Where is Modern Innocence?
Welcome everybody. Welcome to the Catholic experience. I'm your host, the Catholic Adventurer. Thank you very much for joining me. This is broadcast live everywhere.
CA:I wish you could hear what I'm hearing right now. I'll get into that in a second. But recorded live Sunday, July 27. In the year of our lord, lord, lord, lord, 2025. And I say, thank thank thank you.
CA:You you you. Catholic church church church. None of you are getting that joke because you don't hear what's coming through my headset. But you catch the you catch it, though. Right?
CA:You can you can kind of understand what I'm saying. Right? You understand where I'm coming from with that joke. Right? I'm getting just the slightest bit of echo up in here up in here.
CA:I don't know what's up with that. But Hello? Hello? Yeah. Okay.
CA:Just now faded out. That was so weird. Today, we're talking about modern day no. There it is again. Today, we're talking about modern day innocence.
CA:What does that mean? And is it really hopeless at the end of the day? Modern day innocence. Is it just hopeless? It's not so hopeless as you think.
CA:We're gonna get into that. I'm also gonna talk to you a little bit about a recent I don't know if it was recent, to be honest with you. Barack Obama showed up on a podcast talking about manhood, raising sons. Said a couple of things that were a little bit weird that might not surprise you. The fact that it was weird might not surprise you.
CA:But he did say one or two things that I I think were valid, and we're gonna talk about that at the top of the show. Also, I'm going to make a special announcement in my finest broadcaster's voice, which goes beautifully, lovely, rich, and creamy in my headset that's reverbing just the slightest bit. It's a little bit more reverb than old school AM radio, and just son of a bitch. And just a little bit less than a sports arena. I have to tell you, this is comical.
CA:I have this microphone which has a magnetic clip in my pocket. Don't ask me why. And I have a metal clip, a wristband on my watch. So every time my and the the magnet is very strong. So every time my wrist gets too close to my shirt pocket, it goes that's what you caught just a moment ago.
CA:That's why I said SOB where I probably shouldn't have. Sorry for any grannies out there who don't like that the Catholic adventurer says things like, son of a bleep. So let's get on with it. Let me at least preface the special announcement because if you are a regular fan, listener, viewer of my podcast, particularly if you catch me on socials, this is all about you. So I'm just going to drop it the basics right now, then we're gonna start the show, and then I'll get into the particulars and details.
CA:Here's the thing. Let me see if I can do my super cool drama cam right about now. I guess what happens is when I'm really loud, it's reverbing. I think I know why it's doing that. But I I promise this is the last time I'll mention it.
CA:So here's the thing. I do okay on social media. Just okay, and I really mean just okay. But I get some traction on social media. The problem is most people on social media, I don't wanna say most people, but a good number of people, don't want to listen to a full episode of a podcast, or they don't want to cross over to Substack.
CA:Forget about subscribing. They just don't wanna even cross over to Substack or to any site at all. Even if you tell them all of the secrets to the universe are there. They just won't do it. It's not a character flaw.
CA:It's just something with people on the Internet. I don't understand it. It's just how people on the Internet are. It's not a character flaw. I'm not insulting anybody.
CA:Okay. So how do we do that? How do I get somebody to here's the thing. Social media is far too limited for what I do. Far, far, far too limited for what I do.
CA:I can do a clip inside of a minute and thirty seconds. It'll be entertaining. But to really get the gold nugget out of that clip, you need to watch like four or five minutes. But if you publish something that's four or five minutes long, the algorithm will just barely distribute you distribute you. Of course, it it does vary from platform to platform.
CA:But anyway, The algorithm is a real pain in the neck. It's really a difficult competitor. There are people who, who enjoy my work on socials, but that's where they stay. You can ask them, beg them, plead, threaten, doesn't matter. They're not leaving that platform.
CA:Understandable. Well, how do I bridge that gap? How do I bridge the gap between the shallow end of the pool that is social media, and the deep end of the pool that is my substack and or the long form podcast on podcast networks? How do I bridge that gap? Here's what I've come up with.
CA:I'm going to start a newsletter that specifically bridges that gap. It's basically a micro substack. Micro substack. It's it's not as deep or as rich or as broad as this as my substack, But it's also broader and richer than what you're gonna get from me on socials. What that's going to be, how that's going to work, I'll get into later on in the show.
