 And now, ladies and gentlemen, a man who deserves no introduction, Chris Stafanik. Thank you. In the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. Mary our Queen and Mother, so humble, so small, so insignificant in the eyes of the world that the devil would never have guessed what was about to happen in Nazareth. We ask you to pray for us, to have your spirit, your smallness, your humility, your openness to the presence of Jesus Christ so we can bring him into the world in our own era of darkness. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for our sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Religious sisters, the world's kind of messy, have you noticed that? And the problems in the world, the spiritual problems are legion. They're legion. We're going to talk about the biggest problem that most people have never heard of. Relativism. Can you say that word with me? Relativism. Pope Benedict XVI called relativism the greatest problem of our time. That's a big statement because there are lots of problems in our time. Have you noticed that? Pope Francis called relativism the spiritual poverty of our age. These spiritual poverty of our age. Huge statements. You guys are the devout Catholics who come to this conference. Most people though have never even heard the word relativism, let alone know what it is. The greatest problem of our time, the spiritual problem of our age that most folks have never heard of. Relativism is the idea, the philosophy, though it's hard to dignify it with a word like philosophy. Because any serious philosopher, it's really hard to ascribe to relativistic views, because they really make no sense, and we'll get to that in a minute. But relativism is the philosophy that there is no objective truth, that there's no truth outside of our own heads. But rather that truth is relative to what each person believes. That's why you get statements like, Jesus is true for you, and something else is true for someone else. So it's a treatment of truth as if we can each make up our own truth. Now people aren't relativists with things like math. No one's going to say, two plus two is five for me. Who are you to judge? Don't impose your four on my five. This is my truth. You have your truth that two plus two is four, and these two truths never even have to meet. See, because truth is relative to what we each make up for ourselves, right? Most people would not be relativists with math unless they have some serious, serious problems. Most people are not relativists with things that... Well, pretty much everybody's not a relativist with things that are scientifically verifiable. And that's a philosophy you can call scientism, that the only place you find truth is using the scientific method, and outside of that there is no objective binding truth. But almost everyone is a relativist with things outside the realm of math and science. Outside what you could put in a neat equation or study under a Petri dish, under a microscope. And the stuff that falls outside the realm of science and math, guys, it's the most important stuff of life. Faith, morals, meaning. All the stuff that shows us what life is made of, what gives life purpose, what gives human beings hope. That's the stuff that people would say, you make up your own truth for you. And when I say almost everyone's a relativist today, there was a study done recently that showed that 93% of teenagers said that they do not believe in absolute truth. 93%. And I think it's a conservative estimate. Of course we know why people are saying there's no such thing as absolute truth, don't we? You see, because no one wants to be a jerk. And we have a world that would tell us that if you dare to assert the truth with surety, and by surety I mean I'm right, and if you disagree, you're wrong. Not that you'd say it like that, guys. Not that you go around telling the world, you're all wrong, right? But if you dare to assert the truth as if you think it's actually true, as if you dare to assert a religious or moral truth with the same type of calm surety that you'd assert 2 plus 2 is 4, you are labeled a bigot, a hater, and intolerant. And if there's any one virtue left and celebrated in the world today, it's tolerance. Everything else goes, but that one's mandated, right? Now here's the irony, we've redefined tolerance to mean something it's never meant before. Tolerance is when you disagree with somebody and then you put up with them. That means that in order to begin being tolerant, I first have to think that you're wrong. Tolerance has been redefined as never disagreeing with someone. You have to not like an idea in order to start tolerating the person who espouses that idea. Guys, you don't have to tolerate a beautiful sunny day. You tolerate a cold, nasty rainy day. Duh! And people have this idea that if you say you believe in an absolute truth that you will necessarily be intolerant. That doesn't pan out in history at all. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was she intolerant? Look, she believed with surety that Jesus Christ is the son of the living God. He is who he said he was, and that if you disagree with that, you are wrong. She would never have said Jesus is God for me, and that's true for me. That's my truth, and a Hindu has their truth. No, she thought they were wrong. She gave her life serving Hindus who she disagreed with. You're not going to find a YouTube video come out of Mother Teresa in a back slum of Calcutta kneeling a Hindu in the face saying, except Jesus is your personal Lord and Savior, then you'll get your rice. That's a laughable idea. It's absurd, it's ridiculous. She believed with absolute surety. With absolute surety. Like most people know 2 plus 2 is 4. She believed that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and he became man. And he died for us. And that reveals the worth, the value, the dignity of every single human being. God found those people worth dying for. I'm going to live for them too. I'm going to lay my life down for them too. Even people who I theologically disagree with. She believed with an absolute surety drove her to absolute surety. And ironically, some of the most intolerant people in history were relativists. There is nothing more relativistic than fascism. You know who said that? Mussolini. He said if there's this idea that there's no absolute truth so that we can make up our own truth and impose it on everybody else, that's fascism. Was he a tolerant man? There's no such thing as truth. Adolf Hitler said that. You see, when you don't believe in truth, when you don't believe in truths about God, about faith, it opens you up to a more radical intolerance than people have ever been able to use religion to accomplish. Now to be fair, you'll find mean, intolerant, horrible people who have manipulated and used religion and religious positions of power to hurt other human beings. That's because when you look at the course of humanity, and you have a billion Catholics on the earth, some of them are going to be bad seeds, right? But the act of believing isn't what leads to the intolerance. I've heard this claim a lot of times. You know, Chris, isn't religion responsible for all the wars in history? Really? There's a book called The Encyclopedia of Wars that found that actually 7%, 7% of the wars throughout history can be attributed to religious causes. The vast majority were not. And in fact, we don't have to look to ancient history to see that what, over 100 million people in the 1900s gave up their lives, were killed, were sacrificed in the altar of secularist, atheistic, communist ideology. Imagine there's no heaven. Paul Pot, imagine that. It's easy if you try. Stalin found it easy to imagine there was no heaven. No hell below us. Imagine all the people living alive in peace. The most violent people in history have believed there was no heaven, no hell, and that you are nothing more than a lump of self-aware molecules. And if you get in the way of my political machine, there's no problem with crushing a bunch of self-aware molecules because there's no heaven. And there's no truth. And I make up my own, and I crush you with it. How's that working? I wrote a booklet on relativism called Absolute Relativism. I shared it with a relative of mine. He read it. Thank God. God bless him. But then he emailed me. He said, Chris, you're saying I'm right. They're wrong. What's the difference between you and the Taliban? Did you actually read the book? Please tell me you see one or two differences between me and the Taliban. It's not hard to see. Anyway, I'm going to show a couple of simple ways to point out why relativism is wrong, why this isn't even worthy of the dignified title of a philosophy, all right? Number one, relativism is totally wrong as a philosophy because you're not God. Look at your own experience. You can't create your own spiritual and moral universe. You simply don't have that kind of power. There's a difference between you and God, by the way. God never thinks he's you. That sums up pretty much every confession that I've ever made. Oh, yeah, I'm not God. Dang it, right? In our experience, we don't have the kind of power to create this God who circles around us, who serves us. We don't create our own moral universes. That just doesn't work. We're finite beings. We're dependent on other people. We're dependent on God. That's number one. You're not God. And your whole life experience shouts that to you. You don't have the power to create your own universe. Number two, it doesn't work in real life. Okay, fine, I can create my own moral truth. What if it's okay, according to my moral truth, to punch relativists in the face? Is that okay then? That's true for me. That's my truth. Well, you can't judge me. Who are you to judge? How does that work in real life? By the way, it's not okay to punch relativists in the face. