 All right. Hey friends. This is Dan and Stephanie work Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy Radio today, we're gonna be talking about the breakdown of moral theology and how it affects the spiritual life and Really how dangerous it is to our eternal salvation the ability to stay on the narrow way We're talking to Timothy Flanders in a minute about that. It's an important show. I Have it's kind of a tough subject cover in such a short format But I think at least we can do it some justice to help you in it We have a few resources. We're gonna recommend to help you understand, you know the follow-up with this with the show Before we jump into the show. What have we got Steph in terms of? Just maybe give them one opportunity that really needs attention. Okay? Well the one that's that's kind of Burning because it's coming so quickly is our divine intimacy and marriage retreat. We only have a few seats left Gentlemen, you're gonna want to Take a look at this. It is a man's retreat. It is a couple's retreat We don't ask men to act like women. You will not be asked to hold hands We want women to act like women and men to act like men, right? You won't be asked to sing kumbaya You won't be asked to give a table and share your most intimate difficult issues of your marriage with other couples You don't have to do any of that so if you want to come and Have a profound Shot in the arm for your marriage Yeah, come to this retreat the fruit that we are seeing from this is Extraordinary and I just want to say that we didn't go to any other marriage retreats in order to Create this or design it what we did is we prayed deep and We listened closely to what the Lord was asking of us and we went with those inspirations So you will find if you like listening to us if you like the approach if you like Dan's authenticity His manliness and his beard You may want to come bring your wife to this retreat and actually get some Spiritual good for your marriage. It'll be transformative one of the manliest guys I know is funny. He's he's had a local fraternus and he did not he's a friend of ours did not want to go To the retreat at all just because of his experience in the past and how feminine, you know, some of these things are and So he came and he was so excited He brought he brought 60 people to where he engineered a retreat for 60 people at the retreat Center To go through some of what we did in the marriage treat the marriage retreat is based on Catholic mystical tradition So we can understand how it is that we come to union with God We can also understand how it is that we come into union with the human person that God has joined us with eternally and so It's transformative because it's not based in cycle modern pop psychology Though we you know, we leverage that wherever it's it's fitting, but it's transformative because based on Catholic mystical tradition Yeah, so come your wife will just I mean huge inventory points by by just doing this and the guys are the hard ones to get that's what we're talking and honestly like We take care of the Valentine's Day issue for you. There will be a rose for you to give to her already So all you have to do is sign on to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events You can see all the day details It's coming up just short of Valentine's Day February 10th through the 12th at the shrine of the most blessed Sacrament in Hansville, Alabama So go on sign up you and your bride and print that off put a ribbon around it And you are one and done for Valentine's Day. There you go. All right Let's go and jump into the show and your market said go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke welcome to Divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven draw near to God and his wisdom and His truth so that we can understand how to navigate navigate the very Difficult challenges of this life and today we have a guest that I'm excited to bring on. I think He's one of the best young minds in the Catholic Church today Dealing with a lot of the challenges that we have Between traditionalists and people in the ordinary form and kind of all the various flavors that come with that He's a guy that I think is in no way waters down the truths of the church Which but at the same time is balanced. They usually don't like that word, but if I couple the two together He's bold in his proclamation and commitment to the truth of the church But balanced and is really trying to bring the clans together if you will to help us to fight the real enemies of the church which Sometimes we can get too too much mired and wrestling with each other when and then that means the church doesn't go forward because we're not Occupied with the more important challenges that come from the outside in or from the inside that are deviant and Unfaithful and and trying to wreck the church from the inside whichever way anyway, why don't you introduce some stuff? Okay, so we've invited Timothy Flanders to discuss meaning of Catholic The handbook of moral theology. This is a prumer. Is it prumer? Yeah, but Timothy Flanders is the editor of one Peter five He is the author of city of God versus city of man