CA:You know, it's almost a funny thing, and I do mean almost a funny thing. I tried doing a proper newsletter. I don't know, maybe a year ago I started one. It was called Notes From The Field. I worked really hard on it, but it was damn hard getting people to sign up.
CA:And every time I'm I'm not even exaggerating. I worked for each one of those, I worked it had to be at least an hour or two that I was working on each one of those. Because there was a lot of writing in it. You have to write the blurbs, and I did a piece on the church fathers or something else that was doctrinal or scriptural or something. I mean and it looked nice, and it takes time to design something to look nice.
CA:I worked ease easily an hour on it. An hour from of designing, setting up, and and sending it, plus at least forty five minutes writing the major piece that I included in there. And then plus, you know, the blurbs from my thing. So it was basically, let's say, two hours of work. And after two hours of work, you don't know how heartbreaking it is that people unsubscribe after they receive it.
CA:It's really kind of funny, but damn heart wrenching. And after a while of that, I said, I'm I'm done. It's just costing me money to operate a newsletter, and it's just insulting when people unsubscribe after you've worked so hard to make something nice and beautiful and rich and whatever. So it's almost funny that I'm trying my hand at at, news lettering again. But, it's not just a newsletter.
CA:There's more to it, but I'll get into that later on in the show. Let's talk about Barack Obama. Barack Obama, well, again, I I don't remember when this was. This has made its way onto the socials over the past week. I've seen it on TikTok.
CA:I've seen it on Instagram. I think I even saw one or two things on x. And as far as I'm concerned, everyone was missing the mark. Everyone was commenting on the wrong thing, and they missed something that they should have been paying attention to. We're gonna get into that right now.
CA:I just wanna make sure I queue up the right, the right thing because if they're out of order, we're gonna miss the effect. Just give me a moment here. Please and thank you. Let's see
Obama:what's happening. I don't remember, maybe, when I was a really young child, other than the idea that guys were strong, they didn't whine. I do like the thing you brought up though about being a protector. At its best it then counterbalanced the idea of being strong. You're strong not to pick on people, not to be a bully, not to dominate others.
Obama:Instead, it's strength in order to protect.
CA:Okay. So that's an example of something good that he said. That queued a a little ahead of schedule, so, I didn't get to intro it. But that was something good that he said. I agree.
CA:It's important for men to be strong, but for the right reasons. There was a show in the seventies, early eighties called Good Times. Good Times was about a black family that lived in the ghetto of Chicago, Illinois in The United States Of America. And they lived in a housing project, and, they were very poor. It it was a comedy.
CA:It was a sitcom. Very popular in America in the seventies. I guess probably in in Europe as well. It was one of my favorite shows ever. I loved it loved it loved it when when I watched it as a kid.
CA:One of the main characters in there was the head of the family, James Evans senior, played by John Amos. Very funny guy, great actor, great character. He was just tremendous in that in that role. Now James Evans Junior was a senior was a tough, tough cookie. Sometimes he raised his voice, you know, sometimes he threatened his children with a with a whooping with a belt.
CA:James Evans Junior was senior was not James Evans was not to be messed with, but and you wouldn't know it if you're not familiar with the show just from hearing that characterization of him. But the character was very funny. He was also very strong. He was a good provider. There was a scene in one episode where his son, JJ, James Evans Junior, son JJ was being, I don't know, harassed or accosted by a local gang in the building.
CA:And of course, it's a sitcom, so they make it funny, this scene where JJ is getting messed with by the gang, but they also make it menacing. And you're worried about JJ's well-being right now. You're worried about his welfare in this scene. And then in walks his father, James Evans senior. And it was recorded live before a studio audience, so when people cheered, it was real.
CA:And everyone cheered and clapped, and it was just a roar of of hurrahs and hurrahs. Why? Because they knew James Evans was the one. He was the mang of the house. They knew that James Evans was strong, And they knew that James Evans was now coming to save the day.
CA:The character had just walked into the scene. I think he was on the way back from the store or something. He had, like, a bag of groceries. You know? So he so the character walked into this situation by accident, but now he was going to lay down the law.
CA:That was the thing about James Evans. Yes. He was loud. He was tough. You know, so what?
CA:But by today's standards, we tell people they shouldn't father that way. That's toxic masculinity. Right? But listen. And I thought the character Mike Brady was a good father.