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that. No one leave the conference and punch people, okay? I'll never forget after 9-11. Y'all remember where you were at 9-11? This is a stunning moment in the history of our country, in our psyches. And then I watched Giuliani, who was the mayor of New York City at the time, and he stood in front of the UN at this press conference, and he said these words, the era of moral relativism must come to an end. There is simply no way to sympathize with grossly immoral actions. Now, he would go on to say, well, I'm a Catholic personally, and I'm not gonna impose my views on other people when it comes to abortion, but whatever. That one day, 9-11, no one in our country was talking like a relativist. It is impossible to watch burning people jump out of the Twin Towers and say, who am I to impose my judgment here? Who am I to judge here? Now, you can't judge souls. That's way above your pay grade, amen? And I think what Pope Francis said, who am I to judge, that's what he's talking about. But who are you to judge actions? Let me answer that question for you right now. You're a rational creature. You must judge actions. It's what sets you apart from apes. The ability to judge a moral, the moral quality of an act sets you apart from irrational animals. And when you see a grossly immoral act, relativism, it's very clear that it doesn't work in real life, and a philosophy that's legitimate should work in real life. That's number two. It doesn't work with who you are. It's a finite creature. It doesn't work in real life. Three, it's a self-contradicting proposition. Could you say that with me? Self-contradicting proposition. Self-contradicting proposition. What's that mean? It contradicts itself. If you boil relativism down to one statement, that statement is this. It is absolutely true for everyone that nothing is absolutely true for everyone. Huh? Is that true for everyone? Shh. Don't point out my inconsistencies, right? It's absolutely true that nothing's absolutely true. That's what relativism basically says. Or maybe people will get more, you know, refined with the relativism and say, no, no, no. Only things that are scientifically verifiable are true for everyone. Oh, really? Is that statement scientifically verifiable? No matter how you want to slice and dice it, it doesn't work with who you are. It doesn't work in real life. It doesn't work as a philosophy. And because it doesn't work as a philosophy, it's a self-contradicting proposition, you see inconsistencies among relativists all the time. I mean, they treat it like an absolute law that it's absolutely evil and shall not be tolerated if you're not a relativist. I mean, do you see the problem with that? There was a conservative political speaker recently who went to a college campus. He had to have 100 security guards on the secular college campus in America because of the amount of death threats he got. All from tolerant people. Are you kidding me? There's an insanity happening here. So you can show why it doesn't work as a philosophy, why it doesn't work in real life, but it doesn't work with who you are. But you still want to be thinking, what's the harm? How could this possibly be called the greatest problem of our time? I mean, so, my neighbor's a relativist. Who's it going to hurt? I mean, really? Can it help us all get along to just say, let's just all agree that there is no truth? Look, I think it's okay to say let's agree to disagree, amen? But to agree that there's no truth is something profoundly different. It hits us in a different level. So what's the harm? How has this hurt us? I'm going to go through a couple of ways this has hurt us. Number one, it's made us forget the truth about God. Relativism's made us forget the truth about God. Now, 93% of American teens said they don't believe in absolute truth. Let's say a vast majority of us were going to church. Their faith is something that's been deformed by relativism. See, a relativistic faith would say that God is something that I make up for myself. I carve a God to suit my lifestyle. This is who Jesus is for me. To me, this is who my God is. You know what I'm going to rip out the sixth and ninth commandment? I don't like those very much. Right? And I do a religion on my terms. You know what the Bible calls a religion, a faith that you do on your terms? A God that's under your control that you've carved in your image and likeness? What's that called in the Bible? Idolatry. You can call it Catholic. You can call it Methodist. You can call it Jewish. You can call it whatever the heck you want. But if that is the fundamental posture of a person toward their God, that fundamental posture is not real faith at all. You see, in order to begin having real faith, you have to realize that God is a being outside of your own head. Not one that you conform to your life, but one that you come to know and conform your life too. That's actual real faith. But because people have this relativistic view of faith, I think it's one of the big reasons that faith has become profoundly irrelevant to people today. I say young people because they're the canary in the mine, but it really is all of us. All different ages have become an irrelevant thing. Quicker than any time in history, guys, the fastest growing religion, it's I don't care about the claims of any particular faith or religion. Nones, that's people who identified as having no specific religion, they were about 7% of the American population in 1990. About four years ago, they were about 17%. They're about 23% now. They've recently passed up Catholics in the percent of the population. And it's especially growing among young people. You see, most people still believe in God. They have a sense that there's a maker. I think because people want to believe in God. It's a way happier idea that maybe I have a soul and I can go to heaven someday. I mean, what are you seeing your kids at night if there is no God? No one loves you this I know for the dark sky tells us so no one hears you when you cry nothing happens when you die. What do you say if someone sneezes? May the dark void encompass you. Dude, relax, I sneezed, right? I think most people will say they have some vague sense that there is a God because it's a nice idea. It's a logical idea too, but that's for a different talk. But most people still believe in God. But the claims of any particular faith, if people approach religion as people have made up for themselves at one time in history I gotta tell you, that's the most irrelevant thing ever. I mean, if you've ever showed up in a confirmation class and half the kids are yawning it's because they think, here's a middle-aged guy I've never met before sharing his idea about who God is. Whatever. I mean really, whatever. But if that person, however, saw this time of preparation and formation for the sacrament of confirmation as wow, I'm going to learn the truth of the living God that's been revealed to me. The maker of space and time. I'm going to learn about him. Guys, people light up. That's exciting stuff. This is the stuff a human mind was made for. But nothing's more irrelevant than just hearing what works for you unless I'm your best buddy, but whatever, right? And I've been asked the question many times. Don't you see a hunger among young people for God? No. I mean really, there's a hunger in the human heart for God because we're made in his image and likeness. We are an incomplete sentence and he finishes it for us, amen? But here's what I see more and more among all ages that we're so good at stuffing that hunger. It's scary. We're so good at living in constant distractions that we never even ask the fundamental questions about the meaning of life. It's kind of like I'm seeing more people who are in a deep carbonite freeze. If you got that, you're a Star Wars geek. Excellent. And more than coming, showing up at our doors hungry, they have to be woken up and reminded of that hunger. Jesus' first question to humanity in the Gospel of John was, what are you looking for? What do you seek? Because that's the beginning of the spiritual