Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#651 With Jason Jones: Justin Bieber’s Mom Pattie Mallete, The Israel-Palestine Conflict, AI, and The Faith!
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Jason Jones' life reads like an unlikely hero's journey - from teenage soldier who lost his child to abortion, to pro-life activist, award-winning filmmaker, and humanitarian aid worker in the world's most dangerous conflict zones. In this riveting conversation, Jones reveals how personal tragedy became the catalyst for a lifelong mission to defend human dignity wherever it's threatened.
The "heart" of Jones' work emerges through his collaboration with Justin Bieber's mother, Patty Mallette, on the film "Crescendo." Their partnership raised $6 million for pregnancy centers across North America. Mallette's own story mirrors the film's message; at 16, both her life and Justin's were saved by a pregnancy center. This full-circle moment exemplifies how Jones connects personal stories to larger humanitarian causes.
What truly sets Jones apart is his consistent application of pro-life principles beyond abortion. As president of the Human Rights Education and Relief Organization (HERO), he delivers aid to Gaza, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other conflict zones. His first-hand accounts from these regions challenge listeners to look beyond political narratives and see the humanity in every situation. When describing his work in Gaza, Jones shares how his team provides food and water to Christians who then share with their Muslim neighbors - a powerful testament to compassion transcending religious boundaries.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Jones expresses concern about artificial intelligence threatening young people's creativity and connection. Drawing parallels to Pope Leo XIII's response to the industrial revolution, he suggests Pope Leo XIV may address the challenges of Transhumanism and AI to human flourishing.
His message is clear: seeing the person, not just the political conflict, is the first step toward creating a more just and compassionate world.
Get Jason's Latest Book: Dispatches from the Great Campaign, Defending life on the Front Lines
Read Jack's Latest Blog: "The Tale We’ve Fallen Into"
And then we together thanks. You know, without Patty this would have never happened.
Speaker 1:We raised $6 million for women's shelters and pregnancy centers, and Patty when she was a young girl struggling pregnant. Justin's life was saved by a pregnancy center and probably Patty's too, because she was going through things. So, patty, this really meant a lot. Especially the past couple of years, I've had a lot of really horrible challenges working in Gaza, working in Afghanistan, working in Sudan and Nigeria, in Ukraine. It's been a bit overwhelming. Where you can have acedia, where you can be despondent, where you can even despair. Whenever I have these feelings, which I do go through, these moments, I'm always mindful that these are spiritual exercises to teach me empathy. We are to serve the vulnerable and stand up to the proud. You look at the most influential Catholics in public space haven't been kings and emperors and presidents, judges. They've been the saints dragged in chains to stand before kings and governors and emperors and judges and witness truth. If that's how we have to do it, that's how we have to do it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host, very, very excited to be with Jason Jones. I'll tell you a little bit about him for a second. I'm just going to remind you why I'm so excited, especially for Claymore, the young people that have been joining us. You know they know something's wrong. They feel it in their hearts. This is a great time right to be speaking to them. Wrong, they feel it in their hearts. This is a great time right to be speaking to them. They're really waking up, especially the young men that we're meeting, and so we always try to frame this out with a Catholic social teaching, really coming from Pope Leo XIII. But John Paul just brought this to the forefront so beautifully. And again, if you think about a triangle in front of you, like a pyramid, what's holding this thing up on the two ends, you know we get the human heart back. Then we stand for marriage and the family. This is pro-life issues, this is pro-marriage issue. This has to be linked to the church, because without Christ in the church, a body and a soul, a person, the default position is just sin and death. Now we're filled with grace. Now we have the Christ image within us and then we can go out into the culture. Well, this is what Jason's incredible story is not only a pro-life or pro-marriage story, but then he takes that out into love of neighbor and he sees this and all the conflicts going on.
Speaker 2:A little background on Jason he's a film producer, author, activist, popular podcast host and a human rights worker. He's the president of the Human Rights Education and Relief Organization, h-e-r-o HERO, known for its two main programs the Vulnerable People Project and Movie to Movement. Jason was an executive producer of Bella Bella. If you haven't seen Bella, go watch it. What an incredible movie which won several industry awards, notably the People's Choice Award in the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. He was the associate producer of the Stoning of Soraya Soraya M, winner of the NAACP Image Award in the Los Angeles Film Festival.
Speaker 2:He produced also the award-winning pro-life short film Crescendo with Patty. Is it Millette, jason, the mother of Justin Bieber? I might have to ask you about her a little bit. Crescendo raised over $6 million in North America to support pregnancy centers and women's shelters. He wrote a number of books. One of my favorites was the Great Campaign, who brought me right through the COVID and all that crisis when I thought I was going crazy. He also wrote the Race to Save Our Country, the World's on Fire. His latest book Dispatches from the Great Campaign, defending Life on the Front Lines, and this is what my intro was so important about. So, jason, thank you so much welcome jack, it's good to see you, good to see you, so.
Speaker 2:So, before we get into this, how did you choose, uh, paulette, the mother of jason beaver, she to to be in this? Uh, was there a reason? Besides, there was a reason, so let me tell you.
Speaker 1:It's actually a good question, you know it's um. First of all, patty malette is awesome. She's just one of my favorite people and a good friend. That's so good to hear. And you know, she was just a young teenage mother who found herself in a crisis pregnancy. Justin and Patti never looked for fame. She would pass out she's evangelical. She would pass out tracks on the street and Justin would sing, and someone made a video of that to send to her mother, to the grandma, to put on YouTube. Her friend did and then Usher saw it and so they were kind of, you know, ambushed by celebrity. Patty said she wanted to write a book for other parents to go through this. I said I mean, there's only one every 30 years, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, you had elvis.
Speaker 1:You know you have your son. You know there's not a, there's not a lot of, not a lot of people to get ambushed by fame, especially in the way they did. But how it happened was eduardo verastegui um that's right, he's also in the great man and we we made it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he, he called me from. We worked on Bella together and many other films. But he called me from Paris and he had just visited the cathedrals and he said he called me. He's like Hermano, you know they, the guide said they built these cathedrals to last until our Lord returned. Could you imagine if together, we can make a work of art that people would like watch on the screen until our Lord returned? I said okay, mission accepted. And my producing partner and co-founder of the program of Hero Movie to Movement. We already had Hero, but, jennifer Carena, we actually have a new movie. We just finished. It's going to film festivals now that Jenny directed and produced with me Ernest Hemingway's hills like white elephants. It's another same quality as crescendo. Yeah, but I can't wait for that.
Speaker 1:Jenny and I had a whiteboard and we put on the whiteboard. How would we make a film that people would watch, that elevated the dignity you know, that exemplified the beauty and dignity of motherhood and the child in the womb? How would we that? And we said it would have to be a true story about a person that people loved. People loved across culture and we would know would love across time. And then I said you know, we really probably should get a celebrity executive producer to partner with us on this film so that young people will watch it today. So we just don't make a museum piece, but it has some utility today.