CA:But who do you think who would you have felt more confident that things were going to be okay when JJ was being harassed by those gang members? If Mike Brady had walked into the scene, would you have felt safe? But James Evans walked into the scene, so everyone felt rescued. I thought the character Mike Brady was a good father. I I wish I could be more like the character Mark Mike Brady.
CA:From from Good Times, for those of you who are too young to remember it. Not Good Times, from The Brady Bunch. So I actually agree with what Barack Obama is saying here. You have to be strong, but for the right reasons. You can't use your strength for the wrong reasons.
CA:There's a difference. It's just like any characteristic of the human person. Anger. Anger's a good thing. We were built with it.
CA:We're made with it. But we have to use our anger for good reasons. Right? Anger has to stir us to justice, not to destruction, not self destruction of the destruction of property or the destruction of others. Right?
CA:So that's an example of something Barack Obama said that I agreed with. Barack Obama is not a moron. I disagree with his politics, but he's a very smart guy. I the one thing that I did like about him the one thing that I did like about Barack Obama was he was pretty much he was fairly normal. You know, he could crack a joke.
CA:He could say things like what he was saying there. He was kind of an approachable character. He had an approachable personality. Not an idiot. He really was not an idiot.
CA:I disagreed with his policies, but so what? Not an idiot. Not a terrible person. That was one example of a good thing that he was talking about. Now, if I set this up correctly, what I'm going to play for you now is something that he said that was a little bit weird.
CA:In fact, it was probably, I guess you would say it was very weird. But it wasn't the worst thing that he said, yet it was what everyone was focused on when this dropped. Let's go to it.
Obama:One of the most valuable things I learned as a guy was I had a gay professor in college at a time when openly gay folks still weren't out of line, who became one of my favorite professors and was a great guy and would call me out when I started saying stuff that was ignorant. You need that. Show empathy and kindness. And by the way Yeah. You need that person Yeah.
Obama:In your friend group so that if you then have Mhmm. A boy who is who's who's who's gay or or non binary or what have you, they have somebody that they can go, okay. I'm not alone in this. Yeah. Right?
CA:I still don't know why gay and nonbinary are treated in the same paragraph since they're two completely different things. So if you have somebody who's a giraffe, an elephant, or a space alien, those are three completely different things. What the hell are you talking about? Okay. Whatever.
CA:It it's whatever you want it to be, progressives. Whatever you want it to be, okay. That's what it is. The same thing. Okay.
CA:Because I thought one was a condition and the other was an orientation. But, okay, we can treat them both as just they're the same club. Okay. You know what? This isn't going out on TikTok, so I can say this with some security.
CA:Cause on TikTok, they'll kill you for that. In fact, they just again suspended my life privileges. Screw them. But anyway, let's get back to the point. This is what that was what people focused on.
CA:But they didn't focus on what they should have focused on, which I'm going to play for you in a second. Of course, all things gay tends to scandalize and enrage the masses. And it really should not. Especially if you're Catholic, you better think a little bit better than that. That's really, really sloppy thinking.
CA:You have to do better than that, especially as a Catholic. Okay? That was what triggered people because the word gay was in there, and so they blew up everything that he was saying. Let me explain what Barack Obama was saying there as I read it. And it is a little weird, but it's not as outrageous as people were treating it.
CA:From what Barack Obama was saying there, gay people are the ones with empathy. I guess they corner the market on empathy. So if you want your child to be empathetic, he needs to have more, gay professors in his life. Okay, that's already stupid, but we'll let it go. The idea that boys need a diversity of personalities to form their own character development isn't altogether crazy, except for the fact that we have already reduced the importance of parenting in progressive politics.
CA:We've reduced the importance of parenting by reducing the importance and authority of parents. So if we're supposed to supplement a child's parenting by the example of other co parents. Well, if parenting has no authority, then neither does co parenting. Neither do co parents. The other thing, as I said a moment ago, the idea that a child can only learn empathy, whether it's Barack Obama or Bobby Brady, a child can only learn empathy and respect because he has gay people in his life.
CA:I'm sorry. I thought gay people were just like every other person on the planet except for their for their orientation, their sexual attractions. I thought gay people were just people. Isn't isn't that still true? So why are we handing them the empathy flag?