life. When people take an interior glance and say, what am I looking for? Ah, I am looking for something. I am made for something more. But you have to ask that question first. And in an era of relativism, we're not seeking because we lack faith that there's something out there to find. So what harm has this done? It's making us forget the truth about God. That's number one. Number two. It's making us forget the truth about the meaning of life. I shared this last night for those who were there that I was at MIT and an atheist was trying to debate me there. They're really smart there. They're wicked smart. They ask the same questions you might get in a junior high youth group. It just takes 25 minutes to figure out what the question is. But this guy said, Chris, I don't need to believe in an imaginary God to tell me life has purpose. I make up my own purpose. And I said, you know what that's called, right? It's make-believe. If you make up your own purpose, it's just make-believe at the end of the day. I was driving on the freeway recently in Denver and there was a big sign at this car dealership that said the meaning of life is to make up your own meaning. Please tell me there's more than that. We have a generation of people that says that's as good as it gets. I make up my own meaning and I press on with the meaning that I've made. Guys, when you make something up, you know it's make-believe. Unless you've got a serious problem in there, right? Make-believe, you know the difference between that and real, don't you? In order to be happy, in order to thrive in life, you'll have to know that the very ground under your feet is actually there. And that the purpose that you live on, the goal for your soul, what all this is about is actually real. Every human activity has to have a real goal for that activity to have meaning. Meaning enough to carry us through the drudgery, to carry us through the suffering. Man, I have six kids. I'll never forget the days, you know, getting six kids ready to go out in the snow. By the time you have number six dressed in a snowsuit, number one is having a heat stroke and they've undressed themselves. But the goal is real and tangible and it's fun in the snow. So we press on to the sufferings of parenthood. God bless you parents. Kids ruin your life for the better, don't they? I've been a selfish jerk before when my kids came along. Anyway, you know, but the goal is real. Brothers and sisters, the activity of living life has to have a goal, a purpose that's real. And we have it. We have it. We're made to know love and serve God in this life and be happy with Him forever and the next. That's the best news ever. Can I hear an amen to that? We have it. And it's real, brothers and sisters. But when a world of relativism is deprived of that sense of real, that's why Pope Benedict XVI lamented that a spiritual desert is spreading. And I'm sorry, a spiritual desert is spreading an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair. Don't you see that? A quiet despair is spreading. And you know what you do with a quiet despair as it starts to creep up in your soul? You distract yourself. You medicate it right away. You put that phone in your face and you keep yourself distracted enough to not really think about it. And don't we see this happening today? I read a terrifying book called iGen. If you do youth ministry or have teens in the house, you got to read this. It's all these studies showing that increased phone use is pushing out every other human activity, face-to-face interactions with other people. It's pushing out religious questions. iGen, generation Z or iGen, teenagers now, they're the least religious generation in history. Some people are looking at that and saying, well, I guess religions ran its course. We're not relevant anymore. Maybe human beings don't need religion. No, no, no. What's happening is that human beings are becoming less human. Those questions that are fundamental to our existence. Who am I? What's the purpose of life? What on earth am I here for? What happens when I die? As soon as you start to ask those questions now, you know what we do? Medicate them. Those questions make us feel uncomfortable. They're supposed to. They're supposed to drive us to find the meaning of life. But instead we're driven back to the phone. Keep it shallow. Keep it shallow. Man, that is a great tool from Satan. I'll tell you what, when you don't keep it in its place. I'm not saying technology is evil or iPhones are evil. The connections that they can form between people and between you and information, it's real, it's good, but it's not enough. It's not enough. I mean, I've seen teenagers today, man, they hang out together and they're literally all looking down at their phones. It's absolutely insane. Anxiety, depression, suicide rates, we'll get back to this in a minute too, but they're all just skyrocketing. Why? Because we have an era addicted to distraction because when you don't have real meaning, that's all you got. That's all that's left in life is to just distract yourself with one thing after another. So one, man, let's forget the truth about God. Two, man, let's forget the truth about the meaning of life. Number three, we've forgotten the truth about moral decision-making. It's not hard to see the damage that's doing to people. We are training young people to make moral decisions based on the compass only of their feelings. If there's no truth outside of us, then the only thing I have to conform my actions to is how I feel today. How's that working for you? Look, go to any prison. Ask people the thing that got you here. How did it feel when you did it? They're gonna say it felt great. My brother-in-law worked in a psych unit. I know there's a guy who just went off one day and started throwing things and breaking windows and after they called him down, they said, listen, how do you feel? And he said, awesome! Well, maybe we'll go to a different line of therapy with this one, right? Often things feel great in the moment and they lead to our destruction. Actually, I think, as Peter Creepin said this, the only sin that doesn't feel good right away is jealousy. It's the dumbest sin in history. It feels instantly bad. There's no pleasure attached to it. If you got jealousy, just get rid of that one. Actually, get rid of all the sins, but that one's really extra stupid. I was... We're literally training young people to feel their way through moral decisions instead of referring to objective criteria for moral decision-making. When I was in eighth grade, I was in sex ed class. You know this is not going to go well this story, right? I'll never forget it. Maybe I was a little kid, you know? And I'm 43 now, so this has been happening for quite some time. We were given these scenarios to figure out what we do in these different scenarios and our teacher said, your girlfriend is on an island. In order to come see you on the shore, she has to have sex with the guy in the boat that ferries between the island and the shore. She does. Are you mad at her? What? Why are kids so confused nowadays? I wonder. See, and we're doing this. We're confusing young people. We're ethically abandoning them in the name of love. Isn't that ironic? Apply that to driver's ed. We love you. We want you to express yourself. Don't pay attention to those silly yellow lines that have held your forefathers in place for so many generations. Close your eyes and drive as you feel. Are you going to veer right off the road, man? The rules, the standards, the truths are there not to limit us but to set us free. Can I hear an amen to that? We don't break God's commandments. We get broken by God's commandments. We end up broken. We break ourselves is what we do. And this personalizing of moral decisions, I think the most rotten fruit of that is abortion. 