Speaker 1:And Patty's I mean Jenny said no offense, patty, but Jenny said you know, I just read in People magazine this is you know, when people read magazines like in 2010. Yeah, that, patty Millett, I don't know that Justin, the mother of Justin Bieber, had the most influential Twitter account with tweens. I never heard the word tween before. I said what's a tween? And she explained to me and I said well, who's the? What's the? You know who's Justin Bieber's mother, what's her name? She's like I don't know. So I didn't know, she didn't know. We put on the white the mother of Justin Bieber is our executive producer.
Speaker 2:And that was on my to-do list the whole time.
Speaker 1:We made this film and it was like a three-year project. Okay, to make Crescendo, and I never did it. I never did it because I was afraid of failure. I just never went about. My task of reaching out to Patti Millett Never did it.
Speaker 1:We make the film and I share it with a friend of mine who is one that is one of the biggest publicists in Hollywood. She called me and said Jason, can you come to my office? Um and and and uh and Beverly Hills. So I was with Joseph Lip, who worked for me at the time, who's now the COO of Lila Lila Rose's live action. So, joseph and I I'm like Joseph, this is going to be a waste of our time. And you know, going from Glendale, where our office was, to Beverly Hills is like a three hour drive and it's like four miles. Like I don't want to do this. Yeah, but we do it.
Speaker 1:And you know, publicists go through interns the way you know the Marines go through. You know, men when they land on a beach, like you, don't last long. And so every time I visit my friend, I'd meet her new interns. Nice to meet you, nice to meet you. Never see you again. I'll never see you again.
Speaker 1:And then I'm going through the interns and there's this little lady looks very young, and I go nice to meet you. And she's like are you, are you a new intern? She's like no, I'm Leslie's friend. I'm why she asked you to come here. I said oh, and I'm like why does Leslie bring me across town to meet like this little girl? It's like to me, I thought she was 20. And she was, I think, probably 34, 35 at the time. But I'm like who's this? She looked 20 to me. I I go, oh, um, okay, uh, she's like I, I loved your film and I, leslie, shared it with me and I just wanted to tell you I'd like to help you in any way I can. And I'm like, okay, well, how do you think you could help? She's like well, I'm the mother of Justin Bieber.
Speaker 2:Unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Would you be our executive producer? She said yes and we put her name on the film and then she went on Inside Edition, access Hollywood, perez Hilton, ellen, the Today Show, everywhere and she got her film everywhere. She just worked so hard and then we together thanks, you know, without Patty this would have never happened.
Speaker 1:We raised $6 million for women's shelters and pregnancy centers, and Patty when she was a young girl struggling pregnant. Justin's life was saved by a pregnancy center and probably Patty's too, because she was going through things. So, patty, this really meant a lot to her.
Speaker 2:So when people work for me, I always so when Justin was born was she a single mom, jason.
Speaker 1:But 16 years old, yeah, 16. I believe she had just attempted suicide it was a pastor that had come to see her and gave her a rose in the hospital and then she soon finds out she's pregnant. It's just like the movie crescendo, you can't make this up. I always say. My wife says, don't say you sound really arrogant. But I say no one has done more than me with less talent and no one has done less with so much grace, if that makes sense yeah, it makes.
Speaker 2:It's a humble way to say it, but we we look at we if we're honest.
Speaker 1:But I get like that. I'm just saying I love that name on there and god just did it like he just did it, and because of patty, we raised six million dollars for pregnancy centers. Now you know the patty and justin. Justin lived his first six months of his life in a pregnancy center with patty because she was homeless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah okay, so, so. So last thing, and then we'll move on. But was she working in a pro-life movement, jason? Do you know so pro-life?
Speaker 1:And you know, whenever JB was interviewed, even as a young man, he was interviewed by Rolling Stone and they asked him about abortion, thinking he was pro-choice. He's like I'm pro-life. And they said, well, what about rape? And he goes, a baby's a baby.
Speaker 1:And you know everyone criticizes young artists, especially young Christian artists. We put them under a microscope, like God forbid, my sons or me. When we were young, our life was under a microscope. Me and all of my sons were yahoos, had our ups and downs, had our struggles. You know, justin always publicly adored his mother, proclaimed his faith in Jesus Christ and strongly said he was pro-life. And you know, now he's a man, he's been through a lot, but it's just yeah, I'm so grateful to Patty. And that film raised a lot of money for about 200 pregnancy centers across Canada, the United States and Mexico and we raised $6 million. We released it in theaters for one weekend only, through partnerships with pregnancy centers, and it raised $6 million. We released it in theaters for one weekend only through partnerships with pregnancy centers, and it raised $6 million in a weekend.
Speaker 2:You know the story you just told again for our listeners. Again, I'm concentrating on the guy and the young people, even though they're not the only ones listening to this, jason. But here's why Because when you have faith, when you walk into the story this is so important for young people to hear, for all of us to hear when you walk into the story, god is going to watch. You know God is going to do things. You have to watch. You have to keep your eyes wide open. You know he's a personal God. He wants intimacy with us. Jason, this is the hardest thing for guys like you and me to believe, but you just said it and I know it in my own life too. You just go. Where did that come from? I didn't do that. I just got goosebumps when you were telling the story. So thank you so much for that. We've got to keep Justin in our prayers because with all that fame, all the money, all those things, it's easy to go off the rails, isn't?
Speaker 1:it. Well, jack, let me share something. You know, when you think of someone, like any artist you know, but think of a young Justin Bieber. He's a man now, but he's young. I speak a lot 20, 30 times a year. You speak a lot, you know.
Speaker 1:You travel to a town, you're love-bombed. You go on stage, they say great things about you, you give speech, people laugh, they applaud. Then you go to your hotel room and you're alone. It's a little jarring. Imagine doing that to 50,000 screaming fans and you've got to get up at six in the morning and do Fox news. Then everyone's on Twitter saying this about you and that about you and grownups, you know, are just ridiculing you and mocking you and attacking you and you're like I'm 14. Huh, you know.