the battles of the church from antiquity to the present and Introduction to the holy Bible for traditional Catholics. I love that title His writings have appeared at one P one Peter five and crisis as well as Catholic family news in 2019 he founded the meaning of Catholic a lay apostolate dedicated to uniting Catholics Against the enemies of holy church. He holds a decree a degree in Classical languages from Grand Valley State University and has done graduate work with the Catholic University of Ukraine He lives in Michigan with his with his wife and six children Awesome. Wow Thanks so much for having me at what an honor to be with both of you. Thank you very much well, Tim Timothy that one of the reasons for this show as I watched a show you did with Father Ripperger on the decline of moral theology And I just want to set this up and just talk about why it's happened and help people understand at a real practical level the problem so what I've seen in this Both of us give a lot of spiritual direction to folks and of course deal with the topic of spiritual progress and one of the one of the modern trends that Really is I think incredibly destructive is when you talk to people about sin So in order to make spiritual progress the normative spiritual progress is you get rid of a bitch whole mortal sin then you get rid of a bitch will be Nielsen then you start working more on virtue and You know in perfection, too So there's this normal process that we've seen across the ages have been normative for spiritual writers So a fundamental aspect of how we make progress must be deep deep rooting in the sacraments daily mental prayer and these certain Spiritual disciplines you if you will but often people can do all those things but not make a lot of progress Because they don't understand They have an impoverished view of sin and I'll give you one the most common reality that I experience When I'm talking about mortal sin people always I I've never okay, and I'm using these terms on purpose. I have never heard anyone say Anything but well that the what distinguishes a mortal sin and how bad it is or the severity of the problem is in a whole It's purely Whether or not I know it's a sin I have full cooperation and then I you know do the sin and I always think you're acting as if your culpability is Is the only measure of the gravity of sin right does that make sense Timothy? Yeah, it's I mean it's a very subjective Way of thinking and obviously culpability is a factor. Yeah, it's in There's certainly a gradation of mortal sin certainly But there is the devil is a great a deceiver in rationalizing our sin rationalizing our minimizing our sin and Taking away that that culpability and taking away the gravity of the sin The offense against Almighty God And when we first talked about this privately Dan The first thing that came to my mind was the injunctions in the Old Testament for offering sacrifice For sins that were committed in ignorance, right? And so these sins aren't really probably the least culpable sins out there And yet Almighty God demands sacrifice to offer reparation for even these sins, right? And so there's there should be a repentant heart for Offending Almighty God for detracting from the glory that is due to him Even in the sins of which we are ignorant So the I think of teacher von Hildebrands method of concerning with the Response to value the response to the infinite value of God And if our minds are focused on God like you speak of mental prayer if we're focusing on God We should weep at the fact that our sins detract from that glory due to him Yeah, that should be our first thought before we talk about our culpability I wonder if this is right and and I and I don't know if it's theologically right in my sense of sin, so there's a difference between culpability and Therefore punishment, let's say But let's say I'm driving down the street in my Jeep I don't have it anymore, but it didn't stop very fast because it had giant tires and I had a Because I was driving a vehicle that it was designed to be a little less Not sufficiently safe for the road And it didn't stop well enough. I'm driving through a neighborhood A little kid runs out and I run over the kid. I didn't see him come and I couldn't have stopped in this situation Well, my culpability is is is low right because it worked according to highway safety standards and all of that But the effect of the sin Is devastating, right? It's it's it's killed the child. It's devastated a family and it's an extreme example But what I'm trying to get at is That our sins are not just The damage done is far beyond just what I'm responsible for or what I will be held accountable for And I want to add another one and then get your response The other one is I just have this sense And and maybe I'm taking it too far like like when I When I struggle In a particular way like I have lung disease And when I'm struggling with that one of the ways I deal with that is I conceive of Jesus on the cross And he's suffering And part of the debt, you know, the reason they died on on the cross Crosses was asphyxiation And so I would join in his suffering and I would meet him in in my