25% of pregnancies end in abortion. There was a study done in 2014 that showed particular cities in D.C. 38% of pregnancies ended in abortion. In New York, 30% in New Jersey, I'm sorry, New York was 33%, New Jersey, 30%. There have been like 45 million, 55 million abortions in the United States alone. Now there's a Gallup poll done recently that showed that most Americans said that they were personally opposed to abortion. I remember people reading this and thinking, oh, that's great news. No, it's not. It's horrifying news. In a country where a majority of people are convinced that this act is unjustly taking another human being's life, and even then, even then, they say, but I'm not going to impose this on someone else. I'm not going to work for laws that uphold this truth. Do you see how dangerous this can be? Do you see what that can lead to society? That even if you're convinced that it's taking someone's life unjustly, even then I'm not going to, wow. Paul 2 talked about abortion. He said it is the sinister result of relativism which reigns unopposed. We've forgotten the truth about God, the meaning of life, how to make moral decisions. Number four, we're forgetting the truth about how to debate important issues. You see this happening, right? Look, if someone's debating something about math or science, it doesn't get heated crazy and emotional. Why? Because we come together around the table of objective truth. We agree that there's a truth here between us somewhere. And either I'm right and you're wrong or you're right and I'm wrong or maybe neither of us is right, but the truth is out there, it's objective. Take that table away. We can't talk to each other anymore. We're not a society anymore. We're a bunch of silos separated from one another. Each locked into his own moral universe. And every disagreement is perceived as a personal offense. Because my ethical and religious and philosophical views, it's an expression of me. It's all about me. You shall be like gods. Where was that promise from? From the devil himself in Genesis. It's all about me. And if you dare to talk about this expression of me, man, and we perfected, we perfected the art of letting ourselves be triggered, frankly, to express how wrong someone else is to critique me personally. I was giving a talk in Canada at a teacher's conference. And what I was talking about was actually pretty benign, but it upset two teachers who had gone through college recently and perfected the art of being triggered. And these two teachers left the room and started hyperventilating and screaming and crying outside. And that was, they emailed me after that it was my fault. Guys, if someone can say one line on the stage that produces that response in you, you need to deal with that in counseling. I'm not saying that facetiously. That's a beauty. I love counseling. I'm a big fan, all right? But for people to perfect the art of becoming so upset that they explode and then blame it on that person, why? Because you're just attacking me. Because you said something I disagree with, so I flipped out. This is the world that we live in today. This is the world we live in today. I believe with the Catholic Church when it comes to the homosexual, the gay issue, the LGBT issue that same-sex attracted people are called by God to be saints. Can I hear an amen to that? That that cross can be part of making them a saint. Amen? I also believe that that traction is intrinsically disordered. And that's why it's a cross to carry. And I also believe that that attraction, if you live on it, if you act on it sexually, that act is intrinsically disordered. It doesn't fit who we are. It doesn't fit our nature as people. That kind of statement, guys, that I just made is literally dangerous today. If I was a psychologist, if I was a doctor working in a hospital, I could lose my job for that statement getting out. Why? Because I'm attacking someone. Am I attacking a person? Look, I can be a friend with someone who's living a gay lifestyle and who hates the church. I can be a friend. I can disagree with people and still love them. This is not rocket science. I learned to do this in kindergarten when we disagreed about blocks, but I didn't pick the block up and hit someone in the head with it. But this kind of statement is perceived as so hateful. I had someone reach out to me recently online and he was an attorney in New York City and he said, Christy, you should be put in jail for believing with the Catholic church. He said, you're as dangerous to young people as a pedophile because you deprive young people of a healthy enjoyment of their own sexuality as they become adults. And he said, in some day it's going to happen. And he's a devout follower of a Jesuit priest who I know half of you could probably guess who he is who continues to perpetuate the idea, the lie that the church is teaching is hateful, bigoted and mean. Guys, to say something's objectively disorder is clear. It's not hateful. The church also teaches that calamity and lying is objectively disordered. And when people know these church teachings and then isolate the church's teaching about homosexuality, it's hateful and mean. They're perpetuating a lie that's leading to a growing fury. But I'll tell you, if there's no truth, the fury makes sense, doesn't it? Because then I would be attacking another person. I would be hateful. I would be bigoted. I would be mean. What I'm actually doing is pointing out the path to freedom which you can't have without truth, which you can't have without Jesus Christ. And that's love, by the way. There is no truth without love. Amen? There is no love without truth. Jesus shows us in the cross uncompromising truth, undying love. Put those two things together. What do you have? A very painful, awkward situation. But you have Jesus. You have the path to freedom is what you have. Amen? Amen. And the world says, come down from that cross, then we'll believe in you. No. We'll stay up there with Jesus. We'll stay up there with Jesus at a love for humanity. It's made us forget the truth about God, the truth about the meaning of life, the truth about moral decision-making, the truth about how to debate anything with clarity and charity. And at number five, I'd say it's making us profoundly lonely. Loneliness is dangerous. Recent studies have found that it's healthier to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day than to live in loneliness. Now, I think we're lonely in the most profound metaphysical sense. This existential loneliness, this ache to be connected with other people. Why? Because we're free now. We are so free. We're free from morals. We're free from community. We do community in our terms. We're free from sexual norms. We're free from the demands and dictates of our own bodies. We're free from family and obligations. We're free from truth. We are so free that we're little people in the middle of an ocean on our own dinghy floating around in nothingness. That's how free we are. How's that working for you? This freedom's isolated us. I was listening to a talk recently at an amazing statue. You can look them up. 35% of people over 45 are chronologically lonely. 8% report having meaningful conversation with neighbors. 8% have had meaningful conversation with their neighbors. 32% say they trust their neighbors. The fastest growing political party is unaffiliated. The fastest growing religion is unaffiliated. We're all unaffiliated. Love demands that we bind ourselves to one another. That we come together. Truth gives us a place to come together. Guys, we're separated. We're free and we're miserable. Suicide rates among young people, aged 10 to 17, have increased from 2006 to 2016 by 70%. 70%. Now, sometimes this mental illness attached to that, I can't isolate that and say that's because of relativism. It can be a lot of reasons I kind of think it happened. I'm sorry if you've dealt with that in your family. And we trust the mercy of God. But tell you what, when I look at an increase like that, that's not all from mental illness. That it's not all from neurological problems. We have the most isolated era in history. What's the source of all this, guys? What's the source of all this? See, the Christian life, the Christian worldview, says that life makes real sense. The Christian worldview says that let's go a step further. Life is good. I love Josephine Bikita, the great saint who was kidnapped, sold him to slavery when she was nine years old, beaten so badly she forgot her name, was nicknamed Bikita by her slave traders. That means lucky. An Italian family brought her home to Italy, set her free. She became a Catholic, became a religious sister. She kissed the baptismal font every time she went to church. She said, if I could meet the people who kidnapped me, who beat me, who stole me, I'd kneel and kiss their hands. Because if they didn't do what they did, I wouldn't be who I am. She died with tears streaming down her face saying, oh, lady. You know how she summed up her life? She never remembered her name. She never saw her family again. She bore scars her whole life. She said, I am definitely loved. And whatever happens to me, I'm awaited by love. And so my life is good. See, the Christian can look at the events of his life and see the hand of love writing a story. And if that whole story is good, brothers and sisters, it redeems every page of the story. The twists and turns and ups and downs are good if the end of the movie is good. The Christian can look at the events of history and see that God is leading us somewhere toward heaven. There's an inherent hope in our world view and our historic view. We can look at the night sky and dare to do something that no pagan religion ever did. We look at that and instead of feeling afraid and small like we want to hide from the gods and from fate, we actually have the audacity to see the face of love looking at us from behind those stars. This is the Christian world view. The opposite of that world view is drummed up as created by the one that Revelation calls the angel of the abyss. He wants you to look at the events of your life and see nothing intelligible. He wants