. So I'm gonna start off with a banger. Because in the other episode that you asked me, you're like, uh, do you want to talk about the um theology of uh extraterrestrial life? And I was like, yeah. So Mr. George, is there extraterrestrial life? And if so, is there biblical evidence of it?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, if I had to stake my life, if I had to say a yes or no right now off the bat, I would guess that no, there are no sophisticated alien civilizations out there. I think we already have evidence of some forms of life, right? Like bacterial life or fossils of uh life forms that we found on Mercury or Venus or things like that. Uh what I would say is if someone is a materialist atheist who believes that there is no intelligent designer, I think by definition they would think that we as human beings aren't special, that we are just former cosmic stardust, your former cosmic stardust, the podcast studio is former cosmic stardust. Everything is just made of former cosmic stardust. And if that's true, then human beings are just one thing among many things in the universe. And I think it's more often the case that from that perspective, you'd think there has to be something else out there in the vastness of the universe. And Christians have no problem with that idea. We that sounds good, that that's fair, uh, in terms of the possibility of other life out there. But as Christians, we would say that we have no problem with the idea that God created a vast universe with only human beings as the crown of that creation and occupying the soul space of not just God's creatures, but of God's children. And so with humility and gratitude to a God who would do that, well not precluding the idea that there could be aliens out there or forms of more or less sophisticated life, as Christians, we we would have no problem with the idea that God designed a universe to reflect his vastness, even just for this one planet, this third rock from the sun that has intelligent life. That would be my guess. I would guess that we'll go through years and decades and centuries of writing our own science fiction and imagining tales of space travel and that we would still find ourselves alone in the universe as the only advanced civilization. That'd be my guess. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

I would have to take your perspective as a Catholic slash Christian. However, okay, so there's I I remember talking about to you this in the hallway. Father Chad Ripper was talking about demons. Sure. He was saying in his uh exorcist that demons would like morph into these like uh aliens, and they would do that to like kind of like distract you from like trying to get them out of the uh person's body. And uh he said like um oftentimes it's like just a distraction, but they look like how we depict aliens, like being gray and like being like big headed. Um, so I definitely think there is somewhat of a case of that because I definitely do believe in uh demonic stuff like that. I there's ton of biblical evidence of that in the Bible. But is there anything specifically in the Bible that would point to that it is just humans?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, I would say no, not necessarily, especially because the earliest chapters of the Bible, at least uh the way we as Catholics would read it, we have no problem with the idea of interpreting just those first few chapters of Genesis as communicating true things. It's not just stories, it's not false, but maybe it communicates those true things through symbols. And the idea being that the Bible is not trying to be a geology textbook or a biology textbook that makes claims about evolutionary biology. And so I would suggest that the Bible really doesn't say one way or the other anything about dinosaurs, and so we're free to believe what paleontologists have to say about the millions of years of fossil record and the timetable of the Jurassic period and leading into every other time period of human history and uh and previous to human history. So, all that being said, I don't think the Bible says something specific. We definitely believe, as Christians, that there are realities we cannot see and are not entirely physically, materially aware of. So it might be a bit above my pay grade uh if an exorcist speaks about different forms that spiritual beings like angels or demons could take. And I have no reason to disbelieve anything that that someone like that might say. But we definitely do believe that there are such things as good spiritual forces and evil spiritual forces. And again, we have no reason to disbelieve, I'd say, if somebody reports that they have a supernatural experience or have seen a ghost or have seen an alien or anything else. I think sometimes people like that, when they ask for your social security number and credit cards, it becomes clear that they're they're a grifter. I think sometimes they're delusional, they're crazy, sometimes they're looking for attention, but that absolutely doesn't rule out the possibility that maybe people have seen aliens or maybe people have seen ghosts or spirits or demons under the guise of something different. So I tend to be a I think a little bit more inclusive and expansive, you know, and in sure, if you if you said you saw that, I I have no reason to to disbelieve or doubt that until and unless you give me some reason to think that you know you're you're just a brain scan, yeah, is is indicating some something uh amiss, or you're uh you're showing me that you're you're untrustworthy in some other way.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yeah. If you were to be given the choice, if you followed your career through the priesthood and been given the choice to become an axis, would you have? Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah, I do think that probably compared to a lot of the Hollywood presentations, which people are really fascinated by, how many movies come out every year that are demon movies, spiritual, haunting movies. So I think that whether they believe it or not, a lot of people are sort of fascinated by the possibility that there could be things we don't know and aren't aware of, even at work in our daily lives. There's politics and there's war and there's relationships, um, but but maybe there's more going on than we realize. Um, I do know I I remember I I met and and knew uh fairly well when I was in the seminary one of the priests who was an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Detroit, and I think he would probably report it's much less sexy. Can I say sexy in the podcast? Yeah, go ahead. It's much less sexy than it's usually depicted in Hollywood films. It's it's not as point of contact, instantaneous spiritual manifestation in these crazy contortions of the body. That absolutely is something I've heard exorcists and priests refer to happening. But I think a lot of times it takes the form more of a priest who sits down with somebody over the course of time, tries to get to the root of why they feel the presence of evil in their life, not just struggle or temptation, but real presence of evil and try to help that person um to get disentangled from that, not unlike a cancer doctor might sit down with somebody and in a pretty calm, measured way, find out what the source of the problem is, has the problem metastasized, can we address this cancer in a more or less direct way, radiation or chemo or surgery? And then over the course of weeks and months helps the person bit by bit. Um I am again, I am fascinated, like a lot of people are fascinated by the claims. There's actually a really interesting movie that came out uh a few years ago that I think is the most theologically accurate movie on this subject that I've ever seen, a movie called Nefarious, uh, which is not a perfect film, um, but uh I think is actually it has the marks of good art while also being to like the tip of the spear extremely accurate to what we believe are the dynamics of of the world that we can't perceive, supernatural and spiritual things. Um it's uh a psychologist sitting down to interview a man on death row who claims that he's possessed, and that's why he did these things that he's accused of. Um so most of the film just takes place in an interrogation room, and uh, I think is is a fascinating kind of peeling back the layers of the onion uh about what we believe related to all that. That's maybe about five steps further than than you said. Um I think that it's probably compared to the Hollywood depiction, not a glorious, triumphant public role to be something like an exorcist. I think it's something where you'd actually kind of be a target of a lot of frenzy or a lot of people who have imagined issues. Uh, because I know in the church when somebody comes forward and says, please send an exorcist, I have something going on, the church doesn't jump right in until it's quite clear that every CAT scan has come back with no sign of unusual brain activity, and every psychologist and doctor has signed off and said, Yeah, we we have no idea what's going on with this person. So um so that's a very long-winded way of saying. Uh I'm not sure if it's a job that anybody really wants, but maybe many priests are willing to take on in the service of people who who really need it.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Were you guys ever so that's interesting? Um, no, that makes sense why the church wouldn't step in immediately. But like uh while in seminary, did they uh like ever go over this a lot or not really?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