Speaker 1:And it's like I really do believe. And look, I'm a infantry veteran, I work in war zones to my job, but I really do believe that these, these mega stars, are traumatized and they have a real. They cannot escape PT. Just like if you go into the NFL or if you're a boxer, you are going to get some level of traumatic brain injury If you stand up on stage and you bury your soul in your life to people day in and day out and tour the world. You're going to come out of that scathe Now. You can come out of it stronger. You can come out of it, like I always say, with the hardship that you can read about in my book, the Dispatches from the Great Campaign, especially the past couple of years. I've had a lot of really horrible challenges working in Gaza, working in Afghanistan, working in Sudan and Nigeria, in Ukraine it's been a bit overwhelming. Where you can have acedia, where you can be despondent, where you can even despair. Whenever I have these feelings, which I do go through these moments, I'm always mindful that these are spiritual exercises to teach me empathy and I'm so grateful that I'm a Catholic. You know, it's not enough to be part of these ecclesial communities of our separated brothers. They're missing a lot of key ingredients to help you deal with the human condition. I am just so grateful that I am a Catholic and it's really helped me. I don't think I would have really survived our work in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1:I think that I was pushed to the end of. I was really pushed to the end of my capacity. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to click the sensors. There's things you can't talk about. But I was really pushed to the end, never losing my faith, but just overwhelmed with sorrow and the burden of my responsibilities. But it was my faith that kept me through. So when we look at these secular artists, or even Protestant artists, I think that there are key elements of the prosperity gospel and these other things, in many ways, I think, doom them, god forbid. You believe in the prosperity gospel and you're a rich young celebrity. How does that help you cope with all of the pain and suffering that you're dealing with?
Speaker 2:No, and I've seen, jason. I've seen without an intimacy as they get older, without intimacy into prayer, life and into the sacraments. Evil has a way to get in there, because that trauma that you described earlier, that's only. You talk about the fans and the secular world throwing things at you, but you know, behind the scenes are the, are the people in the music industry that will take advantage of you and ruin you and even sexually exploit you themselves. So, on top of it all, you have this coming at you. So where do you turn? If you don't have the solid foundation, jason, where do you turn? You'll come apart, like you said, as a human being. You'll unravel.
Speaker 1:All of us, yeah, yeah, we should really pray for these people. It's a it's a severe burden. Yeah, you know, when we we uh a movie that I helped raise the financing for little boy, I remember that the production team, the team you know, the leo severino and alejandro monteverdi and eduardo, as they were casting the young actor, I remember leo severino really saying we need to pray, we need to be prayerful about the young actor, that we saying we need to pray, we need to be prayerful about the young actor that we choose and we need to keep in our prayers for the rest of our life because, you know, there's going to be a level of fame that comes with this and I thought, wow, that was very thoughtful. I remember just being struck that they saw that as a severe responsibility. You know, you just don't cast a kid and forget about him. And you know, david Henry actually, who was in the movie, was a Disney star, ended up becoming Catholic through the process of being in the film Little Boy.
Speaker 2:It gives you a lens, doesn't it? And this is the work that you do, and maybe you could tell our audience. You know you've been on before, jason, but it's been a while, a little bit, just a little bit. We can't spend too much time on it now, but the story you described with Justin and his mother, that was your story in a way, too. You had a daughter that was aborted when you were only 17 years old. That puts you on it. So maybe just touch on that, will you? And I know you talk about that a lot, but it's important to us to segue into the work that you're doing Because, again, I'm trying to distill this lens for these young people that we're working with, to say once I see this in my own heart and I feel this.
Speaker 2:Now I got to go out and this is going to change the way I look at the world. This is the lens that you were describing, you know, when you just said that those movie producers start to look at them as a person, those actors as a person, and pray for them. This is a different lens than using people. This is really the dichotomy, right? This is the separation between the work that you do, where you're linking all this together, going out and building the city of God versus building the city of man. And, at the end of the day, john Paul would say Jason, it gets down to the battlefield of the heart of a man, of each man and each person, between love and lust, between being a self-giving person that sees the person and this is what you do in your work and lusting and grasping right for myself.
Speaker 2:And I'll just say this last thing because it's so important when I was reading your book and listening to the things that you talk about, that's what you do in these conflicts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Russians in Ukraine, afghanistan you just said you see the person, don't you? You see the person. This is what the difference is, you know. You don't just say this is black and white Israelis, we got to be for the Israelis, or the Palestinians. You say, ok, there's some justice in that. I have to figure that out, but I have to see the person. Can you talk about? I just gave you a lot there, jason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I'll start with first of all, today's a big day. I see Our Lady of Guadalupe over your shoulder, and St John Paul the Great. The title of my book, the Great Campaign Dispatches from the Great Campaign and the Great Campaign Against the Great Reset. I always have used this expression the great campaign and I got it from Evangelium Vitae, which I read the year it came out. As a young atheist I was a young pro-life atheist. I read Evangelium Vitae.
Speaker 2:It really captured me and I really Look, I don't want to stop you too much here, but how did you? Who put that in your hand, that's a big deal.
Speaker 1:You know I'm a weirdo, I go down rabbit holes, start reading everything. So I had read a book called. I was an atheist but I was working on a book called Generation X Manifesto the Race to Save Our Century. It was going to be like this libertarian atheist book. I was a libertarian atheist and I had this whole vision for my life. I'm going to graduate college, publish this book, become a famous, influential person.
Speaker 1:But as I was working on the book, I saw a book at a yard sale and it was the Christian Manifesto. So I bought that book and it was by Francis Schaeffer. Francis Schaeffer was a brilliant Presbyterian, apologist and theologian, wonderful human being and he was really responsible for making Ronald Reagan pro-life and he was really responsible for making Ronald Reagan pro-life. So I read that book just because I wanted to see how it was outlined as an example of how to outline my book right, just because that manifesto in the title that book really hit me. And then I found out he wrote another book, a pro-life book called I forget. He wrote it with C Everett Koop and I bought that book. And then I don't know. And then I somehow found Evangel wrote it with C Everett Koop and I bought that book and then I don't know, and then I somehow found Evangelium Vitae.
Speaker 1:Now I was very pro-life but at the time, sadly, I was peripherally.
Speaker 1:I mean, I did volunteer for Hawaii Right to Life and I was around some good Catholics but I was really kind of meh, catholics, eh, they're Democrats, evangelicals, they're dumb, like this is how I thought God forbid, and you know, this is in Hawaii. I was going to University of Hawaii but I read Evangelium Vitae and at the same time I was reading Nietzsche and Sartre and I was trying to find an atheist anthropology for the self-evident dignity of the human person. That I saw Sartre and Nietzsche blew that up Right around the time. Sartre and Nietzsche were blowing up any hope for human dignity and human rights separated from the Christian understanding of the human person. I was reading Francis Schaeffer and St John Paul the Great and when I heard that great, so then I was kind of open to theism. But it was a long, it seemed like a long journey it's probably three years from being open to it to going, becoming calling myself christian, going to an evangelical church, um, and then this is in your early 20s.
Speaker 1:Would you say late 20s, late 20s, okay and then, 22 years ago today, I was baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church on August 6th.
Speaker 2:Oh, congratulations, today is my anniversary, yeah, congratulations. God is good.
Speaker 1:But what was my inciting incident? When I was 17, actually two days before my birthday my high school girlfriend. We discovered she was pregnant and we came up with a plan that I would join the army and live happily ever after. So on my 17th birthday I went down to the recruiters and not a couple of weeks later I was off to Fort Benning, georgia. They had a program then for seniors that were troubled youth. I was last in my class. I was almost overqualified for the program. To be honest, I was almost over troubled but I got to go in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm about to sneeze on you. I apologize for that. But so I went into basic training. While I was in basic training, her father beat her up and took her to get a forced third trimester abortion. When she called me crying, I didn't even know abortion was a thing.