CA:Do you know why? And if there are any liberals watching this, I have to tell you, I I don't hate you. I really don't hate you. But modern progressivism, and you may be you may be a liberal who's not progressive, you may be an old school liberal. Right?
CA:Modern progressivism is literally thoughtless, mindless, and stupid. Because modern progressives talk against themselves all the time. Just hand them a microphone, pull the string, watch them go. That's why. Now, I'm going to show you and play for you what I think people should have been paying attention to.
CA:So this is Barack Obama talking about remember a moment ago, I was talking about parents and co parenting? This is Barack Obama talking about the importance of co parenting and why every child he doesn't use that word. I'm using that word. But why every child, especially young boys, need that in their lives.
Obama:That's one of the things that I think a lot of times boys need, is not just exposure to one guy.
CA:One dad.
Obama:One dad. No matter how good the
CA:dad is. Dad is. He can't
Obama:be Like, he can't be everything. And then that boy may need somebody to give the boys some perspective on the dad. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Obama:Yeah.
CA:Now that bothered me a lot. That boys need other dads to give perspective on their own fathers. Oh, no. I don't think so. Now, let me be fair minded about this, and I'm gonna tell you why this is actually the most disturbing thing he said, but everybody missed it.
CA:Actually, me go there first. This is the most disturbing thing that he said. Because it tends to place other men on the same level as a boy's own father. Right? It's the parenting co parenting thing.
CA:But again, if parents have no real authority and no real capacity and no real competence, then neither do the co parents. So what's the point of this? The point of this is to shift a a shift boys, plural, attention away from their own fathers, and a father stands in as God himself in the household. While we shift attention away from that, and maybe have a look at the other fathers in town. Because you might find one that suits you better.
CA:Not that you're going to move in with a different family. But you might find one where you might say, that's closer to the way I want things to be. Which, folks, that's going to be a child's natural disposition. If you're at all strict with your children, and these days strict with your children means you cannot have M and M's for breakfast. Oh, you're so strict.
CA:What a dirtbag of a parent you are. If you're particularly strict with your children, all your children want is someone who's less strict than you are. That's all that they want. So if they go across the street or down the road to hang out with their friends whose parents are hippies, who do you think the more favorable the favorable parent is going to be? James Evans?
CA:Or Cheech and Chong? The gay dads from up the road, who are really loose and liberal and easygoing. That's why this is the most disturbing. Because it does tend to remove children from outside of the protectorate, not just of their parents as a unit, but as their but outside of the protectorate of their father who is the protector, which Barack Obama just, in another clip admitted. It moves the child, at least hypothetically, in theory, right, by suggestion, out of the protectorate of their parents, specifically outside of the protectorate of their fathers, and sets them loose and free to choose better parents and better parenting styles.
CA:But a child doesn't know what a better parent looks like. A child doesn't know one parenting style from another. All they know is which parenting style will enable my desires. I want and I want and I want and I want. And I choose to feel and I choose to do and I choose to go and I choose to and so on and so on.
CA:That's really what a child wants. Even into their teenage years, probably, I would say even into their late teen years, That's what a child wants. Do you think JJ Evans, the son of James Evans, do you think JJ Evans could have identified better role models from his perspective as being a young teenager? Probably. But didn't James Evans have the superior father who was tough and strong?
CA:And yes, okay, he was a little hard and rigid. But he was the father that could protect his family that lived there in the ghettos of Chicago. He worked hard. He earned. His family never went hungry.
CA:They struggled, but they paid the bills. But maybe young JJ would have preferred a Mike Brady or a Cheech and Chong. Hippie parents who just let him be what he wants to let him be and let him do what he wants to be and do. That was the most disturbing thing that came out of Barack Obama's mouth. Not that he had a gay Folks, it's it's that's not shocking at all that maybe people were positively influenced by could be a gay professor, be a gay teacher, could be, I don't know, someone who's not gay, but more more left leaning, more liberal, let's just say.
CA:It's possible that, someone who's conservative can be positively influenced influenced by someone who's liberal because as I have said in past podcasts, nobody has all of the truth, but everybody has some of it. Progressives not Progressive, sorry. Conservatives have some of the truth, but we don't have all of it. Liberals have some of the truth, but they don't have all of it. So the best thing to do, and by truth I'm talking capital t truth, not opinions, not favorable things versus unfavorable things.