I would say no. Um definitely the baseline conviction that there are spiritual realities at work. And so if somebody comes in and they say they're struggling with their eldest child at home or they feel like prayer isn't working, again, I think it's a good instinct not to look for the devil under every rock. Oh, you were a little bit late today, Mitchell. That's probably the devil's doing. Again, it there's probably a thousand explanations before we jump right to the devil to explain things away. Um, but again, kind of like aliens, even if there are other explanations for uh for the world around us, that doesn't necessarily rule out that there are real spiritual dynamics at work. So we would have talked about that in the most general sense. How do you help somebody if you're a doctor? Well, you do some differential diagnosis, you find out if they need antibiotics or if they need somebody just to listen to them and hold their hand, or if they need surgery. And similarly, the instinct would be uh as a priest, kind of like as a parent, you assess the situation, you see what the situation needs. And it might be the case that people need drastic interventions medically or drastic interventions psychologically, or maybe even drastic interventions spiritually. But one thing I'm interested definitely, uh kind of as a reversal of expectations is the few sources I've dabbled in who speak about as priests, as exorcists, their role. Uh at least a few of them I've seen testify to the basic idea that one single confession is worth a hundred exorcisms. Because when you come to confession, theoretically, you recognize that you are not perfect, you recognize that you've fallen short, uh hopefully you distance yourself from the selfish or violent or greedy decisions you've made, and with sincerity you come to God and you say, I don't want these things, I want to be the real version of myself. And exorcism is a lot trickier because you might have somebody who's tangled up with the seeming benefits that they've found in maybe engaging with or finding comfort in dark spiritual realities. And so a lot of times there's a much more difficult process. If you're treating a cancer patient who wants to get better, that's one thing. But if you're treating a cancer patient who really somehow gets attached to having cancer and everything that goes along with it, that's that's a lot trickier. And so uh, while we didn't talk about a lot of the mechanics of how to perform an exorcism or something like that, we definitely would have talked about those spiritual dynamics and and realities.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

No, that's cool. I didn't even know um Detroit had one. That's uh that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah, this priest I I knew has has since passed away. And I think it was it's something that's which is almost never publicized. It's not something you would find on the the roles or the register when you look up priests in the directory for the archdiocese. It's purposely kept kept under reps, I think, across the world, because this person would instantly become the target of both media sensation and um probably spiritual and and social scrutiny. Um there are some public priests like you've mentioned, but but many of them remain, I think, kind of doing their work quietly.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Okay, so now time to get to a different um type of spiritual, more positive and holy. Can you explain? I've been fascinated and I've been researching about this. Um can you explain what a guardian angel is?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, there's one single line in the Bible that seems to be at least the biblical basis, besides the many other kind of arguments and bases we have for believing this as Catholics. Jesus has a single line where he talks about not despising children or not ruling out contributions children might make, and you might be quick to say, like, it's just a kind of petulant, kind of obnoxious, snot-nosed kid. And Jesus says, I tell you, their angels look on the face of the Father at all times. And so, this, along with long Catholic tradition and Christian belief, um, we believe that every single person in the world has an angel whose mission is to guide us, to be with us through life, not to work magic for us when you go skydiving when your cardiologist said this is a bad idea, that your guardian angel is gonna save you. But we believe that, like we just said, that there are spiritual realities, both positive and negative, that stand behind all the things that we perceive and experience every day. And part of that, based on what the Bible and long Christian tradition has said, we believe that as much as it sounds like that old movie Harvey, where Jimmy Stewart believed that there was a giant invisible rabbit who would follow him around, he'd turn him and say, What do you think about that, Harvey? Oh, you're always saying that, and people would just kind of look at each other like this guy's lost it.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

As unusual as that very charming film is, we believe that you and I both have a a companion, a friend, a spiritual resource that's available to us at all times. And I think we also believe that every major organization in the world that God sends his angels to help and to support, and that that's part of the way that God delivers grace and help to the world. Again, could I tell you in the past 24 hours or 24 days or weeks the moments that I came into contact with spiritual things versus I was just tired and grumpy, or I was just optimistic and peppy and was able to really articulate things well to my class. I don't think we always claim to know perfectly that was a moment where my guardian angel's path and mind touched and he really helped me. I almost crossed the street without looking. Oh my gosh, he held me back. And maybe, absolutely, and maybe we'll look back at the end of our lives and see, wow, like I thought I was just better lucky than good, or I thought I just was having a great day, or I thought I just kind of avoided disaster. But we believe that God works through lots of means, and one of those means is the angel that is your friend and companion through life, and the angel who's my friend and companion. And so I know a lot of people who give a name to their guardian angel and who pray, not unlike we would for asking my wife to pray for me. You know, I'm going on a podcast today. Can you say a prayer that it goes well? And we might ask our friends or our grandparents or someone else to pray for us. And we look to the saints and the Virgin Mary and we say, we believe that you're in heaven right now and that that's not distant from us. And pray for us, help us, be close to us. And I know a lot of people um also look to their guardian angels and say, I don't know what you're doing right now or how you're helping or if you're helping, but I've got a tough day ahead. Please be with me. Or even people who say, please go and you know, pray and support this person who's in particular need.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Uh, I was the reason why I asked, because I was reading St. Padre PO and he says he could visibly see his. And he gave him a name. And so I was wondering if, like, um, like what the I know you went through seminary, so like I was just like, I wonder like what they if they ever talked about that, or if like not something you really want to like publicize, or like how we should go about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