Speaker 1:It's hard for probably young people to understand. But I didn't grow up knowing about religion. We didn't talk about religion in my house, never went to church, didn't know anything about politics. I was just, you know, a kid that played football, like that's all I cared about. My mother had me when she was 16, you know, and my parents were married for like six months. I never remember them being married. I've only seen my parents in the same frame twice in my life, you know. So it was that kind of household. So it was that kind of household. But that abortion was my inciting incident.
Speaker 1:And then, as a young infantryman, I realized, on my first deployment, I realized how privileged I was to be an American, how dangerous the world is and how I have the ability to harness power here. I am a high school dropout, 17 years old, and I was on a non-combat deployment field exercise in Thailand called Cobra Gold and I remember just seeing a father with a sick kid in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, and the translator said the kid was dying of malaria. And I just remember that moment. I realized I can do so much with my life and I want to work my life to harness power to help fathers protect their children. I didn't have the language of pro-life, you know, I was coming from a blank slate, so that's what I wanted to do and I started knocking on doors on my off days as a soldier. That's really where my great campaign to defend life began Telling you know, talking to civilians about abortion and saying let's make abortion illegal.
Speaker 2:Hawaii Right to Life found out about me and you were a soldier, because this is in your book and you were a soldier at that time and you just started to walk around. I mean your heart's on fire.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, that's how God blessed me because the first neighborhoods nearest the base we still had plantations in Hawaii pineapple and sugar cane. These were Filipinos from, these were Ilocanos Ilocano Filipinos, the most devout Catholics. So everyone was like, happy to see me and very pro-life.
Speaker 2:I was like this is going to be the easiest job in the world.
Speaker 1:This is going to be easy, you know. But then that's when I just had this idea of an organization that would be from the child in the womb to the child at war. But then when I really discovered St John Paul the Great, he had a massive influence on me. I mean, I bought the domain thegreatcampaigncom in the late 90s. Avon tried to buy it from me in the early 2000s for like six figures and I wouldn't sell it Because I just was. So I'm so connected to that because that's how I see what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Isn't that something? You gave up the six figures for that, see, see, this is something.
Speaker 1:I was waiting tables running my non-profit and avon I guess I don't remember. I mean they they used to, maybe they still do. They would have this big thing called the great campaign, avon's great campaign, and it's such a good domain you know.
Speaker 2:Think about it and then worthwhile so much anymore because there's dot this, dot that dot everything.
Speaker 1:But then it's not worthwhile so much anymore because there's dot this, dot that dot everything. But then it was like dot com and no, and just yesterday, two days, three days ago some guy, palestinian guy in Portland, messaged me that his cousin was about to give birth and she's starving and they're worried about the baby and they need baby formula. And tomorrow my team will be delivering food not only to her but to her entire neighborhood. You know we're delivering food to the Christians in Gaza and to the orphans and you know it just goes back from that first day's knocking on doors. I'm campaigning to rescue life. I'm just trying to snatch babies. I do think this way Like you took my baby Watch how many babies I take from you, dad Strange as that sounds.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a spiritual warfare, right. So we got. You know it's battle that you're in, so can you describe a little bit what that's like and then go back up a little bit and talk about the way you see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there, if you don't mind? You know, because you got boots on the ground right. So we're all talking to people all the time and how to sort this out, and then you know, I mean, is Trump going to get sucked into this?
Speaker 1:We're sucked into it. Catholics need to step up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really, really. There's an urgency to this. This is why I want to ask you this.
Speaker 1:It's really repugnant. I'm going to get hardcore on you here right now. Yeah, go ahead. Catholics need to step it up Right now.
Speaker 1:The Catholics in Gaza. They've been bombed multiple times. Their homes have been flattened and violated by the IDF, by the Israeli Defense Force. They're being starved, Israeli snipers shot holes in their water tanks. Okay, that's in Gaza. In the West Bank, as we speak, in Teba, Israeli settlers these are people from New York, from Ukraine, from Russia they just show up. Then they're incentivized to steal the homes of Christians and Muslims. But Christians. Right now in Teba, the only Christian, 100% Christian village left in the West Bank, is under siege by Israelis In the West Bank. For people who don't understand, that's not Hamas, there's no Hamas, that's Palestinian authority. They're under siege. Well, the Speaker of the House goes there and stands in solidarity with the settlers as they're murdering. They murdered an American last week. They're killing our people, our Catholics.
Speaker 1:So many Catholics have consumed Zionism from Christian media, Protestant media, and Zionism is a virulent. First of all, Christian Zionism is apostasy from the faith, because it denies that Jesus Christ fulfills the promises of Abraham, all of the promises to Abraham, and it denies the new covenant, that the mystical body of Christ is. Christ is the third temple. We are stones, we are the new Israel, the church, and this is what all Christians believed, all Christians from the first century until the late 19th century. I don't want to get into how this virulent apostasy entered. Bad enough that it's an apostasy, but it's ethno-nationalist. They're living under worse than Jim Crow segregation in the West Bank and our Christian, our Catholic brothers and sisters, are being brutalized. Mike Huckabee, when the country of Ireland said because the West Bank settlers are beating and murdering and stealing the homes of Catholics in the West Bank, we are going to not allow money transfers or sales or anything into the West Bank from Ireland. The ambassador to Israel, the US ambassador to Israel, insults all of the Irish, saying the country of Ireland must have fallen into a vat of Guinness and they're drunk. The old Protestant trope that Catholics are drunks, that the Irish are drunks, mocks them and then says maybe England should take over Ireland or something. Some really off the wall, racist comments. Now you have.
Speaker 1:The Speaker of the House goes to the West Bank and tries to whitewash the brutalization of our people. Now I'm a Republican. I'll just say not that has anything to do with the show. But I'm a conservative, I've worked for the party, I've worked in politics. I was chairman of the Young Republicans, the College Republicans. I've worked on many campaigns, from the State House to the White House. You got the Republican Speaker of the House whitewashing the ethnic cleansing of our people from the West Bank and Gaza.
Speaker 1:We had the Biden administration sending the FBI spying on our traditional Latin mass communities. You know where's Marco Rubio? Where is JD Vance? These are Catholic men. They think, because they're invited to the banquet, they're at the party. But I think maybe they're just banquet waiters, Maybe they're not even at the party, Maybe they're not. You know they're not the host, they're not the guest. We're the ones that are on the menu. The Christians and gods are on the menu. The Catholics and gods in the West Bank are on the menu and JD Vance and Marco Rubio are the waiters.