you to look at yourself and see a blank page that you have to fill all by yourself because there is no truth about you. You're a bunch of self-aware molecules. He wants you to look up at the night sky and see nothing but chaos. He wants to deprive humanity of hope. He's the angel of the abyss. And whether you call the ism communism or atheism or materialism or relativism, his end game is always the same. He wants to take your hope away from you. That's who's behind this, guys. Our enemy is not flesh and blood. Our enemy is not our brothers and sisters who have been deceived. Our brothers and sisters who sometimes want to throw us in jail. They're not our enemy. They're our friends helping us get to heaven. There's only one enemy. And our brothers and sisters in humanity in varying degrees have been pulled under his influence. The one enemy of a Christian is the angel of the abyss. How do we defeat him? How do we defeat this abyss of relativism that we stare into in our society today? Why does God defeat the abyss? When darkness covered the abyss and the earth was a formless wasteland, what did God do? He spoke, let there be light. And his word, being, light, guys, the void can't fight being itself. Darkness can't fight light. Darkness doesn't shine into light. It's got absolutely no power in the presence of light. And what happened, many millennia after his creation of the world when the world was covered in sin and enslaved to death, he spoke again. And Jesus is called the word of God in sacred Scripture, the light of the world. And darkness is powerless against the light that is Jesus Christ, the word that is Jesus Christ. So where do we fit into this equation? Guys, words reach the world. But you know how they reach the world? Voices from John 1. This is the testimony of John the Baptist. When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, who are you? He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the desert make straight the way of the Lord. I'm the voice. I'm the voice of one crying out in the desert make straight the way of the Lord. His voice prepared the way for Jesus Christ who's the answer to every problem in human history who's the silver bullet who's the answer to every longing in the human heart who fixes all the problems of society. He's it. He's it. He's it. There's no other way. And his whole life was about being that voice that prepared the way for Jesus. And I love where John the Baptist's birthday is situated in the solar calendar. It's June 24th, right around the summer solstice, right? May I decrease? May he increase? From his birthday the days get shorter and shorter until six months later on the other side of the calendar the light comes into the world. How awesome is that? Unless you're in Australia, the whole analogy is totally messed up. And because he was that sold out for Jesus Herod, who was surrounded by all the distractions the world could possibly throw at a man couldn't shake his attraction to John the Baptist. Guys in a world this confused the only voice that's going to cut through is the voice that's totally 100% sold out for Jesus Christ and I wish it was simpler than that and I wish there was some simple philosophy or simple way of conquering relativism could point out to you. But the only solution at the end of the day is saints. You got to become one. And the future of the world does depend on that. Pope Benedict XVI said the ultimate apologetic is beauty and saints. You are to be that voice. Saint, insert your name here. How? How can it be that voice? Couple of quick pointers. Number one, I want you to speak the truth with clarity. Speak the truth with clarity. There's a trend I see in ministry that we hold back certain truths thinking that's somehow more loving. Guys, there's nothing loving at all if someone's walking toward a cliff if you don't tell them that. And we're going to stand before God with a brother and sister someday and they're going to tell us, Lord, he didn't tell me. And you'll have to answer for that. Speak the truth with clarity. Stop apologizing for the truth every time you say it. Stop qualifying the truth with phrases like, well, the Catholic Church teaches this. Just say it like it's true because guess what? If the Catholic Church teaches it, it is true. If the Word of God teaches it and the Church is teaching from the Word of God, it is true. Amen to that? So with calmness, assert the truth. If someone challenges you, stay calm knowing you got the truth. I mean, I have no problem getting in over my head and debate with somebody and just saying, look, in the 2,000-year history of the Church, that's been answered. Just give me a damn. I'm going to go home and Google and find the answer on, you know, whatever great Catholic website there is and send it to you. But I got to promise you, every question that's been asked has been answered in the 2,000-year history of the Church. Just calm down. Take a deep breath and with calmness assert the truth as if you already won the fight because Jesus did and you're on his side. He's awesome, amen? Number two, speak the truth with charity. Speak the truth with charity. I'm right, you're wrong. Not necessarily the most charitable way to make a point, is it? Look, it's okay to be right, it's okay to know you're right, but make sure you say it right. That really does matter. I think one of the reasons the world is so relativistic is in a reaction to an era where Catholics lacked mercy. Love, all this love and acceptance without any truth to guide it, it's just sentimentalism. And for young people who aren't getting the guidance they need, it's abandonment. But truth without love to temper the way we deliver it is cruelty. It's merciless. You have to have love and truth together or you have nothing at all. You know, if you have truth with no love, you're a noisy gong, you're a claying cymbal. What's that do? It turns people off, it scares them away. But I'm right. Get your right away from me. It's hurt my ears. I watched an old movie recently. It was in the 1950s, and some woman who outside of wedlock got pregnant was sent off to live with her aunt. And this was the way of the world just back then. Because there was a lot of truth with no allowance for human weakness. And we wonder why 20, 25 years later everybody wants abortions. I guarantee you a lot of Christians wanted the abortions. Because they were terrified, terrified at failure. You have to preach the truth with charity. You have to preach the truth with clarity. Number three, you gotta preach the truth with power. With power. This is from Mark 16. And these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name, they will drive out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up snakes with their hands. And when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all. They will place their hands on sick people and they will get well. How about we start asking God to make that kind of stuff happen again? I think it's not happening because we don't ask. Really? These signs will accompany those who believe. Are you guys those who believe? Let's start asking God a little bigger again. We ask God so dang small. We forget that God is the God who split seas in half so people can walk through them. We can start praying as if we actually believe that because it's actually true, amen? And it's especially true at times in history like the time we're in right now. St. Thomas Aquinas talked about how in the early church there were so many of these miracles. But I think this happens at different times in the church when people need to be convinced of the gospel. Why? Because we're making claims that are reasonable but go beyond our human ability to reason, right? It's not irrational. It's super-rational. It's like a relationship with a person. You're not calling people to just submit to a group of facts but to submit to the person of Jesus Christ to enter a relationship. If it was just about submitting to facts that were scientifically verifiable, well then you present your case and the person will be a Christian, right? No, no, no, it's entering a relationship. So facts can lead you to the threshold but you have to take a jump over that threshold with the will. The will eventually pushes your intellect beyond where it could go by itself. It's like marriage. I learned the facts about my wife. She met all the checks on my list. I met 10% of the checks on her list. Eventually I had to produce a ring. The will pushed the intellect beyond where it could go by itself. I was going to say, will you marry me? But I went like this. She said yes. But we're calling people to do this. We lack empirical data. So Aquinas reflected on how, well, God provides the data through miracles to help people believe because the greatest blessing isn't being healed or something but having your soul healed by faith. I can't that I was that recently. The group of missionaries there, they ask God for miracles and they get them. Kind of blow in my mind, man. About