little sliver of suffering In some way understanding his to to to the tiniest degree And then I would console him in that I just have this sense of this never-ending relationship with Jesus in his suffering But I don't want Even the smallest sins he had to pay for And I don't want him to suffer any in any way ever Because of sins I commit whether or not I've done them on purpose or not Am I I don't know if I'm you know, Stephanie might have a better way of looking at this, but I'm just trying to get at To help people understand it's not just about you and your culpability Yeah, I mean I've another example that I think of is in marriage Because you know one can offend one's spouse, you know, just totally unintentionally or unwittingly or whatever And you know that can have a dramatic impact on your relationship or your heart and you want to Heal that breach, whatever it may be Whether it was something done unintentional or or you know had to do with past wounds or this or that thing you know various so many different things can affect that intimacy and One always is striving to Heal that intimacy grow that intimacy um another example, I think of it in the Old Testament is is the When uh, Joshua fights the battle of Jericho But then the very next battle is the is ai and they lose because One of the Israelites had Taking of the anathema. Yeah, and so he had affected everybody else even though nobody else was culpable for that But I think called it sin in the camp, right? Yeah, so it was um, but this is the result of our Our own sins, which can even be totally, you know, we could have no culpability for a particular sin But it can still affect other people and we should still work to uh heal that and The effects of our sins We think first of all mighty god the detraction of his glory and then we think of other people near us People who have been hurt by our sins or our imperfections things that are not sins per se But there's still things that we could do better at um All of these things Have an effect on other people have an effect on our brother And if if we're if we're really focusing on mental prayer And we're just sort of forgetting ourselves in the spiritual life. We're just forgetting ourselves in humility We're conforming ourselves to the truth so that we're our As saint augustin says the fear of god is always before our eyes And if we're before our brother We're thinking about that he is in the image of god and we're we're treating him with charity and respect um It we should mourn over the fact that our sins Detract from the great order that god has created So we should we should have this penitent spirit when encountering that Yeah, what what strikes me about this this whole this whole discussion is is the necessity Through mental prayer through our encounter with the lord to move beyond the intellectual knowledge of sin and How it affects others and and how to ultimately affects god To a movement of the heart where we grow in love With the lord because if we're in love with him just as we might Hopefully are in love with our spouse The idea of hurting him causes us pain The idea of detracting from his glory Is is painful to us and we don't want to go there That's a perfection of love that I think we're all called to That is way beyond just the knowledge of sin and its effects. We're gonna have to take a break So when we get back, we'll pick up on this theme and uh our discussion with timothy flanders. No, we'll be right back Um, anything else you want? Is there something else there that you wanted to tell folks about? Sure. Um, yeah We have a wonderful wonderful course with a fantastic professor With father ignatius switzer He is op he is teaching on the bible and the revelation of prayer From genesis to revelation Uh in the catechism of the catholic church. Uh, he's just incredible. He's a super favorite one of our favorite Professors. Yeah, he's a super favorite of the school So you'll want to check that out and check it out at avala dash institute dot org It is a graduate level course With father ignatius switzer. Don't miss it one of the things about father ignatius Just as a side note is he's eastern province dominicans to his rock solid that whole group was great But um, he was a carthusian which is fascinating. So he has a pretty deep spiritual life I actually tried to steal him from the dominicans Uh, not away from them as an order, but I said hey, I would like father switzer to come on Full time and his his superior said to me it would he's he means too much to the His spiritual life means too much to the community. Well, and one of the crowning things about father ignatius is that he is joyous Yeah, he is he he just eliminates a room with the joy of the lord. So beautiful beautiful. So all right, let's get let's jump back in Welcome back to divine intimacy radio. Uh, this is danis stephanie virk with our guests timothy flanders of the meaning of catholic He's also the editor of one peter five and uh timothy I'm you know, my analogies were pretty bad at the first half. So I apologize, but What I'm it's hard to get at this but stephanie has said something for the break that I think I can really go out