Speaker 1:And I know this is hard for a lot of you to see and hear, but it is just driving me nuts to see Catholics slaughtered in Gaza and the West Bank. President Trump went to Syria, met with Jelani, the new head of Syria. He's al-Qaeda, he has Yazidi sex slaves, he's a murderer and now his men are slaughtering Christians in Syria. Where are we on this? Where were we when the Christians, the Catholics, were slaughtered in Iraq Two years ago, the apostolic Orthodox communities and Catholics, mostly Orthodox and Artsakh, the Armenians ethnically cleansed by Azerbaijan? Where are our voices? So if there are young people here, I say be an alpha Catholic, you know. We are to kick up and kiss down. We are to serve the vulnerable and stand up to the proud. You look at the most influential Catholics in public space haven't been kings and emperors and presidents, judges. They've been the saints, dragged in chains to stand before kings and governors and emperors and judges and witness truth.
Speaker 2:If that's how we have to do it, that's how we have to do it Because I, you know, jason, I wonder when you say, look, jesus is a sign of contradiction, you know, whenever he stands up for the poor and the vulnerable, look, they crucified him, right? So we should probably expect the same thing. But when it comes to men like JD Vance and Marco Rubio, to me, you know, look, that's a big step up from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, right? So we're happy to have them there. I wonder with them, if they just get caught up, is it their education? I think they're good men, jason, I hope they're good men. And do they just get caught up with, you know, in this, maybe, lack of understanding of what's going on? What is it?
Speaker 1:I don't know about JD Vance, but I don't know if he's a good man. I just think all the evidence to Marco Rubio is that he's just an ambitious grifter and the good news is that everyone under 30 knows what's happening in Gaza. I mean, look at the polling, and the polling in America is dramatically shifting. So there will be no career for any politician at the national level period that has been silent on this genocide None, none. I mean Trump's polls. He's polling at 38% approval rating right now. Trump won because of Gaza. I'm in Pennsylvania right now. I was in Pennsylvania campaigning for Trump in the election meeting with. There are a very large Syrian Christian community in Pennsylvania. They're Orthodox and Catholics, and there's a Muslim community here, michigan. Trump should not have won Pennsylvania or Michigan. He won because of Biden's policies in Gaza.
Speaker 2:So for our viewers, explain that just a little bit. So Biden's policy was what? And Trump's policy Genocide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, he was supporting the genocide, talking out of both sides of his mouth. He lost Michigan because of the Muslim vote, went to Trump. Trump said he was getting the war on day one. He said it breaks his heart when Israelis die. It breaks his heart when Palestinians die. I agree with that. You know, the first thing VPP did and I don't even like saying this because the Palestinians are an end in themselves I don't need to justify or prove myself to anyone, but you know VPP, our organization, rescued the last Jew from Afghanistan, a young man. We, on October 7th, on my own volition, I'd been asked, but I just didn't feel it was within our budget. In an African country, we provide security for Catholic churches that are being threatened by extremists. In fact, we lost a security guard last month who was shot defending a seminary.
Speaker 2:Sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1:We put guards and installed solar and cameras outside of the last synagogue in one of these countries. You know, and so I've been a loud and outspoken critic on Jew hatred and anti-Semitism in our own community. But my fear of the rise of anti-Semitism and Jew hatred? We don't. It is interesting how the Jews and the Palestinians are the two communities that we think collective punishment is acceptable. You know I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1:The loudest and clearest voices against the genocide in Gaza are Jews. I mean, you can look at Noam chomsky, norm finkelstein, the great comedian, dave smith, who I'm going to be with this week at ron paul's birthday. I can't wait to meet him. Um, I just saw john stewart, who is very brave to be in hollywood, and he's just was pouring his heart out. You know he says people tell me you're going to lose your career, you're betraying your people, he says, is the whole world lost its mind? And I know he's a liberal. We disagree on probably everything, but I just agree with him when I hear my evangelical Christian friends and if you're a Catholic, you are poorly formed. If you are parenting the evangelical talking points.
Speaker 1:Read what Pope Leo has said. Read what Cardinal Pizzabala has said. Listen to what the Bishop of Allentown, pennsylvania, his statement. Look at what the priests and the Christians are saying from the West Bank and Gaza. Listen to your own community, study your own theology. Don't read these racist tropes by guys like John Hagee and Jonathan Cahn that are fantastical Gnostic, ethno-nationalist, cruel fantasies that we, as Catholics, shall not tolerate. And I will not tolerate people disparaging Jews for what the state of Israel does, and I'm not going to watch as Palestinians are slaughtered because of what Hamas did, especially knowing that the United States and Benjamin Netanyahu himself supported Hamas. We know that it's not a conspiracy theory. They said, oops, you know, because they wanted to divide the West Bank from Gaza. They wanted two political entities, they wanted to undermine the Palestinian Authority, and so you know. Look at what we got, and many as a statement just came out from hundreds of field-grade officers, including the former equivalents of the Secretaries of defense and the Mossad, calling for this war to end, and Israel's biggest papers and human rights organizations are calling this a genocide.
Speaker 1:The only people defending this are evangelical Christians who hold to a fantastical Christian Zionism, and the same people call our church the Horde of Babylon and the Pope the Antichrist. Okay, these same communities. That's what they say. That's why the Babylon Bee came out. I don't know if you know about this. This guy from the Babylon Bee comes out two weeks ago and says that the quote-unquote Christians in the West Bank are not Christians. Why did he say that? Because they're Catholics and these Zionists don't believe that. The descent. Now, who are the?
Speaker 2:Christians in the West Bank. Wait a second. Is that why he said that? I didn't know. That's why he said that and I heard it. And I just pushed it off, jason, because I said you know what, I don't want to hear that nonsense. But I didn't realize.
Speaker 1:They don't go to church in a strip mall or an auditorium, I guess I think they'll be a real christian. Your church has to be between the nail salon and the vape store or in a stadium, and I hate to be like this, but I mean, you caught me when I'm angry because I just saw that mike johnson went to the west bank to whitewash the killing of our christians. And who are the catholics in the west bank, in gaza? They are the descendants of the Jews that walked with Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talk about that for a few minutes because you're good at that. You understand the history. See, most of us don't really know the history and we don't realize that some of those are and not only there, but Iraq and other places are first century Christians.
Speaker 1:Yeah, first yeah.
Speaker 2:Catholics Syria, lebanon? There were no, just, they were all Catholics at that point, basically.
Speaker 1:They say oh, you know, bless the descendants of Abraham. Well, guess who are the descendants of Abraham? Jews and Muslims. Because he had two lineages, okay, arabs and Jews. Okay, so I want to bless them, by the way. And they were blessed by Jesus Christ. Okay, we know that. That was the blessing, all right.
Speaker 1:So it is so funny to listen to these Protestants talk. They're like, oh, they're Arabs. Yeah, read Acts. They were speaking Arab in the upper room. Whole Arab tribes began to convert in the second century. First, you know, look at all those councils we study in the early history of the church. Look where those councils were located. They weren't speaking English and French and German in the upper room. That was not happening.