CA:I'm talking about the truth, reality. So the best possible way to be is to reconstitute the whole of the truth by taking things that are true from conservatism, and taking things that are true from liberalism, and making it one worldview, of course with Christianity as its backbone, but that's, like, that's obvious, right? It's a Catholic podcast. Obviously, that's what I'm talking about. Right?
CA:That's the best disposition to have. Because God is neither left nor right. He is the whole truth. So what we, who are finite human beings, should be doing is reconstituting the fragmented truth in a fallen world by finding it wherever it is and incorporating it. So it's normal that some conservatives or anybody might be positively influenced by someone who's more liberal.
CA:It's normal that someone who's more liberal happens all the time can be positively influenced in their ideas and their thinking and their conclusions. Positively influenced by someone who's conservative. That's normal. But what Barack Obama did there was he almost made the gay professor the authority on empathy. That's what I found disturbing about it.
CA:What everyone else found disturbing about it seemed to be that the professor was gay. Okay. I'm not gonna take it away from you. Whatever you want. But that's not the worst thing I saw in that.
CA:And the worst thing I saw in general was this idea that children need a diversity of parents. And I want to acknowledge, it is true that if if you are in a certain situation where, let's say, your father is an alcoholic, maybe your only image and model of a good father comes from Johnny McCafferty's father, you know, from three miles away, that he picked us up from Little League or whatever, drove us home, and he took us out for ice cream, and he was so nice and, you know, he didn't threaten the kid. Maybe that context helps you to see what a good father is so you understand that being an alcoholic and a physical abuser is not what a good father is. Yeah. In extreme cases like that, of course.
CA:Of course. But those are the exception, and Barack Obama is talking about the rule. It happens that you can find context where this father is better than that one in an extreme situation because the kid's father is an abuser, the kid's father is an alcoholic, whatever. But Barack Obama's not talking about that. He's talking about the norm.
CA:Okay. Enough of that nonsense. I'm going to talk to you in a second about today's mass readings, and we're going to talk about innocence. We hear this a lot in the Bible, and I think we often cast it off because we don't identify as the innocent. We don't identify an ambition to be innocent because deep down we know we are so wretched.
CA:We don't want to place too much importance on innocence. Because if we come to acknowledge that innocence is really, really, really important, we would have to admit that my god, I'm so far from the mark. By we, I mean, the Christian culture. But we're gonna talk about what innocent how how we should think about innocence. I'm gonna throw in some scripture.
CA:I'm gonna throw in a little Aquinas. I'm gonna throw in a little bit of my own nonsense. First, let me talk to you about the announcement I made just a moment ago for those of you catching me late. Actually, let's go around the room. Say hello to folks.
CA:I don't see a whole lot of people chatting, but I can say hello to folks who are likely not even still in the chat room. Let's go to Instagram. Hello, Jay Rosinger. Thank you for joining me today on the broadcast. God love you, baby.
CA:And hello to old school Danny. Now old school Danny's been there a little while, but, old school Danny's one of those guys that I always have to call out. God bless you, Danny. Thank you for your friendship and for your longtime support of my work. You're a good fellow.
CA:Hello to Ellis the Critic. Speaking of, supporters of my work, Ellis the Critic here on Substack. Homebase is Substack. Thank you very much. Lord, have mercy.
CA:And hello to Nate Spratt. That almost sounds like a fake night name. I hope it's not an alias because that wouldn't be cool. And KMJ6 joining me here at home base of Substack, John Francis Herring. I have to do this, crowd roaring sound effect because I'm still getting the reverb in my, headset, so it kind of fits.
CA:It makes it a little bit less annoying to pretend to pretend that I'm in a ball field. Yeah. I don't love sports, but I do love, baseball. Baseball and boxing, that's about all I do. I'm also simulcasting to Twitter, but nobody ever catches me on Twitter.
CA:Twitter, you are a son of a bleep. Not the people, just the platform. Alyssa Grittig on Substack says the family is the building block of society. These are people whose religious beliefs dogmatically oppose the progressive I'm I'm kinda filling in, but the what he's saying, the progressives are, as he says, people whose religious beliefs dogmatically oppose the family. This is why this is why their radicals, like the race communists, are openly anti human.
CA:Oh, me. Thank you for that, Ellis the critic. Yeah. The bottom line the bottom line is you gotta stop doing that, man. The bottom line is, the family is the building block of of society, a culture, a nation.