No, I would say that that kind of like exorcism wasn't necessarily uh the name of a class we had, naming your guardian angel and learning to see him. And yeah, and again, I I think that uh uh this isn't exactly the question you asked, but uh, I think if you asked a Padre Pio what makes you special, uh and if you asked any saint, a lot of times we fixate on the unusual stuff, like well, he used to levitate when he prayed, or he could work these miracles. And I think that the saints themselves would say, that's like the least important thing about me. Like you missed the point. That's like the least interesting thing. The most interesting thing is that I encountered and came to believe so profoundly in God's love, and I loved him so profoundly to the extent of my ability in return, and I loved the people around me so sacrificially that that I showed people what Christ is like, and also there's the whole thing where I could see my angel. But that's that's that's a footnote. You know, that's the really interesting thing was the love, the love of God, and the love which I passed along to others. And that being said, um, even though it wasn't a specific subject of conversation, um, yeah, I think we definitely, like a doctor in medical school, would be encouraged to be open to and to embrace every possible form of treatment for somebody in the seminary. Definitely, if that was somebody's spiritual sensibility in life, that you rely on this particular saint, I pray to Saint Joan of Arc and just ask her, help me to be as courageous as you were, and also that I, you know, believe that my guardian angel is with me, and I call him by this name and I ask him to be with me as well. Um, I've never had an experience like that, like Padre Pio reporting having actually seen an angel, and uh, and again, like Padre Pio would probably say, it's not about comparing spiritual experience or things that that befall you. But again, that testifies to kind of crap not too far from from aliens here and saying, Yeah, if he says he saw his guardian angel, I got no reason to disbelieve that because I believe they're just as real as as he did. I just haven't seen mine uh in some kind of visible sense, and that's uh that that's just fine for me too.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Where does the line go from like what you just said to like, oh, something's like wrong with him? Like kind of like someone who like they like take LSD, right? And then they're like, I'm hallucinating, I saw all these like things, but they're like, oh, because you're on psychedelics, like your brain was being tricked. So, like, what where's the line where like where we draw it?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah, I I'd say three things come to mind. One is if you ask that to somebody who doesn't believe in miracles or in God or in angels, that person would say immediately, the line is immediately because those things aren't real, because you've of course been hallucinating because God's not real, angels aren't real, so there's nothing real to be seen here. Obviously, as Catholics, we believe there is something real, that God is real, that angels are real, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every claim or instance, you know, maybe the light was just bouncing off, you know, a window in a weird way, and it made a shape that looked like maybe is that the Virgin Mary, if you kind of squint your eyes and turn. So again, I I would say until there's some evidence to the contrary, if Padre Pio says he saw his guardian angel, if you said that you believe God spoke to you in the quiet of your heart and really wants you to pursue something in particular in life, I'd say that I I got no reason to disbelieve that. Uh, what I would say um along with that though is, and I I don't know, I don't even know I can say right, I I Aquasa, I uh what what people do in tents and huts when they want to whatever Aaron Rodgers does during the offseason. Oh, yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. Um, or LSD or anything else. I would say that um without making the claim that, yeah, pop some speed and then you'll be able to like see Jesus more clearly, we do believe that we're like C.S. Lewis says, human beings are like amphibians, we're creatures that occupy both worlds, both the spiritual world and the physical world. And that so we'd say we believe that some of our experience of supernatural things or spiritual things we experience through the fact that we're we're also animals. And so maybe it's the case that somebody can smoke some crystal meth and that this isn't a great way or a sustainable way to seek being close to God, but that there could be some crossover of maybe in a state of openness or awareness, you you do bump up against spiritual realities, both light and dark spiritual realities through apparently physical things. So again, I'd like to say kids don't do drugs, don't do psychedelics. I'm not recommending any of these things, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some crossover since we're amphibians, spiritual and physical beings. Maybe there are people who have used dangerous, unsustainable uh psychedelic or physical interventions that that maybe have some connection point that they're they're able to bounce themselves off the spiritual world. Again, not recommended, but I I I'm open-minded to people's claims and experience that they report.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Okay. Now, transitioning, since we last talked, I think it was November, we were saying how's this uh year been for you and your classes? It's been great, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Thanks. Uh, as a lot of people know, here at Catholic Central, this is if it's not our biggest ever freshman class, it's certainly our biggest class in a very long time, which is very exciting. It's an exciting sign of life that there are so many people who want to be a part of our community and a part of our family. And uh in the classroom, uh teaching all freshmen all year, it's really a wonderful group. It's an awesome crowd. Um, great, great young men, and uh, and it's been fun going through this first year with them. And uh, I've enjoyed for 13 out of 13 years here at Catholic Central that that I have at least mostly freshmen classes and can be one of the um one of the teachers who gets to to walk with the freshmen as they as they go through this year. So many exciting highlights uh of the year with you know athletic and academic uh accomplishments. And um, and it's exciting now to wind down uh the day we're recording this. Most of our seniors have just a couple of days to go, or some of our seniors going to compete at DECA Nationals on Atlanta. This is kind of this is it. Like they they'll be in the building maybe one more day before exams are getting ready for graduation. That's right. Yeah, very much we're in the we're in the end game now. Um a lot of people know I I my wife and I had a son, our fifth child, uh just about five weeks ago, which has been which has been an adventure. and I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues and my students who I think have been put up uh putting up with a few few moments of uh of mental fog and um but it's been a it's been a real thrill and it's exciting uh to be a a part of this family and to know that my family at home is just as much a part of Catholic Central as I am, both now and and into the future. It's been one of the the highlights of of the year athletically to not just be on the sidelines for for all the football games, but to have my sons with me on the sideline and to know that uh that our newborn son uh Samuel is a member of the class of 2044 and can look forward to to being here long after uh long after I've been institutionalized and and long after our seniors have moved on. So yeah it's been a thrill of a year personally and in my family and and certainly a thrill of a year here at uh here at CC.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Nice. Speaking of sports, how's our team looking?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Uh I think the football team could have every hope to to run it back again next year. Really again a coach Asante who I think sat here just a few days ago for for one of our podcasts I've heard him say again and again through this offseason that success can become a disease you know kind of like in that Rudyard Kipling poem um that if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. And I think the uh the triumph of this past fall could very easily become a a reason for guys to rest on their laurels and sit on their hands and think like well they should just give us next year's trophy now because basically we've won it already. Yeah. And I appreciate that in our our team and our school leadership uh like a like a coachante is so allergic to that kind of thinking and that kind of uh laziness that um I think we've got a lot of energy excitement a lot of talent uh since I work with a team uh and a number of our teams doing speed and performance training I can kind of see what's under the hood and man Samson Gash might not be back next fall but goodness gracious do we have some some athletes nice coming back that could that could maybe recreate you know kind of money ball style we might not have that guy but maybe we can recreate him you know so um so yeah it's it's a thrill it's a thrill to be with so many of our sports teams and and to to get to be a part of their preseasons and their lead up and and uh I think the the athletic engine is humming is as strong as ever.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Nice that's sick. Um speaking on the back in November geez it feels so long ago because it was uh I said I'd never get I said I'd wait till after school to become a confirmed Catholic I'm now next week getting confirmed Catholic five days away yeah hooray but speaking Coach Asante uh he spoke in one of our um OCIA meetings that's right yeah he's uh he's really solid minded and yeah I actually really enjoyed listening to his speech and he did really well job yeah this time of year has some special things and I think maybe the most special of them leading up to graduation and all the senior events is uh is that like you said Mitchell along with 30 other guys this coming Wednesday I think so there's a total I think of 30 31 who are going to either be baptized or confirmed or guys who are going to become Catholic and receive their other sacraments and receive their first communion.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