Speaker 1:These Christians you know my friends who are Palestinian Christians they say, when they come to America, evangelicals will say to them well, when did you convert? You know? Oh, when, like Jesus said hi to my grandpa. What do you mean? When did I convert? I'm Palestinian. And to say they're not real Christians because they don't have a Schofield reference Bible. And let's say they weren't. Let's say they were Jehovah's Witnesses.
Speaker 1:You don't starve and slaughter somebody. I don't care if people will go to you. We deliver aid into Gaza right. Every week, thousands of orphans and a hot meal to every Christian. Every week we give one hot meal to every Christian and we deliver thousands of meals to orphans. People will go. I hope they're all Christians. I say unfortunately, unfortunately not. You want to know why? Because those gosh darn Christians that we give food. To guess what they do with the food that they can save from what we give them. They share with their Muslim neighbors. We provide them water every week. Guess what they do with the excess water. They provide it to their Muslim neighbors.
Speaker 1:When I see a child with no arms, no legs in Gaza by the way, tens of thousands of them are now amputees because of this war I don't walk up to the child and say excuse me, are you baptized and confirmed? Can you recite the Nicene Creed? Oh, you can't. Oh, I'm so relieved. I was almost sad that I'm looking at a child with no arms and no legs because of a war. This kind of thinking to me is utterly insane. And I knew and I'm saying this because I know a large percentage of this audience consumes Fox News, consumes Protestant media and we have been indoctrinated.
Speaker 1:I wrote an article early in the war called Help. I am an Anti-Palestinian Bigot and I wrote this article reflecting on my experience. I was in Egypt, we were evacuated, wounded Christians and pregnant women who are Muslims and others who were wounded, but mostly pregnant women and children who were wounded. We were evacuating them from Gaza into Egypt to hospitals and then I would interview them. And as I was interviewing them, I was just my prejudice was colliding to my experience, right, and I realized that I too here I am a quote unquote humanitarian.
Speaker 1:But I realized how deeply ingrained my prejudice to the Palestinian people, how deeply ingrained my prejudice was. And I have to remind myself that if it wasn't for my job, if it wasn't for my job, I wouldn't be different than anyone else. Like, my job thrusts me face to face with war, thrust face-to-face with the people who suffer in these wars, and so my prejudice can melt In many ways. I think probably I have more deeply ingrained, virulent prejudices than most people, but over the years, thanks to my work, those prejudices have melted away and I'm actually even grateful for that because it's given me empathy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, look, as we start to be cognizant of time here, jason, I just want to remind everybody that this is Christ's message. You know, he didn't say just go out to people that believe in me. He said love even your enemies. Just try to clear the substance. We've been on. Look, we know October 7th happened, right. We know a lot of travesty, murder, rape, et cetera, for the Israelis. So now they're angry and they go out. But all the Palestinians didn't do that, you know, and a lot of those people unfortunately lived. I mean, that's their life, that's where they came from. And what would you have done, jason, or what should we have done? You know, to go after. You have to go after the terrorists, right. I mean, they came into your country. You have to respond. Would there have been a way to do that without the civilian casualties?
Speaker 1:And when I say civilian, I mean people like real families with real kids. No, Gaza has been the equivalent of 10 Hiroshima. Bombs have been dropped on this little densely populated strip of land. There's a total blockade. I'm there on the ground. I've been there. I have warehouses there. Don't believe the lies. There is a total blockade of food. Yes, there are instances where the UN and other agencies won't deliver food. It's not because they want to starve people for propaganda. It's because Israel kills aid workers. They literally did multiple drone strikes on one of the most beloved organizations in the world, the World Food Kitchen, Google it. Their snipers shot and killed two Catholic women walking out of mass. My logistics partner lost 50 employees, over 50 employees. There have been more journalists killed.
Speaker 2:When you say lost 50 employees, you mean they were killed.
Speaker 1:By the IDF. Yeah, there have been more journalists killed in this war than in World War I, world War II, korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan and Ukraine combined. Okay, these aren't accidents, and I can tell you why. A lot of it has to do with Lavender, peter Thiel's company, and how they give credit ratings to everyone. But I want to go back to this collective punishment. We don't believe in collective punishment. They say, well, they voted for Hamas. Well, no, they didn't. Only 6% of people alive in Gaza voted for Hamas, hamas, hamas never won the majority of the vote in any district and 50% of the people living in Gaza right now weren't even born when the last election was held.
Speaker 1:And we know the United States and Israel funded Hamas. So I always say I think we need to find who funded Hamas and they need to suffer severe punishment. So let's find that out. Who was it at USCID, the State Department, an Israeli government who approved these funds? They need to be prosecuted, everyone who funded it. I don't care if they're in Dubai, I don't care if they're in Israel or the United States. If you funded Hamas, obviously you need to suffer severe consequences. Obviously, severe consequences, obviously. But to say that the people of Gaza should suffer for an election. That happened the last time they had this election. Half of Gaza wasn't even born yet. Wasn't even born yet. So what percentage? When you look at who's even voting age and what percentage voted, you're down to only 6% of people in Gaza voted for Hamas.
Speaker 2:Do you think, look, I'm an armature quarterback here. Do you think that, okay, october 7th, now I'm going to plan a retaliation? Do you think that if they were going to do this properly, the Israelis and they weren't just doing a land grab and they really wanted to target Hamas would that have been an opportunity to bring the Palestinians over on your side and say, look, we're going to. You know we're going after Hamas. Would that have been an opportunity to bring the Palestinians over on your side and say, look, we're going to. You know we're going after Hamas. If your life has been controlled or damaged or you know you're not as free as you should be because of Hamas, this is your chance to. However, you know you would case that, but would that have been an opportunity? Would that have been a way the Israelis could have said hey, we really want to be on your side in this. You know, and be careful, the way we're doing this.
Speaker 1:Look at what they did to Hezbollah. You're telling me they can strategically target Hezbollah, but they can't strategically target Hamas. Eric Prince wanted to flood the tunnel system. Brilliant idea. Yeah, we didn't do that. The Biden administration, from what I understand, shut that down. Well, okay, so you don't want to flood the tunnels, so you flatten 95% of the buildings. You have a 10 civilians to every combatant to kill ratio. It's probably worse than that, but I'll let them have that.
Speaker 2:So the bottom line is is is a land grab.
Speaker 1:It's a land grab. Number one, number two. People aren't going to believe this. I had a guy on my podcast three weeks before October 7th, from Harvard, a legal scholar. You can Google this, it's easy to find. The largest protest in Israel history was planned for a few days after October 7th, where hundreds of thousands of people were going to storm the streets and demand the arrest and prosecution and removal of Benjamin Netanyahu. That's a fact. Google it. And I had this legal scholar on my show. You can go to the Jason Jones show and see it. You know. I think Benjamin Netanyahu and I know this is, in a way, this is my book, because what you're going to see, I've been doing this for 30 years in Iraq, in Syria, in Sudan.