CA:And the family is a very, very powerful force of nature. It's a tremendously powerful force of nature, which is why the cultural Marxists identified the family as the pillar to be destroyed first. The family, educational institutions, and religious institutions were the three pillars that had to go and or that had to be infected or converted. Because as long as those pillars stand, Marxism and communism has no chance of rising or surviving unless by force. We've seen that already.
CA:The family is a powerful force of nature. What breaks my heart and probably breaks the heart of God and the blessed mother is that though it's a powerful force of nature, most families are fat and lazy. They're not leveraging their power. They're not praying together. They're not going to church.
CA:They're not eating together. They're fat and lazy. The most powerful force of nature is the family. But modern day families are fat and lazy. You gotta get with it, and you gotta get serious.
CA:Watch a few episodes of The Brady Bunch. Watch a few episodes of, Good Times, and come on with it. Alright. Let's talk about innocence. Juggling so many things.
CA:Oh, I was going to tell tell you more about my announcement. Okay. Let me do that. The special announcement I mentioned at the top is something to elaborate on now, and I I intro it that way for the sake of those or for the benefit of those who are not here at the top of the show. I'm starting a new newsletter, and it's going to be outside of Substack.
CA:It's not going to be a Substack newsletter. It's gonna be a third party newsletter. It's going to be called the waypoint dispatch. A waypoint is a point along a journey. Are you familiar with that word?
CA:It's a point along a journey where sometimes it's a rendezvous point, sometimes it's a point that's predetermined that once we get there, we're going to stop and camp and eat whatever, or we're gonna take stock, whatever. So it's the waypoint dispatch. The point of the waypoint dispatch is to provide something to social media, the social media audience, that's a little more than what you could ever get on social media without being flooded or overwhelmed by an hour and a half podcast or by a very long article, whatever. Sometimes there's stuff that takes off on socials, on my socials, on TikTok, for instance. And it's like, you know what?
CA:I'm glad that sixty second clip took off, but damn, if they only if if they would only just sit for another minute and a half, they would have gotten something really, really fantastic. But I know they won't sit that long, and I know if I make it too long, the algorithm won't distribute it. So instead of giving them a beautiful steak dinner, I have to give them beef jerky. And they're gonna clap and cheer for it. But, oh boy, if they only know if they only knew what they missed.
CA:There are some people on socials who would sit for that extra time time period. They would sit for two, three, four, ten minutes. Once they they they become familiar with you, which some have become familiar with me, They trust you. They trust your your what what you're saying. But social media doesn't provide a space for that.
CA:Social media doesn't provide a space for putting links in in your descriptions or making very long descriptions, sort of like a very very short blog with more information and stuff. Social media doesn't provide the space for that. So the Waypoint Dispatch is going to be a place to point people to where they can get longer versions of the clip that they like, They can get longer descriptions, aka very short blogs. They can get abbreviated versions of stuff that I post on Substack. Maybe the first three paragraphs of an article instead of all 10 paragraphs.
CA:I don't know. I'm just making an example. Abbreviated versions of what I put on Substack, elongated, richer, fuller versions of what I'm putting on socials. And because it's a newsletter, it can be subscribed to, which bypasses the algorithm. Bypasses the algorithm.
CA:So, instead of the algorithm deciding what you get to watch or what you get to not watch, you decide. Because every time I put out another dispatch, another newsletter, it goes right to your inbox. What's going to be in these newsletters? What's going to be in this dispatch? Basically, two things.
CA:It's going to be a weekly roundup of of the stuff that I've published. Not everything that I've published, but the stuff I think people would be interested in. Okay? Might be an episode, an article, I don't know, one of my more popular social media clips that took off that week, stuff like that. A brief weekly roundup of things people would be interested in.
CA:Nothing too long and nothing too drawn out. It's also going to be deeper dives into stuff that people have been enjoying on my social media channels. Instead of a a forty five second clip, they'll be able to go to see on the waypoint dispatch, they'll be able to see maybe a three minute version of that same clip. And the three minutes is really where the business is at, but the social networks will not let you watch a three minute clip. You can post it, but they'll barely show it.
CA:You know? Or here's a let's I'm just throwing out a number. Here's a 20 paragraph thing that I wrote on Substack. But I know you're coming from social media, and you just wanna keep moving. Okay.