I think it's my favorite thing that happens here at Catholic Central. It's been demystified at least in the sense that I don't think guys feel self-conscious about approaching this OCIA program and being a part of it. Not at least in the same way as five or ten years ago when it would have felt kind of like you were the one guy in front of the whole school who was going through this process. So it's a thrill it's been a thrill to sit back and see that. It's been a thrill to be a part of that as a sponsor and godfather for um for some of our guys over the years. And so certainly been praying for you and for those guys I'm thrilled that that all kind of comes to comes to its uh its high high water mark this Wednesday.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

So speaking of that you just said like I I don't know how many years ago you said let's say like five or six you said the one guy might have been like shy to go up there in front of everybody. But now there's like a bunch of studies uh from church that are young men like my age are flocking towards the Catholic church in big waves. I was just had mass at St. Thomas this past Sunday and he was like we had like 18 confirmed baptisms and confirmation he goes the largest we've ever seen here. Yeah why do you think that is that's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

I think um if I can start with sort of the the I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer. I do think COVID disrupted some things where there are some people who might have received their sacraments if not for the sort of world being on fire for a little bit there. And so maybe there's this still this hangover and I know we can blame COVID for everything. It's kind of the boogeyman but yeah I think that there is at least a number of uh of guys in our in our population that um that didn't quite get the normal track and so now there's there's a little bit of a lag and a little bit of a catch up. I think slightly less kind of on the Debbie Downer side I do think that uh even compared to when I got first first got here to Catholic Central 13 years ago I think that there's an increased um disaffiliation that more than ever we see across the Metro Detroit area and across the country and probably across the world that there are families who don't have good juju about religion. They don't have bad juju about religion they just they never really went to church. They don't have any bias against it or for it they're just this was not kind of a part of our life. So I've had students whose parents at parent conferences say we never went to a church service until our sons got to Catholic Central and so I think that a lot of guys come in kind of blank slate and they're really fascinated by the um just the gripping and the arresting claims that we as Christians make about where the world comes from and where the world is going and what makes for a really full and beautiful life. And so I think there are guys who who hear that and without a whole lot of positive or negative prejudice they just say that's that sounds good. I I believe that that's that seems beautiful and good and true. And so we have guys who I think increasingly come from backgrounds where there's not positive or negative affiliation with religion they just that this is their first real chance to encounter it and uh and so they they're they're attracted to it. And I think that speaks to the positive thing that I think the same way that maybe for a long time Buddhism was sort of in vogue and if you didn't know what you believed you kind of picked something exotic. What do I believe I don't I don't know what I um Buddhism I'm I'm a Buddhist you know I I'll believe that that seems that seems interesting and and uh and no disparagement against against Buddhists it just kind of there's a fad I think for a while of this seems kind of you know edgy and and interesting and exotic and I think that Christianity somehow we've come full circle um kind of like that horseshoe theory of politics that you can become so liberal that you end up being conservative or vice versa. Yeah that I think there are people who have looked for something so original and so dynamic to make me so different from the rest of the crowd that it's almost that that's become Christianity that orthodoxy like GK Chestron said in his in his seminal work from about a hundred years ago that it almost now has all of the like excitement of of like of heresy that's the way he puts it like if you want to have your own dynamic different way of thinking that now Christianity is almost that you know that a lot of people have come around and see that what Christianity claims and what Christianity is is the adventure of a lifetime and different and winsome and fascinating from anything you could cook up on your own.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

And I think that arriving at that there are a lot of guys who say I I think that's for me. Yeah I just see it across the nation really positive really great um just want to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. Speaking of uh revival and stuff of the Catholic Church and men flocking to it how do you feel about the new Pope? Because I really like him.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah it was such a thrill and again I you know don't tell Father Fulton I might have you know missed a couple of my class objectives last spring when I flipped a TV on the day of the uh the papal election so I think we might have had a day where guys even just we had a the TV on on mute with subtitles to see if we're gonna get the new pope announced even as guys are taking a test. You know it was pretty pretty historical obviously at uh defining a new kind of age for the church. So incredible uh to have the first pope from the United States and uh it seems uh from everything I can tell that he's a pretty extraordinary man in and of himself um respected universally you know across perceived political boundaries or visions of the church and its mission and um I know that sound bites often don't do justice to the pope or you know truth social posts you know don't often capture the entirety of uh of who a person is and again I don't think the Pope fits into categories easily to say well he just you know tracks along this political boundary and therefore that's who he is. I think like anybody who's not a slave to ideology or just one narrow way of seeing things, I think he has some surprising views that he might seem remarkably progressive on this subject but remarkably traditional on that one and interestingly liberal in this way but fascinatingly conservative in in a surprising way on on you know on a different topic area. Which basically I would say is the kind of the Catholic niche that you know we don't necessarily fit neatly into an American political party or idea of of how people think. And again um yeah I I yeah I feel great great affection for and and loyalty to the Pope I I think he's um seems like a pretty extraordinary extraordinary man of the church for our time.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