a month ago there was a kid at camp who had a torn ACL and they caught this on tape. She was an athletic kid but it had a full brace on her leg because of this torn ACL. By the way, if you have a torn ACL that shows up in X-rays, it's torn. And they could fix it but they're going to show scars. It is messed up the rest of your life. There's a mark there, okay? Torn ACL. She heard the Lord say to her during adoration, get up, walk. And they caught on tape. She starts jumping around. She went back to the doctor who took another X-ray and said there's not even scar tissue here. It's completely healed. Praise God. These kinds of things happen to this day. Y'all have miracle stories. I'll tell you what. Let's start asking God again. Let these signs accompany us, Lord. You said that they would. Has a relativistic world going to respond to something like that? They're going to want in, amen? So one, speak the truth of the clarity. Number two, speak the truth of charity. Number three, speak the truth of power. And number four, this is probably the most important piece, live the truth with joy. Guys, when you live in an era that doesn't believe in absolutes. It doesn't believe in absolute truth. You know what people are still driven by? They're still driven by their own desire to be happy. We can't escape this. And that's an okay to start. To start with, if you're not going to look up to the sky for truth, go ahead and look inside. You're going to see something there that you long for. What are you looking for? Blaze Pascal said, all men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war and others avoiding it is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. All human beings long for joy. Guess what? Jesus came to deliver. John 15, 16, I've told you these things, so my joy, the joy of God can be in you and your joy would be complete. I've told you these things. My whole body of teachings, I've told you so that my joy may be in you. The joy of the Lord transformed my life as a kid. My parents dragged me to a retreat that I didn't want to go on. I love coerced religious experiences for kids. And you know what changed me? I walked in the room and it wasn't the speakers on the stage, it wasn't the band, it wasn't the lights. It was the people in the room. I remember a specific face and I saw the joy of the Lord in his face as he worshiped his God. And I thought, I want that. The first Christians called themselves the living ones. And when I was in their presence, and that guy I'm thinking of, he'd never guess he's why I'm talking to you right now. You all think you're not a big deal because you're not on stage giving a talk? When you're a Christian who lives in the joy of the Lord, someone can walk by you who then goes on to preach the gospel of the nations because you smiled and Jesus Christ, you let that light beam from your face. All the arguments, all the powers of hell fall dumb and silent in the face of a saint. All the arguments of a relative fall dumb and silent when they see the joy of the Lord on a Christian's face and they say, I just want that. I just want that. And it makes my life look empty because it is, I want to be a living one. I want to be in, I want that. Brothers and sisters, we have to fight to be in the joy of the Lord today, don't we? It's not easy. We have to fight to be in the joy of the Lord. Not just by learning the truth, but by dwelling in the truth, by creating in our homes where you see at a conference like this that spirit of continual worship of God, that practice, that spiritual discipline of thanking our Lord. Worship is so incredibly powerful. If we're going to change the world today as Christians, we're going to be like the people who marched around Jericho praising God till his walls crumbled down in front of us. Nothing could stand next to a people of praise. When I was a little kid, I thought my dad was the greatest power on earth. And my dad's not particularly large or particularly rich. But you better believe when I was a five-year-old kid, I knew if he was going to get in the ring with people who were professional wrestlers, my dad would whoop them all. We have a heavenly father who's the most powerful father ever. And so often we go through life so burdened by the problems in the world, the problems in our own lives. And we go into prayer and we tell God how big all our problems are. When we worship, we start telling our problems how big our God is. And that's not just something we do in prayer sometimes. That's how we have to approach everyday life. But we can only approach everyday life if we become people of worship and praise again. If you think of your favorite songs, your favorite songs of worship and sing them under your breath all the time, hum them to yourself, praise him and thank him. Thanks leads to joy. 1 Thessalonians 5, give thanks in all circumstances. This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. God, what's your plan for me? Give thanks in all circumstances. You want me to be a priest? Give thanks in all circumstances. You want me to be a nun? Give thanks in all circumstances. You want me to be like a missionary preacher? I want you to give thanks in all circumstances. And when you're a person of thanks and praise, the rest is small details. His will for you is to constantly thank and praise him. Every day I wake up before my eyes open, I start thanking my God. My brain jumps into the day, it starts doing its job. It's supposed to keep me alive so it starts finding all the problems. Your brain does that too the second it wakes up. So before my eyes open, my spiritual discipline, I turn my thoughts to thanks, to worship, to praise. Why? Because I want to be like that guy that I passed by on my way into a conference as a kid who changed my life. And I'm begging you to be that person too. The people of God were in a mess in the time of Nehemiah. They were in exile and they had to go home to their city and rebuild their fallen walls in Jerusalem. And they were going to be under constant siege and constant attacks from their enemies. And many of the people who were going to go home and rebuild Jerusalem would be killed. They'd die violent deaths. And you know what Nehemiah told them? The joy of the Lord must be your strength. He was talking to people who were going to go face a bloody battle. The joy of the Lord must be your strength. Brethren and sisters, the world is a mess. The world's a mess, yes sure. The joy of the Lord must be your strength. God's calling you to be that voice that carries hope into the abyss. And you're going to carry it. If you live the truth and speak it with clarity, with charity, with power, and with your joy. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, we have hope because of you. We have life because of you. Give us your grace to live and to preach the truth with charity and with love. Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and never shall be, world without end, amen. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Thanks, guys, for being witnesses. We have 15 minutes right now, and I want to open the floor for question and answer. What did I talk about today, yesterday, or any of this stuff at all? On your Mars cassette, go. Unless you're all getting real tired. You guys have heard a lot of talking today. Real loud, yeah. You do too, huh? You get a lot of friends or relatives, yeah. Yeah, you know, okay, so what's a really quick elevator speech for the relativism thing? I like pointing out the example of Mother Teresa. Okay, because it's a real life simple illustration that it's okay to disagree with someone, and you could still love them. If you disagree with Hindus, she gave her life serving Hindus. Most people are relativists because they believe that you're a hater and a bigot, if you don't say that, you know, there's my truth, you have your truth, right? So just point to a simple example like that. You could also point to simple examples like, you know, can you say that what Hitler did in Nazi Germany was wrong? As soon as they say one thing was wrong, they've undermined relativism. Say, okay, so you're not a relativist. So what else can follow from that? There are other things, where do you draw the line? You just believe only Hitler's sins were wrong, but nobody else's? And you start getting in to maybe think about and see their logical inconsistencies. But it's important to attack that issue before you even get into a lot of faith issues. See, because otherwise I just think that you're just sharing your nice opinion of what works for you. And that'll fall on deaf ears. Yeah, Pope Benedict XVI said, the greatest apologetic is beauty and saints. The greatest apologetic is beauty and saints. The greatest apologetic is beauty and saints. Benedict XVI. That's the greatest answer to people's questions about the faith. Greatest apologetic. Yeah, yes. Yeah. Yes. People accuse us of being arrogant, she said, when we say that we know the truth. I'd say this. There's