well because I've taught this before at the avalanche There is a movement in catholic spirituality that is a blending of non-christian eastern thought With catholic spirituality. I'll tell you the mean the name of it in a minute as several manifestations, but basically The there is no concern for the moral dimension of relationship No concern. So all spiritual progress is the realization of your one with oneness with god All spiritual progress is the utilization of of these Montres to empty your mind and all of that but back to your analogy before the break tim if if I if I was If I said well, I love my wife and I'm pursuing my wife But then in in my wife's view I I go And I'm chasing the neighbor's wife around And then I come back home and expect intimacy with her I'm an absolute fool, right? So similarly If we say we want intimacy with god We must understand as what timothy said before the break what detracts from his glory or what harms him or the focus that Stephanie pointed out which is a little bit where I was at which is You you you are so grateful for all the good that he's done for you That you don't want in any way to to detract from his glory that phrase I think is very powerful in any way To contribute to the harm that sin sin has cosmic consequences It it it ripples out if you will And wrecks people around us it invites the demonic I mean a father rippager Once said which I I think is perfectly accurate. He said that one mortal sin Is sufficient for someone to be completely possessed because it's a full rejection of god And a complete and a and a completing brace of the of the of the devil's plan and essentially an invitation to the enemy So as we're trying to grow spiritually We must understand and have sound moral theology and timothy That's a problem in our time because of how cloudy and murky These waters are Maybe why is it that way? And then maybe let's turn a corner and look at a few resources for our for our listeners Certainly, uh, well, there's yes a number of uh factors lots of different factors involved But the the factor that I think of is Uh, what joseph ratsinger as popo merits has benedict. He rest in peace He wrote a piece shortly after the Most recent sex abuse Revelations he wrote a piece about the breakdown of moral theology And he said that it was after vatican 2 That people wanted to create a moral theology system Solely from the bible and reject the natural law tradition And this was a this is a misunderstanding of vatican 2, but it happened and um, so they what they they took this this moral theology tradition which had been built up with From natural law utilizing certain good features from play to an Aristotle Which had been systematized in various ways and it was it was in the manuals And they said we're just gonna throw that out and just create something out of the bible only But if we if we only take the bible and we reject the tradition As we know that's that's a Protestant mentality and you can't get every single moral question answered By strictly using scriptural quotations Yeah, um, so this is one of the factors sort of within the theology But obviously there's cultural social factors. There's pressures upon the church that have caused this But there is this growing false moral theology, which was it was before vatican 2 also pys of 12 makes mention of this um, there there is this sort of consequentialism this This utilitarianism Um, the ends justify the means which really comes from Marxism So that that kind of moral theology began to Seep into the church already um, so this sort of poisonous attitude, which is Putting everything on your subjective culpability so that you can sort of dismiss the reality of sin Um, so those are some of the factors Yeah, there's all sorts of different factors we can look at so I want to recommend two books For our listeners if you want to if you if you have a sense you may have Been cheated out of a good or a more solid understanding of moral theology that's hindering your relationship with god One is the the the seven deadly sins We use this as a text even though it's not a Normally would be thought of as a textbook a tomistic guide vanquishing vice and sin For our course on breaking the chains that bind us which is a help Which is an introduction to moral theology that we give to our students who want to become spiritual directors So that we can help, you know, disabuse them of some of this problem But the second text you introduced me to in that podcast with With uh, father ripper tell us a little bit about the handbook of moral theology Yeah, so so this is the this is the Handbook of moral theology centenary edition, which has just been reprinted by benedictus books, which is a division of sophia Introduction by father ched ripper. Um, this is Really one of the best moralists that existed before vatican two Who wrote a this handbook of moral theology, which is actually a summary of he has a three volume set Which is a summary. My son is joining us for a month. Perfect. This is a family show. Hey bud He wants to meet you got you gotta give me like 10 minutes, okay I'll get that for you. Okay. Just a minute True the true boy. He