You've seen more popes than I have who's your favorite pope oh man and why and I don't know if I have a good answer to that.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Who's your favorite person of the Trinity? Go. Father, son, or Holy Spirit it feels like it's a difficult uh I'm not sure yeah that's a good I was trying to trap you there with a with an impossible question. Um three and one yeah I maybe can at least say this I um sometimes would hear just like anybody else I would hear things Pope Francis might say or sound bites of his and I wouldn't be sure if I fully understood or or totally would have would have phrased things the same way. But I do remember just before um Pope Benedict stepped back from actively being the Pope and before Pope Francis was elected I remember saying to a friend that because the church at that time and still now but especially that time was perceived as being such a harsh galactic empire of rules and regulations and judgment I said I would love if we just we had a pope for a little while that only ever talked about Christ's love. And when people said well what do you think about gay marriage he just said we can talk about that like in a year. I'll get back to you in 366 days. For this year I just want to talk about how overwhelming is God's love for mankind. Well what do you think about the present United States like again press conference schedule it 366 days from now after this year of just talking about God's love is is done then we can get back to all the secondary issues and I think Pope Francis really was that that he really did um even to the chagrin of a lot of people sideline a number of issues make secondary a number of issues uh put aside a number of things that he could have conceivably made his immediate agenda and that he just focused on God's God God's sacrifice for mankind and what that means about how he sees us. And so I think it in that in that way it makes um you know but puts Pope Francis I can say he's the top four you know because there have only been four popes in my lifetime but uh but I thought that was a really um needed moment in the church.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Absolutely absolutely agree um a lot of my Protestant friends are like why aren't the Pope talk more about like God's love and you perfectly explained it I didn't I didn't know for uh Pope Francis did that so I think that's my perception at least that's my perception I would go off your judgment.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

No yeah yeah yeah were you in seminary when he was Pope? So it was in my final weeks and months in the seminary that he was elected so I was um in the in the seminary slipstream and actually on a retreat where I ultimately felt and discerned that God was calling me to marriage and family life and maybe I enough I was breaking the rules of the retreat I had my phone out and was watching his his election and the announcement of his election uh the exact days that that I was coming to the conclusion that God was calling me to marriage and family life. So I was right at the the um kind of like twilight of my time in the seminary.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Gotcha. Do you really like watching Popes be elected?

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Yeah I guess so yeah I'm breaking some rules here and there to to do it. But again you only get that so many times in a lifetime so I guess I won't apologize.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yeah no no I no apologies at all. I'm sure everyone was understanding. Yeah uh I hope Pope I really do like Pope Leo. Um I really do like what he stands for. Um he like kind of like uh during the walk of Easter he was like the first Pope to like do that. Certainly in a long time who hasn't like more going back to tradition. Yeah it seems that way. Which I which I like which is my favorite part of the Catholic Church. Like if you had to say like one of the biggest reasons um why I'm a Catholic I'd say the tradition.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

It's just like the grounded spiritualness the act of like you do it this way and not that way.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah and again I I agree agree and the fact that it's a living tradition and not just um clinging to old ways of doing things because that's the great dying phrase of any organization if Catholic central ever were to close I'm sure that the final word spoken by our last principal would be like but we've always done things this way and that's an unwillingness to engage with new needs and fresh moments to say well we've always done things this way and we can't we can't deviate from that. So as a living tradition I couldn't agree more. And I appreciate I think it was Bishop Robert Barron um who a lot of our students know and are familiar with kind of as a um media evangelist and um and a pretty public presence in the United States um I think it was maybe when Pope Francis was elected that he was present and he says he remembered recall looking over a full St. Peter's square with thousands of people there just for this moment. And he looks over and he sees the the new newly elected Pope and says there's the successor of Peter two thousand years later 2000 years ago the emperors of Rome sat atop the world and where's the successor of the emperor of Rome now? There isn't one. There hasn't been one for hundreds of years, for thousands of years because that tradition was broken. That empire came to a conclusion as have many empires since then but still the living tradition of the church goes on and we believe as Catholics will never cease to go on until the final days you know before the sun darkens and the universe comes to its comes to its end. And so the fact that we have this living tradition and this unbroken chain of succession all the way back to the Friends and the time of Christ again that living tradition I think for a lot of people that's a testament itself to to who God is. There's a great line from the uh the philosopher and intellectual Hilary Belloc who I think was not impressed as many of us um there's actually a guy a guy Hillary Bellach he was uh uh kind of an economic thinker and uh um a teacher of of the faith uh in the late 1800s early 1900s uh so this guy Hillary Bellach I think like a lot of us wasn't super impressed by the efficiency of the church or how well the church is actually run day to day and again uh the way he said it was uh that one of the greatest arguments for him that God was actually at work in the church is that any organization run with such knavish imbecility wouldn't have lasted a fortnight. By which he meant the church is really poorly run. Like it's really like it's just it's big it's it moves slowly it's inefficient it never acts as fast as we want it to it never does as much or in the way that we want the church to to jump in and to make things happen. And uh and again for Hillary Bellach and I'd say for me too um man, if this was just the work of human beings, we would have run this into the ground a long time ago. Oh for sure. And so we almost believe because of that like the only way this church could have stuck around this long is because God's hand was guiding it through through all these moments of history for the service of mankind. And I appreciate that instinct especially on days where I'm like why can't I get an email back from the parish office or why can't I see this thing moving quicker where the church should do this that again we as humans can muck things up you know but uh but we believe that God works through this church with its life and its living tradition. Let me ask you a question.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yeah Eastern Orthodox doesn't believe that the Pope is the only successor of like the successor of Peter. And I from my understanding it's through apostolic succession. Apostolic succession I was trying to say that um can you explain to people who are not Catholic uh the reasoning why Catholics believe that and the biblical evidence of it yeah so a lot of people read the um Bible or maybe more accurately a lot of people think they know the Bible and they say Jesus never intended for there to be a church.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