Speaker 1:It's Nigeria, ukraine. It's fighting abortion. It's endless. It's just battle after battle after battle and we're getting into the battle that I happen to be in the middle of right now. Right, and this is a big battle and to me, this is the most heartbreaking of all of my battles, because I have family and friends, people I love, spouting the most racist, cruel rhetoric, denying an obvious genocide, that they're going to be wearing the shame of this for the rest of their life there has never been anything like this. And people wonder oh, the young people are being brainwashed. No, the young people are watching a genocide live stream. You are brainwashed If you say you can drop the equivalent of 10 Hiroshima bombs and not have a completely out of proportionate civilian casualty rate. You're crazy If you believe that Hamas is stealing the food.
Speaker 1:For Hamas to steal the amount of food they claim Hamas is stealing, they would have to be fighting a war against. They would have to steal about 150 trucks a month if they were just stealing 25% of the calories and people are eating 1,000 calories, they say they're stealing 25% of the food. Okay, let's say they're only eating 1,000 calories a day, which is still hunger levels, and they steal 25% of the food. Okay, let's say they're only eating 1,000 calories a day, which is still hunger levels, and they steal 25% of that. I broke down the math and that means they'd have to be stealing 150 massive container trucks a month while fighting the most sophisticated advanced military in the world with jets, with drones, with satellites. Then they would have to steal the food, move the food, guard the food and wear the trucks.
Speaker 1:These are lies. Do they steal food? Does Hamas come into your food? Yes, do gangs of criminals steal food? Yes, do what? The US's ridiculous strategy of putting all the food in one corner when they bring out the food? Do people go nuts because they're starving? Yes, obviously. If people are hard to control, it's because they're starving and they're clamoring to live. These people are denying the obvious. They're saying that Israel, accidentally, is targeting our churches. It is clear. The Pope said it and Cardinal Pizzabala said it. They targeted the cross on the church Period, killing three people and wounding dozens, including the priest. But you guys are going to believe John Hagee and Mike Huckabee and the Israeli spokespeople, but not Pope Leo. I wear this hat. You know, I'm from the south side of Chicago. I always wear my socks hat anyways, but now it's my.
Speaker 2:Pope.
Speaker 1:Leo.
Speaker 2:I'm from the south side too. Where are you from?
Speaker 1:I grew up in Harvey Country Club, Hills, Homewood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm from the south shore. Actually, I'm just a little north of Dalton where Pope Leo came from.
Speaker 1:So Pope Leo lived in Homewood too. You know that I forgot about that, and it's two blocks from I went to HF and Homewood Philosophers and his favorite pizzas Aurelio's. That was my first job and it's my favorite pizza. Oh, it's the best all around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah A sauce.
Speaker 2:But Aurelius is the best, but anyway. So let's do. I want to because I know your heart, jason, and I want these young people to hear your heart because when you, you know if they're just introduced you for the first time, you know they have to understand where this righteous anger comes from, and it's from seeing people again. So it's from seeing people again. So it's from seeing people and not just conflicts, not just wars. You know we have a deep state here in the United States. The church has a deep state. We know there's evil and corruption at all levels. So nobody's perfect out there in the world. And the best way, I think, to look at maybe it's a little bit of an oversimplification we have to see what's going on right. There has to be justice served, but at the end of the day, we have to see people, don't we? We have to see people and I think when you're out on the ground and you're seeing people and you're seeing the hurt and you're seeing what's going through, it has to affect your heart and that's coming through.
Speaker 1:You can see right here. I mean I'm in direct communication every day with the Christians in Gaza and the West Bank. You know I have a new sub stack at the Jason Jones show, my sub stack called Jesus Wept. Eichmann Didn't.
Speaker 1:And people, there was this big brouhaha that the tablet wrote a column mocking Theo Vaughn for crying when he was talking about Gaza. Then there was this goofball whatever his name is Joel Berry from Babylon Bee that he was so stoic that he could talk about this. And he was so stoic. You know Eichmann, who was, you know, ran the trains to the concentration camps. Everyone thought he was going to break down and be emotional and cry on his trial and he was just. He didn't.
Speaker 1:But we know from Scripture that Jesus wept. Paul tells us to weep with those who weep and you know I didn't cry when my grandmother died. I was like in 10 and I cried myself to sleep every night for three years and I don't think I cried from like when I was 13 to when my friend's son got hit by a car, maybe in 20, about 10 years ago, and my wife had never seen me cry and it was when I was in Iraq. When did I start to really break down. Just this righteous anger came was when I was in Iraq watching the genocide in Iraq, when I traveled with the Peshmerga and going to those, those villages and smelling the burning in Iraq. When I traveled with the Peshmerga and going to those villages and smelling the burning flesh and seeing the children and the victims of ISIS and seeing the churches that were destroyed, and then coming home and hearing the silence of our church and you know. So I would say this idea that men don't get passionate. No, the cruel architects of the culture of death have no passion.
Speaker 2:And this is a good way to end this is that you see, what you just said, the culture of death and John Paul, of course, was fighting for the culture of life it goes all the way from the abortion. What we're doing to kids that escaped the womb and with these gender ideologies stealing their innocence, obliterating their moral imaginations, twisting and distorting who they are. And so when we go out into the culture right, when we go out into the culture, we have to be there for those, especially the innocents. Right, we have to be there for children, for young people trying to. Can you imagine somebody just getting married and trying to put a family together? I remember somebody getting bombed in Ukraine at the start of the war there, and it was a young couple, jason. They just got married, they're all dreaming about their life and, boom right, a bomb goes off. Those are the people that live there.
Speaker 1:You know, right, a bomb goes off those are the people that live there, you know, and uh, and they're not involved in all this other stuff yeah, I know you said there's a lot of young people here.
Speaker 1:I want to address something that I'm going to be addressing a lot in writing. Um, it's, the biggest threat to our young people is ai and I'm so hot when I was was actually in Rome wearing a socks hat for the conclave. So when it was announced he was from Chicago, I was at ABC with. I was on. I was with Lester Holt. I was like on every TV show on him because of my socks hat and the socks.
Speaker 1:The ABC seven lady asked me from Chicago, why do you think he took the name Pope Leo? And I said he took the name Pope Leo? It's obvious because he's going to write an encyclical responding to the threat of transhumanism and AI, the way that Leo XIII wrote an encyclical Rerum Novarum and she was looking at me like eyes glazing over. So we have a holy father that sees the risk of AI. Now listen, I'm a writer, I'm a filmmaker. I can't imagine what it's like to be a young graphic designer in school right now or a young aspiring writer, director, filmmaker. We working with young people need to preserve their ability to create, to write, to direct, to paint, to produce, and I think we have a real opportunity, and I think we need to bring back local theaters and directed, produced and starring actors and writers and directors from our communities, because pretty soon, everything you watch on these screens it's not going to come from a human, and I cannot imagine what it'd be like to be a creative writing major right now, being 1920, 21 years old and saying what.