wants meat And it's really good to bother the door is not locked. I like it. Uh, yeah, so, uh, dominic prumer is somebody who Now the door is locked So dominic prumer this the the moral theology manual is very helpful because It is a manual. So it basically just Gives gives you the abc defg of every moral question or lots of them and these basic principles And he was one of the best one of the most relied upon Sources before vatican two. He was used as a textbook Of moral theology. So in seminary you'd have prumer then you'd have the common phrase is look it up in prumer And that was what people would say at that in those days because he was sort of the standard of moral theology. So um, this this text is very very helpful for getting some very very some real great basics of moral theology and what's wonderful is he also has various tips because it's it's written really for confessors So people who are receiving the confession and then giving them advice So for example the section on scrupulosity it has Here's what scrupulosity is and here's some remedies. Here's what you need to do to overcome that So it actually has spiritual advice Checker through it. Um, so it's really a fantastic fantastic volume I'm really glad that benedictus put it out It's really a great service to The faithful wonderful. Well before we wrap up the show Tell us a little bit about meaning of catholic and what you're trying to What you're trying to do there? Thanks. Uh, yeah meaning of catholic is a lay apostolate meaning it's all lay people um, it's a collaborative effort of various catholics from various different viewpoints and schools of thought and the idea is that we are trying to promote uniting with one another reuniting under the catholic faith Against the various errors that should be opposed in our day and Areas where we can dispute and debate about Things that are debatable in the catholic faith So the idea is that we're promoting truth and charity as lay people We're supporting each other as lay people so that we can cataclyse our children We can raise our children in the faith. Uh, we can create the domestic church Speaking of the domestic church Yeah, hamburger he wants some hamburger meat. I think it's your hand roll and what is his name? I want to know his name. Oh, it's henry augustin. Henry augustin. All right, very cool. Very manly. Yeah Thank you. So, yeah, that's meaning of catholic is is uh, uh helping lay people build out the domestic church We also have a the fellowship of st. Anthony is is our lay sodality of penance where we offer penance for clergy So we're we're just uh adding extra penance in reparation for others Asking god for to give us bring us good clergy and for helping all the good clergy Yeah, I think one of the things I really like about your work that I hadn't mentioned before is there are a lot of people running around shouting at the darkness And what we're focused on in our community possibly via the avalanche foundation You know this show is how do we be a part of the Solution and of course that begins with our personal holiness and our union with god Which then allows us to help to lead others to the same but I think You're pulling off something incredibly difficult, uh, which is you know, um dealing with Tradition, uh, which is vitally important for it's the lifeblood of the church It's it's what ensures the church is still the church as we look at it is that it's rooted in in tradition But also, you know wrestling honestly with the difficulties of our time In the church outside of the church in a way that I find very charitable but not not Skirting not pretending like everything is okay, you know, which I think is a head in the sand approach that I think I think There was a kind of false optimism that we've worked herself out of unfortunately That everything was okay, but everything's not but the the issue is it's then how do we How do we participate in the solution? How do we talk about this so we understand it and then how how do we go out and live and teach And build up the church within our sphere of influence with you know the power whatever authority or power we have Even if it's just over our own family So steve, I don't know any last words before we take the show out Well, I'm just I just want to praise you timothy for the work that you're doing With with your meaning of catholic and and all the work that you're doing because uh together With our community yours, um, we can try to undo the The generations of Catholics that have been lost to poor catechesis So through love and through our sacrifices, hopefully we can participate in this beautiful building up of the kingdom So we appreciate very much your work And I would encourage people to pick up handful handbook of moral theology and to support the work of benedictus press Through sophia and you can find both of those out both of these books Handbook of moral theology seven deadly sins by kevin boast along with a ton of other good materials at spiritual direction Dot com and there's a shop button there. Of course, you can always trust dwtn as well Great. Well until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our lord jesus christ