He just wanted us to like you know like you know like you know love each other. That's what he wanted Jesus didn't like organized religion. The only problem with that is the Bible says the exact opposite that Jesus organizes his followers and names some of them twelve men to be the first leaders of the church and Jesus says the words to Peter this man Simon to whom he gives this new name which means rock he says on this rock on you Peter I will build my church so we believe that Jesus didn't just teach and sacrifice he didn't write a book the the Bible was written about him by his followers afterward by the inspiration of God. What we do believe Jesus did and that we have the record of this is that Jesus started an institution a church a family a community of human beings and that those apostles named by Jesus in the New Testament we already see they name more apostles they invite people like Matthias or Timothy or Titus into this same mission. Paul wasn't an apostle named directly by Jesus but becomes an apostle later by apostolic succession. And that process has continued on through the life of the church where people haven't just said I'd like to be a Christian teacher but have been named and ordained and invited into that role of being an apostle so there are some churches throughout the world today or branches of Christianity where we believe that process has continued. In the Catholic Church we can name every single successor of Peter Bishop of Rome from Peter all the way down to Robert Prevost who took on the name Pope Leo XIV we know their names we know the chain by which they were invited into this role and into this mission. That same apostolic succession we believe and I think Orthodox agree when looking at us that same apostolic succession has continued in those branches of Christianity the Eastern Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and all the other branches of Christianity under the auspice of Orthodox there are other denominations where that chain we believe was lost or was broken, where ministers of many other beautifully believing churches throughout the world weren't necessarily a part of that historical process of the naming of apostles down through history. So all that being said, the big debate is is the Pope the boss of all of the apostles and their successors or is he just the boss of Rome? Is he just one austere figure among other church leaders? The Catholic Church, we tend to lean towards the Pope's the boss pope is the first among equals of the bishops whereas the Orthodox Church by and large would say that's well and good for you guys on your part of the church but the Pope doesn't get to tell us what to do. We have some autonomy and we have some freedom that God intended for there to be not just a high overlord over the church, which we don't believe exactly but that's the perception but more of an egalitarian sharing of that responsibility by all the apostles. So again like Pope John Paul II said he was the Pope when I was born and through my early lifetime right now the church is living as though it's breathing just with one lung because we've got this western part of the church the Roman Catholic Church and this eastern part of the church this other lung that what what the church and the world needs is for unity and for Christians to be together so we can breathe with both lungs. Again that that's helped by the fact that we believe the sacraments, the priesthood, the succession of the apostles exists in the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church alongside we're extremely close in a lot of ways, though culturally and psychologically different than others, but we have so much in common and so much ground that we can hope and pray for some unity where the Pope is not just the high overlord over everybody but is a force for unity among all of the bishops in this chain that goes historically back to Jesus naming the first apostles.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Nice beautiful I kind of look at it like a family tree like succession like you can trace the lineage all the way back. Absolutely um no that makes sense um at least to me but I guess like I'd have to ask an Orthodox priest what his official view would be because I know um humans are like programmed they like see a one way like you could watch a movie right but you and I have a complete different reaction or opinion on how that movie is and I think that's an apt analogy because I think the biggest divide between the eastern western halves of the church is is a psychological one.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

There are hurts there are mutual um failures here that that um those those hurts go a long time long time back in 1204 uh crusaders from the western the Roman church sacked the city of Constantinople and again I know it's 800 years ago but that's all that's still smarts a little bit that's still fresh you know and and I think in every dialogue I've ever heard about between Catholics and Orthodox it's almost like throwing in your girlfriend's face something she said last Thursday you're like oh I I didn't realize that upset you you didn't you kind of you held on to that one for a little bit there didn't you before throwing it back at me and I think sometimes the same thing comes up in dialogues between different kinds of Christians like well well you guys sacked constant open on 1204 like are you still on about that and again lots of tragedies and on both sides that make it a psychological difficulty I think in in reconciling.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

So for Protestants specifically Eastern Orthodox um and Catholic just disagree on the big things but agree with uh the Eucharist confession all like the more sacraments we see versus Protestants they kind of ignore all that and be like no it's just uh since they call in the Bible since the when God died the cape was torn and so I don't need a priest to confess my sins to I can just uh pray to God directly I don't need to believe in the saints if uh Jesus if I can pray Directly to Jesus Christ, which I do uh was until I understood, like um for me, confession specifically was just great because I need to say it out loud for it to like completely change. There's definitely biblical meaning to like saying it out loud. Um, not to like uh go on a rant here quick, but um I would say that um and they're like I don't need to pray to a saints like it if you go to like they're like why would I go to the manager, the saint, when I can go directly to the boss, which is Jesus? I was like, I guess I I can see that absolutely, but um, why do you think Protestants like varied so off? But even um Martin Luther believed in uh transubstantiation, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Yeah, I think for a lot of reasons, and I think a lot of them were um unintentional. I I don't think anybody inside the church says, I wish we all fought with each other, or I think we really um need a little bit more disunity. I think um there's probably a lot of different answers to that question of why we found ourselves veering so so differently uh on so many topics. I was just saying to somebody the other day, uh, my understanding is there are two religions in the world that have a central magisterium that can say these are our official codified teachings, and one is Tibetan Buddhism, who looks to the Dalai Lama to be the central voice, and the other is Catholicism that looks to the Pope and the bishops to give the definitive answer. If you want to know what the church teaches about something, we could poll Catholics, we could see different people's reactions and opinions, but the definitive answer comes from the teaching of the magisterium, the Pope together with uh the other successors to the apostles. So, all that being said, I think that if you and I could open up Romeo and Juliet and read it in two different ways, and then we get Mr. Sova to read it, and he says, I think you're both wrong. I think there's a different interpretation here. I think that this is Shakespeare saying he doesn't believe in love. I say that's ridiculous. He's saying he does believe in love, but don't drink poison and don't kill yourself. And then somebody else comes in and says, Well, I think you're both missing the point. It's about uh family, and like fair enough, these are different readings, and there's nobody, not even Shakespeare, here to tell us today who's right and who's wrong. And so if you and I both pick up the Bible, we could read it and we could come to some pretty different conclusions because you can always look at words and interpret them differently. And I think that God's remedy for that is not we turn our brains off and just do what the Pope says, but that there is a central voice, a magisterium that can say, Mitchell, if you pick up the Bible and you say, This tells me that I should join the Nazi Party of America, that the Pope can say, Then you read it wrong, not just because it's the Pope's idea, but because the magisterium teaching together can say that's not the correct interpretation of the Bible. And without a voice like that, then what we find is exactly what you said, that people have their varied opinions and varied biases and prejudices and good ideas and bad ideas, and there's this intellectual drift where Martin Luther might have said one thing, but then the next generation gets a little bit further from that, and then their disciples get a little bit further from that. And so, in the absence of a singular magisterial voice to clarify this is what we believe, I think you're gonna see that drift everywhere. Just like when Aristotle was alive, he would have had his teachings, and then his students probably drift a little bit from that, and their students probably drift a little bit from that. That um that happens with the interpretation of any ideas or words unless you have what we have in the church, which is not a reason to turn our brains off, but a reason to say, let's see what the magisterium says and the guidelines that they can draw the guardrails around interpretations of of the Bible or the message of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