nothing more arrogant than saying I make up my own truth. That's arrogance. That's the most arrogant posture a human being could possibly have toward reality. Yeah. And you can clarify to your friend, like, look, I'm making a claim. I think it's true, right? I'm not saying it's true for me and you have a truth that's true for you. I'm saying I think this is true. I'm convinced. Either I'm right and you're wrong or you're right and I'm wrong. I'll admit that. That's our own truths. That idea that we could both be right with our own truth that we've created is the arrogant posture. Yeah. Actually, yeah, you want to give them the microphone? That's cool. Do you see more people like us starting to step out of their comfort zone and challenge the culture? Because I feel like myself included and a lot of friends of mine, deeply faithful people, we just stay silent. We don't want to be in a non-judgemental way and we've got to start to say things. We absolutely do. It's time. The hour is late. I talked to a director of inclusivity and diversity at a campus in New Jersey. She said, Chris, 67% of our campus is Catholic and they're all afraid to tell anyone. She's like, what's going on? She's being sincere. She's like, I have little fringe groups that maybe make up 2% and they're proud to say who they are and they're like, what's going on? There's a strange paralysis that's happened. It's in part because, going back to the first question, people think that we're bigoted and hateful and mean if we dare to say that we know the truth. So we're just quiet because no one wants to be a jerk. No one wants to be labeled a Nazi. Right? We have to start speaking the truth of the clarity and love. Just push through the discomfort, guys and we're going to talk about the spirit of Vatican II. There's the spirit of Vatican II where people say, oh, well, I don't think it's a sin. I don't have to go to mass. I can still receive communion. It's okay. That seems like relativism, but how do we talk to another Catholic about, well, no, is it just not okay? This whole thing is too, right? The spirit of Vatican II, it's like, what are you talking about? If you want to know what Vatican II said, read it, because it's really good. And it usually, what's actually said looks almost nothing like the spirit of Vatican II that people are trying to use to pit against the actual words of Vatican II. So anyway, I think it's honestly intellectually lazy of people to go there who are ministry leaders. If you want to quote something from Vatican II and talk about it, then let's do that and go back and forth about what it means. So maybe come to that and say, what document are we referring to? Oh, just the vague spirit of it. Because it says that I can do whatever I want. Really? Okay, next question. Hi. I'm interested to get what you would have done in this situation. So this is a true story and it's the reason why I signed up for this conference. About a year and a half ago, my wife and I were at a cafe in New York City and when you're sitting cafes in New York City, everyone's very close. I can't help but hear someone else's conversation. These two young women sit down right next to my wife and I and the one girl's asking the other one how her date went the other night. She said, oh, it's fine. It was fine, but he was Catholic. Ew! And the girl sitting across from her said, well, are you serious? And she's like, yeah, you know, and I just, I don't know if I want to date a Catholic. So if that word Catholic had been a race or something else in New York City, she would have whispered under her breath. She would have whispered it under her breath. He's Jewish. Or he's black. He's Catholic. Anyone can hear that. It's horrible. And so because of being in New York City, I didn't say anything. Sure, sure. Well, you know what? Honestly, you got to discern each situation, right? In New York City, if you're that close and everybody's crowded, maybe it wouldn't be inappropriate to just buzz in the conversation and say, hey, I'm a Catholic. I love being a Catholic. And just leave it at that. It's just a show like this is a joyful thing for me. Because people make all sorts of presumptions about what it means to be a Catholic. One of the reasons I love doing the TV show, who's seen our TV show on Amazon Prime or EWTN? Cool, watch it. Season one, season two, working on three right now. It's just showing the joy of Catholics in their everyday life. There's something so convincing about that. You know, a lot of people think that Catholicism can be reduced to a particular issue, particular scandal, or a body of teachings. And for most of us, as we experience the Catholic faith, it's something that brings us to life. And then the show is just about putting the camera on that. But you are the show. I mean, you're the real-life Catholic. You're out there. And if you just let someone know, hey, I love being a Catholic. I'll see you, God bless. I mean, that kind of would have done it, you know? You don't have to enter into a sparring match all the time, you know? The joy is more powerful than the sparring match half the time. That's maybe how I'd play it if I was going to say something. Yeah. Okay, so my question. So I have a lot of friends that are, like, not Catholics, and I also have friends that are both Catholic. But I have my friend, you know, my non-Catholic friends that like to ask me questions about, like, the Catholic faith. So it's very interesting whenever they come up to me, and they're like, okay, what is your faith about? I have some Catholic friends that, you know, they claim that they're more of a spiritual Catholic. And I'm... This is what's really interesting to me. Hold on, man, that is too deep. Wait a second. Shall I go ahead? Yeah, so, you know, coming to this conference, you know... What do they mean by that? That's my question. I think that's the thing, is that, like, you know, they're just like, well, I believe so much of, like, you know, the God aspect of it, but I don't like the people that are running it. And it's like... Me neither. So how do I respond to someone that says they're a spiritual Catholic? And I'm putting that in heavy class. Yeah, yeah. What they mean by that is they don't like the people who are running it. I'd say, man, the church and the world would be so dang perfect if it weren't for the people. Ministry would be super easy if it weren't for people. You know, but God loves people, and He uses people in all our broken messiness, including your friend who you're at the table talking to. You can go throughout history. You can point out imperfections about every pope, about every bishop, because we're humans. Now, some of them have been, you know, gone off the rails, right? And there's been times in history when we're talking off the rails, it's like, you know, like crazy, like, you know, popes who were sleeping with men and women and the Vatican and it was open and they purchased their papacy from someone. It was not so at certain times in the church's history, all right? But God still chooses to use these structures that He's set up that are filled with human beings. Why? Because at the end of the day, organized religion is better than disorganized religion, and there's really not much in between. I mean, since Moses, he's chosen to use messy people who sometimes have the radical possibility of being saints or going off the rails. But he's consistent with this throughout history. He believes in us enough to die for us to continue to use us as part of His plan. You know, so I think what you're saying is I prefer, and maybe it'd be good to talk her through this and point it out to her, I prefer a world in a church with no people. So what you're saying is you're a selfish jerk. You know, I mean, you could say that lovingly. But we all have to learn to put up with people, man. She's got to get over that. Chris, we teach confirmation and one of the things that we run into is with relativism, there's this supposition of equality, you know, that what I believe is the same as what you believe. And, you know, there's this equality except that now with the scandals that kind of puts us more of a negative. And I'm curious as to how you handle that with the young people here at school and others. But the scandals make them doubt the whole body of Christian belief. Is that what you're saying? You're running into? Yeah. You know, it's funny, kids will never do this in math class. Let's say their math teacher has an affair. Will they then doubt everything they learned about triangles in their trigonometry class? Right? There's a truth I get why it causes doubt because it's like, well, this truth should work in your life. But we have plenty of examples and stories of saints where we could show how it works in real life, you know, and frankly the scandals you can see it this way too or they testify to the truth that the church is teaching. I mean, if you want to see how broken humans get when they don't follow Jesus Christ and obey