Speaker 1:I've dreamt of this my whole life. Now what? So? There are a lot of threats, and the fact that Pope Leo took the name Leo tells me wow, he knows, and he's thinking about young people, he's thinking about their hearts, what it is to be human. I always say a human is a storytelling creature. So we are, and AI is going to take away the humanity from stories, and so we need to be vigilant in fighting for our young people. Technology is powerful, and so that can make it very dangerous, and I'm just worried for young people that this technological revolution that we're witnessing is unlike anything that humans have ever experienced, and there may be a generation crushed, or we can take this as an opportunity to really revitalize community and revitalize storytelling in a local, real way. So that's a big divergence from what we were talking about.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it's actually not because, jason, we get back to seeing people again and these young people are starting to notice this. You know, I mean, there's a lot being written about, you know, getting rid of cell phones. You know, for young kids, etc. I mean, there's a lot being written about, you know, getting rid of cell phones, you know for young kids, etc. But it's the young men again that we're talking to that when we tell them you know, after a certain time, just stay off of social media. You start to connect with people. You know John Paul II you start to talk about, you know theater and you know these small theaters.
Speaker 1:Is it?
Speaker 2:Rhapsodic Theater.
Speaker 1:I forget.
Speaker 2:These small theaters is a rhapsodic theater, I forget, but when the Nazis and the communists came in, john Paul had this small theater group and they would go into homes, right, because they were preserving the culture and things. This is the kind of feel that we need to get again. You know when I'm making it. I'm making a cognizant effort myself, jason, to go meet with some of these people, these young people themselves, even in small groups. Meet with some of these people, these young people themselves, even in small groups. I don't care to grab coffee with more people to talk, like you and I are talking right now, because that people connection you can't.
Speaker 2:If you get away from that, the cultural death will grab you. You know, a body and a soul without grace, right, the default position is sin and death. I mean it's going to happen to all of us, you know. I mean death is coming and it's only when we're filled with grace and then we have the potential for human flourishing, the potential for human freedom. Right, body and soul filled with grace. But now I have to act. And what does that mean? To love our vocation to love, right, no-transcript right. We seek the truth. This is an opportunity to bring us all together. I think right, because there's a window there, jason, opening up and people know something is wrong, something is really wrong. I can't trust the government, I can't trust the schools AI has got me. I don't even can't trust what I'm seeing right now and we get back to prayer, we get back to the sacraments and we get back to loving each other and, in essence, really that's what you're doing, jason.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what the great campaign is right, it's, it's. We have a very simple vocation as human beings.
Speaker 1:It's not easy, but it's to love God and to love our neighbor and when you know when you want to be passionately loved by your spouse. And when you look at like the Eichmann or um Joel Berry, like temperaments when they talk about death and destruction, it seems utterly devoid of love and passion. It's passionless. And I don't think it's a mistake that St John Paul the Great is the guy that gave us the theology of the body and love and responsibility and brought down the Soviet Union and fought abortion All at the same time.
Speaker 1:This was a passionate man who was intrigued by passion. You know, if you read um the jeweler shop and his play, this is a man that was, uh, really consumed with arrows.
Speaker 2:You know the the, and if you haven't read the jewelry shop, you should, because this is a three-part play with these three couples. We won't go into it, it's very honest and brave.
Speaker 1:You think it came from the 50s and from a Polish priest. It's unbelievable, really, right.
Speaker 2:Unbelievable, unbelievable, yeah. So thank you so much for that, thanks for your time, thanks for the book. You know there's so much we didn't cover in here. Jason, one thing I just, if you got two more minutes, one thing I'll just bring up right, not to get into it, but when you talked about abortion and how that changes, you know, you said you have a part in here because this is the point. You said, hey, you know it came.
Speaker 2:Roe v Wade came out of the at the federal level. Now we got the wars going on in the state. I'm in Illinois. We're at the belly of the beast here. And you made such a great point in here. You said here's how we'll know. You wrote this in 2022. This is three or four years later and you said this is how we'll know. Are they a red state or a blue state? Are they pro-life or pro-death? Right Culture of life, culture of death. He said the cities will start to come apart. You'll see violence. You'll see education go down. You'll see the deterioration of you know, defund, the police, just a societal breakdown. I'm seeing it right here in Chicago. Eighty percent of every young person born a Chicago minority our black brothers and sisters 80% of them are born out of wedlock without fathers in the home. You know this will unravel and we're not helping them, we're making them dependent on the government and keeping them there. Anyways, we won't get into all that.
Speaker 1:I want to tie that into one thing. This is such a good point, though. I want to tie that into one thing. So yeah, the point that I made was that people will vote with their feet that those pro-life communities now the Roe versus Wade is overturned, those districts will grow, census people will move, censuses will change, they'll gain more political power and eventually will be a pro-life country. And it's because there's going to be two societies there's going to be a culture of life and a culture of death.
Speaker 1:I would say Gaza's another tragedy. If you accept what you see with your own eyes and you make excuses and exceptions and say it's complicated, it's difficult, you're chasing, you don't understand. If you swallow the ethno-nationalist or bizarre theological justifications for the mass slaughter of a civilian population, you too will see those religious communities disintegrate. So I recently tweeted that the Protestant megachurches will die in Gaza. And now this gives a responsibility to us as Catholics.
Speaker 1:We really need to reach out and begin evangelizing these ecclesial communities, because if you look at the polling under 30, if I'm a young person and my parents are justifying this mass slaughter that I'm seeing in the name of Jesus Christ, I'm either going to become Catholic Orthodox or completely lose my faith. So we, as Catholics, really have to be vigilant, we have to be like. I am intentionally, in a way, being so outspoken about this because I want to mitigate the scandal that people like Mike Huckabee and the Speaker of the House are causing by justifying a genocide in the name of Jesus Christ. And so, just as those cities and those communities that will promote the destruction of the child in the womb, those religious communities that promote the destruction of the child in Gaza, they too will become increasingly racist, increasingly militant and divisive, and they will shrink, by God's grace, and then their children will be lost. And so we really have to evangelize To the young people here, evangelize your Christian friends, friends from Christian Zionist families, let them know what the church teaches, what Pope Leo has said, what Cardinal Pizzabala has said, so that they understand that this is a minority opinion, small religious communities that have a lot of power in the United States, but outside of the United States, the United Kingdom, this weird ethno-nationalist theology doesn't have many roots.
Speaker 1:So, but that's just to your point, jack. It kind of connects what we talked most of the show about oh, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:No, that's a good way to end it right. Hey, god bless you, jason. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody. Thanks for joining us today. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.