How do you I guess how would you promote unity between all Christian sects? I think that's what we need most.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Yeah, I would say that um there's this great instinct that's just a true instinct in the church that um you can't have love without truth. And so if I am on my way out of the studio today and I see you making some really poor decisions in the parking lot, um, you know, you're doing drugs as you're driving too fast, as you're you know, catcalling a girl, I could say, Well, I really like Mitchell. I want to, you know, show him that I love him, and so I'll just I'll kind of overlook all that. Well, again, for me to love you means for me to love you not just with with charity, but with truth. And so there has to be honesty there too, where I say like part of loving you is saying, like, Mitchell, that's you got things all wrong. And so one of the difficulties is the church can't just say, well, let's just put aside our teaching about Mary and let's just kind of scuttle that so that we can all get along again, or let's just have the Pope step down so that we can all agree on things, because then after a while, you don't stand for anything anymore. Uh and so I would say that part of it is sincere, frank dialogue and even a little bit of conflict, and maybe we'll get a little bit bruised and bloodied as we cuss and discuss about the saints and about the Eucharist and about these things. And I think that conversations about the truth can sometimes get nasty, and loving people can sometimes have the temptation to get soft and to say, well, we'll just overlook a whole bunch of really dangerous red flags in the name of kind of keeping the peace. And so I think the way forward has to be love and truth, that those two things go hand in hand, and where we're uncompromising in our shoulder-to-shoulder pursuit as Christians of how does God want us to live? And I think mutual understanding is a big part of that. I think a lot of Protestant denominations have a much better grasp of what it looks like to live a life based on the Bible, based on scripture, drawing inspiration and strength from the Bible. A lot of Catholics are just like, oh, I I don't really I don't really know much about the Bible. We need to take some cues from those denominations and brothers and sisters that really have something to teach us. And I think that in the spirit of mutual understanding, without just disparaging or assuming that you know everything, uh, I've seen a lot of smug productions of people that are smear Catholics and caricature Catholic belief and do so with just a lot of uh self-righteousness, that of course Catholics are wrong and dumb. There's no stick that's too that's that's you know not a good stick to hit the Catholic Church with. Again, I think that there has to be humility and mutual understanding that we work towards, like any scientist working together trying to figure out what's true about the cosmos around us, we've got to work together and there's gotta be love and truth.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

I love that answer. So you're saying more like tough love, but like also coming in with humble and humility. I really like that. I think so. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Uh Starner, we're almost out of time, but I want to ask for a couple more questions. Yeah. Um, so speak, we talked about Poblio. Uh who I think is great. Why is he what's up with the beef with him and Trump? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Um yeah, I think that's a great question. I think it it kind of, if you take a few steps back and kind of take a look at the the global the global concerns, um, it is interesting that there's a strong Christian evangelical support for President Trump, despite lots of uh aspersions about his character that are cast or questions that are raised, you know, like you know, he's uh he's a criminal, he's a convict, he's a rapist. And and again, I I wasn't there for any of those alleged crimes, so I can't speak to that. But I think that uh in a lot of ways, President Trump does, on a number of key issues, align more closely with Christian hopes for the country, with domestic policy, with uh concerns about let's make sure the border is secure and any immigrants who are most welcome here follow the correct legal processes that do so. And um again, let's uh let's make sure that schools don't teach dangerous ideological um topics about uh identity to kindergartners who aren't ready to hear this. So I think that you could say, how could you Christians support such a man, such an evil, evil man? And again, you know what? That's a fair conversation. Um, I do think that even just compared in the last election, that a lot of Christians say, well, if I just line up my checkboxes, this candidate might be a blunt instrument whose personal life has not been one that I would want my children to emulate. But despite being a blunt instrument, he aligns more with what I hope to see happen in our country across all these metrics. All right, fair enough. Uh, I do think I've thought a few times, and President Trump, if you're listening, you know, you can you can take this advice. I do think that his comments about the Pope on Truth Social were way more strident than they needed to be to communicate I disagree with the Pope's judgment. Anybody's welcome to disagree with the Pope's judgment. There are times, like I said, where Pope Francis would say things or Pope Leo would say things, where I wonder how was that translated from the original Italian he delivered that in? I wonder if that's the most accurate way of capturing that. I wonder what he said just before and after that. Or I've even thought, like honestly, I've never explained that topic that way, and I don't know that I would. I don't know that those words are ones that capture the idea and the priority of ideas the best. Fair enough. Anybody's free to disagree with the Pope, and the president is free to disagree with the Pope. He has intelligence briefings about Iranian nuclear capability that presumably the Vatican does not have. And if he wants to say that on Truth Social, that's great. You could say it's all well and good for the Pope to condemn conflict, but he doesn't know what I know about how many protesters were killed simply for voicing their opinions in Iranian politics. You know, in America, we've rightly been extremely concerned when protesters died in Minneapolis related to ICE and its activity. Two people died, and that's atrocious. In a single weekend, the Iranian government had no problem killing over 30,000 protesters who were similarly exercising their human rights to express concerns. And so that's a very long way of coming around to the Catholic Church has long held that war can be a justifiable recourse, not as a first option, not you nuke somebody because they look at you wrong, but it's possible under certain circumstances that war could be not a happy thing, not a good thing, but possibly a morally allowable thing. And how we judge that, I think that might be difficult. It's it's sort of were we justified going into Korea, uh, were we justified fighting in Vietnam? Could you make the argument that if communism continues to spread in these ways, it poses a threat to all of us? Again, I think those judgments are fair. Should we have dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I don't think that the Bible speaks clearly. There's no chapter that says someday you're gonna hear about some cities in Japan called Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yeah. And what Harry Truman does 2,000 years from now, it's going to be wrong or it's going to be right. And so I would say I appreciate that the president is operating on information that I don't have. And it could be someday that if we all look back and intelligence reports are declassified, we could realize, gosh, we thought this was unnecessary. Maybe, maybe we were wrong. I I don't know. Um, and I respect and appreciate, and with all the affection and loyalty in the world, look to the Pope and his calls for peace, absolutely. Um, I think uh that might sound like a very long non-answer, but I think that um the Pope has generally not been very strident in saying that orange-skinned man in the in the Oval Office is just plain wrong. I think President Trump, like with a lot of his rhetoric, would be a lot more successful if he dialed things back a little bit and simply said, I disagree with his, you know, his holiness the Pope, and I uh believe that what we're doing is akin to fighting against Hitler. I I don't think I don't think that a lot of church officials would have had concerns with why do we keep waging this war against the Nazis because it was seen as then maybe more so than most conflicts in the past few decades. This is the right thing to do. We must do this for the security of all. Is Iran that kind of circumstance, or is it just another quagmire? I really don't know. Um, but I I know that it's possible to justify military action when it's for the the the well-being and the safety of all. I think that you can respect both figures' perspectives and opinions, both the Pope and President Trump, and say, if we can turn the you know the temperature down a little bit here, the Pope is saying we should have peace. That's difficult to disagree with. The president says that he's operating on principles for the safety of the whole of Europe and the world beyond. I I think that's uh fair enough. Let's let's uh let's let's vet that and and try to see if that's if that's indeed um the right course of action for for the uh the security of of mankind.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