his teachings, look at some things that have happened at bishops and cardinals and priests. It perfectly plays out what happens when you don't follow church teaching. So yeah, go ahead. How can we follow the church when they covered it up? I don't follow people who cover sins up. I follow Jesus. You know, so really, and I pray that our fallen shepherds will follow him too. It is a very small percent, thank God, the attention, right? The upsetting thing for us is we look at the whole mess and think I don't know what percent, new about the small percent and it becomes very disillusioning and confusing. It gets a headline and it rightly upsets people. You know? Because we don't, it's hard to know. It's hard to know. There's a great saying that politics is local and I say all religion is local too. You know? If you love your priests, you love your bishop. You don't even come up. Because it's like, oh my priest is a great guy. Love him. Cool. Okay, kind of stops there. I mean, throughout most of history, I don't think most people even knew who their particular bishop was or the name of the pope sitting in Vatican was. You know, there's an experience of Catholicism that's right here, it's present, it's upon me that it's still powerful. It's as relevant as ever. You and then you, yeah? Go ahead. When you're in a conversation with other people. And they don't see eye to eye with you. They call you judgmental. Yeah. What do you do? Yeah. Again, I'd repeat. I'd bring up the example of Mother Teresa. She's judgmental. Like, no, I think you're wrong. I'm not judging you. I can think you're a good person. I'm not judging you. I can think you're holier than me. I just think you're wrong. So I'm not judging you. I'm just judging the idea you have. And people have a really hard time differentiating those two things. But we do have to spell it out for them. We have to spell out the differentiation for them because it's not obvious to people. And it really does make us look like jerks. Which blocks people's ears from the gospel. Yeah. I'm going to try to make this simple. I became Catholic Easter vigil. And I... Woo! And I... Did you do it because of the bishops? I did it because of the Eucharist. Amen. See? That's it, man. I have a friend that I've been with for 23 years. I'm a massage therapist. And every time she comes in, we talk about our spiritual lives and God and what's happening. And I'm very excited. So I share that with all of my clients. And they know it. It's been a really wonderful experience. But one of my friends for 23 years has said to me please do not talk about Catholic Church in front of me again. And she was Catholic when she was younger. So she said that's like asking me to separate Christ from the church. I can't do that now. It's become one to me. Both of them have. And so I said I wouldn't have you... Is she a devout Christian? Yes. I said I wouldn't have you not talk about... She's a seven-day dentist. I said I wouldn't have you not talk about your faith. That's what that was. I don't go to any church that allowed murder in the background in the history of the church. That allowed murder anywhere? That there was the inquisition, things like that. And so my answer, I haven't actually said it yet, but my answer is then we need to get rid of the New Testament. Because Paul wrote a lot of the New Testament. He killed Christians. Christian writer. And the Jews were told to get rid of people back in the old history. So what did he do? Just get rid of everything? I wanted to know how to confront in love because we are good friends. But it has definitely caused... She's wanting me to separate from something that's really... and not share it with her. Most people have a biased history handed on to them. There were more people killed in the Calvinist witch hunts in the command of the Spanish Inquisition. So boom, now you got nowhere to go. And it wasn't God who commanded the Spanish Inquisition. It was flawed people doing messy things. That we could differentiate that from the body of beliefs. But I would show her, I think with evangelical friends who something gets kicked up in them, they get triggered in some way by talking about the Catholic Church. Show her how in love with Jesus Christ you are. She sees it. Keep showing her that. You don't have to stay in the Church all the time. I may be giving you time. Evangelization is not a sprint, it's a marathon. Especially friends. Think the long game. You know? You could spend a year just talking about your love for Jesus and let her see it explode from you and let her see your joy and let her get attracted to what you found and then maybe in a year say, hey, why couldn't I even bring up the Catholic Church? What's the matter? Just listen, you know? Before the next question, check this out, guys. I don't know if you were here yesterday. I give out a lot of free stuff. Videos and media and stuff like that. If you want that, text this number. Text your name and email address to this number. 330 732 5228 And again, that is 330 732 5228 Text your name and your email address to give you free stuff. I have a lot of books, free videos. If you've done the Rise program, which is a 30-day challenge for men, we're going to be coming out with free programs like that twice a year to make it easy for you to share your faith. We're coming out with one, an advent. It's a daily walk through just joy. How to be a more joyful person. So it becomes as natural as saying, hey, I want to be happier. You want to do this thing with me? It just really makes it really easy to share your faith. I have a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in June 2020. Come with me. Info's on reallifecatholic.com. So anyway, 330-732-5228 we'll stay in touch. And we'll take one more question. Yeah. Okay, we've got you. And then you. Two more questions. Rapid fire, go. Just yell it, buddy. It's all good. Rodney Stark is a sociologist Protestant who's debunked a lot of the black legend about the Catholic Church. Rodney Stark. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. That's right. Yeah. Judgment saying you're going to heaven or hell condemning people, right? That we don't have power to do that. So disagreeing on the same is judging. Make a distinction about it. And Rodney Stark you recommended as a guy to look up for debunking legends about the Catholic Church. And last question right there, the striped shirt. Something really stood out to me because I've experienced it lately. When you said about a lot of the churches, they'll tell you the truth but not the whole truth because it causes too much controversy. Yeah. So in our parish we had on our website and also on our bulletin page, the Bible is welcome. No matter what gender you identify with, I mean this was spelled out. Yeah. So really upset my husband and myself so I reached for the Bible. And I started pulling down a lot of references and we made an appointment with the priest. Yeah. And we pointed out to him when you start singling people out to say it's okay for them, you got to include everybody. Yeah. You know you have to include mental illness, whatever gender you identify with. Yeah. When he was inviting them all to the sacraments and that's what had us. I would say what we say is not as important necessarily is what people are hearing. Okay. And in today's cultural context when you say the words everyone's welcome, everybody cool, everybody's welcome, if you single out and say if you're gay you're welcome here, what most people are going to hear who are living the same sex lifestyle is oh the church is endorsing sexual activity between two men. That's what they're going to hear. And it's intellectually dishonest to think that they're not hearing that. You know so when people speak half truths they're not being ambiguous, they're being very clear with a very worldly message. So I think there's something devious about that when people, the same thing happens and I've seen this in Catholic churches that are celebrating Pride Month and they have the rainbow flag outside their churches. Guys we all know what that means. Look the catechism in the Catholic church teaches that people who are same sex attractive should be treated with dignity and respect and have their rights protected. We agree with that. If that's all that Pride Month meant and that's all the flag stood for and that's all that if you're gay welcome meant marching in Pride parades. It would be a catechism 2258 parade really. I think that's the number in the catechism, right? But we all know that's not all that that means. So when people just stick to that one line and say here's the flag because everyone's welcome. No, no, no father. I'm not sure if you were aware that that flag means more to people than that. Duh. So let's stop pretending. Anyway, I really I have no tolerance for that. But I do because I don't rip it down and I let people disagree. All right. Thank you so much, guys. I'll be hanging out here. I might rush it off anywhere. Thank you.