The reason why I wanted to ask you is well Pope Leo said Christ doesn't hear the prayers of people who start wars. He said something I don't think I said it completely correctly. Right. He did say something similar to that. And then also, dude, what I really thought was concerning is like, and he just blatantly lied, but like Trump posted on True Social of him depiction of Jesus healing someone. I thought that was very like I would say like blasphemy, antichrist-like, like not something that we should be doing. And then he says, Oh, I thought it was a picture of a doctor when it was a guy dressed in a white robe with a red like scarf. Like that was dude, that that's Jesus, that's what Jesus wore.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Yeah. Yeah. And again, maybe I could be rightly accused of just sitting on the fence too much and not having a strong enough opinion. I think that was ill-advised. And in the retrospect of obviously President Trump or his advisors taking that down, it probably should have been obvious ahead of time that that was, like you said, something that most people would look at. And if that really wasn't President Trump's intention to be taken as a messianic figure comparable to Christ, I would say, man, that was a that was a colossal misstep and misapprehension of of what you're portraying here. You know, fair enough. Um yeah, what I would say would like Shakespeare, like the Bible, so many words are open to interpretation. And um I think when the Pope said the the line that that Christ does not uh God does not hear the prayers of those who wage war. Um yeah, I would totally agree with that that that teaching and that that instinct that if you are somebody who revels in violence and who stirs up violence and who does what is unnecessary, kind of like you would say God doesn't hear the prayers of a murderer in the sense of somebody who kills innocence or whatever perceived gain. That being said, I do think there's a distinction that I'm sure the Pope would also qualify. And I think interestingly, J.D. Vance said some very reasonable things after some of the spat between the Pope and the um the president that uh I'm I marvel at so many media outlets, uh ideological spin that they'll instantly say, um, you know, like recent convert to Catholicism, idiot JD Vance thinks he knows more than the Pope. Again, I I think you can turn the turn the temperature on a little bit too, you know, whatever news outlet is is uh is getting a little bit cheeky in saying that. I think J.D. Vance and and others have recently raised the the concern that I assume the Pope doesn't mean that if you're fighting in the foxhole at uh you know one of the forward positions during World War II, and all you want is to get home to your family, and you want to liberate concentration camps, you know, and you want to get the refugee Jews out of Dachau that God doesn't hear your prayers because you're holding a gun. Again, I my impression is that the Pope is saying those who stir up wars cause wars, those who profit from wars, it's those people who are so set against who God is that that God can't get his grace to such people who are so closed off to it. So again, it kind of depends on whether or not you believe this to be a justified war. If World War II was justified, of course we believe God heard the prayers of those who fought and was close to them in their times of trial. If somebody was raping and pillaging the whole way, to say that God doesn't hear the prayers of people like that, I think that's that's my understanding of the intention of the Pope in those words. Whether or not the the president or Pete Hesgeth or these are people who are stirring up unnecessary wars, I I don't have enough information to determine whether those words apply to them or not.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Okay. For my final and last question, which is so sad because last podcast of the year. That's right. What is one piece of advice you would leave? I asked you this question last time. You'd leave with seniors, freshmen, and all CC body uh going into summer or going out into the unknown world.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

Yeah, I would say um that gratitude and greatness always go hand in hand. And I'm seeing all these studies recently about how expressing gratitude, not just sort of feeling grateful or having a grateful kind of mind, and you were there the other day, I said this to the senior class, um, that to actually express gratitude, that it's not just thanks thinking or thanks feeling, but it's thanksgiving, literally forms new and stronger neural pathways, that it remodels our brains and the pathways in our brain, that people who practice gratitude, not just the way it's in vogue and it's a fad right now, you know, an attitude of gratitude, and people kind of laugh at that. And um, that people who actually practice gratitude um live qualitatively better lives. Again, I think that if you want to be great at anything, you have to have humility, not humility as you stare at your shoes and you apologize for existing, but what humility means is to recognize everything that's been given you, the trials and the ways people have let you down and the opportunities that that's afforded, the generosity, the investment, the opportunities, the things that have been put before you, even if your life has been all suffering, again, there's even gratitude that can be found in that. And if you want to be great, that gratitude is an indispensable building block for that kind of greatness. It's not something that just paralyzes us as we navel gaze about how blessed our lives have been. I think that to really be grateful is to instantly feel the inspiration to do what is great, because if this is everything that's been entrusted to me, how much more now can I turn around and give to others? So whether you're a freshman who struggled through the year academically, whether you're a senior who has loved this place and been loyal to this place, or a senior who's struggled with elements here and hasn't always felt like it's been their jive, uh, a teacher, a colleague, a retiring member of our staff, or an incoming teacher who's hired next year, anybody, everybody, to intentionally practice gratitude, moment by moment, name by name, opportunity by opportunity, and trial by trial, that there's nothing which is going to carve out of space in you more to love deeply and to sacrifice greatly, that gratitude and greatness are absolute necessary partners on the road to living any life that's worthwhile.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

Mr. George, thank you so much for an amazing year, being a great mentor for me and a meant a great mentor for the CC Soon Body. Thank you so much for ending the last episode of Quiet in the Halls. Sad, but very thankful, and I'm glad I was able to experience it at CC. So, Catholic Central, thank you so much for everything. I've been nothing but blessed. And thank you, God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, for putting me in this position. I thank you very much. Thanks, Mitchell.