CA:Here's a link to three of those paragraphs. The first three. Or a three paragraph description of what I wrote on substack. Stuff like that. It bridges the gap between the shallow end of the pool that is social media and the deep end of the pool that is substack.
CA:If you are subscribed to my Substack by the way, the reason I'm doing this off of Substack is because Substack is very limited in what it lets you do with your posts, in terms of what you can include in there, what what you can, basically, can do with them, how you can design them, what you can embed in them. Very, very limited, and and it it it works. It works very well. But what I wanna do with the waypoint dispatch is not going to be possible on substack. So I'm doing it off of Substack.
CA:If you are subscribed to my Substack already, you may not benefit from the Waypoint Dispatch, especially if you're a paid subscriber. You may not benefit from it. Because everything that I'm putting in there, you're getting in full already. Every time I publish the Substack, you're already getting it emailed to you. It may not benefit you.
CA:The thing that might benefit you in the Waypoint Dispatch, if you're a a subscriber to my Substack, the thing that might benefit you is that Weekly Roundup, which I don't think I'm gonna do on Substack. I think I'm only gonna do the Weekly Roundups on the Waypoint Dispatch. That might benefit you, or you might not care about it. The people this is really meant for are people who are catching me on social media. Okay?
CA:So, there's a channel where people who enjoy my work on socials can get more of it, or a greater volume of it, and they can get it more reliably because every time I publish a dispatch or a newsletter, they get notified of it. It's really cool. I've been building it out for about a week or so here and there. I think I've ironed out all the bugs. If you would like to check out where it is now, I guess I'll drop a link in my bio for this on demand version.
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CA:They might actually subscribe, but I'm not giving TikTok half of that revenue. It's the Waypoint Dispatch. It's a new newsletter. It's a weekly roundup. It's, and you can go and check it out now.
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CA:Subscribe or don't. Because most of most of you who are like, if you're catching me on on Substack and you're subscribed to my Substack, probably 95% of what I'm doing with Waypoint Dispatch won't change anything for you. But you might like that Weekly Roundup. If you're on Substack and not a subscriber, shame on you. You're going to hell.
CA:That's all I have to say about that. If you are catching me on social media, please check it out, man. Waypoint Dispatch. It's a new newsletter. It's free.
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CA:Okay. Let's get on with the show. Let's get into the readings today. The readings for the seventh Sunday in ordinary time, we're gonna mainly focus on the first reading, which comes from Genesis chapter 18. We're talking about innocence in the modern world.
CA:What does that mean? Let's start here. And I'm gonna move fairly quick because I this show is going too long already. In those days, the lord said, the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grave that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me. I mean to find out.
CA:It's interesting to me that God obviously knows all things. He knows all this stuff. But this is the way the story is being told. You know, it's not it's not a stenograph of what God actually said, but this is the way I mean, God did say this, but not word for word. You get the idea.
CA:It's interesting. This is the way the story is being told. Let's go back to it. While Abraham's visitors walked on farther toward Sodom, the Lord remained standing before Abraham. Then Abraham drew nearer and said, will you sweep away will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?
CA:Suppose there were 50 innocent people in the city. Would you wipe out the place rather than spare it for the sake of the 50 innocent people? Far be it from you to do such a thing to make the innocent die with the guilty. To make the innocent die with the guilty. So the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike.
CA:Should not the judge of all the world act with justice? And the lord replied, if I find 50 innocent people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake, for the sake of those 50. As you know, I guess he couldn't find 50 or even 10 innocent people. Focus on that word. Innocent people couldn't find 10 because he wound up destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.
CA:Let's go to the gospel. Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And I'll skip and fast forward. Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, friend, lend me three loaves of bread. For a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey, I have nothing to offer him.
CA:And he says in reply from within, do not bother me. The door has already been locked, and my children and I are already in bed. That would be me. That would totally be me. I cannot give get up to give you anything.
CA:I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will definitely get up to give him the loaves because of his persistence. Now get this, folks. And I tell you, ask and you will receive seek, and you will find knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds and the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish, or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
CA:If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? If you then, who are wicked You know what the wicked are? They are not innocent. Are not innocent. Saint Thomas Aquinas, I guess you could say he defines innocence.
CA:I hate that word. That's like saying, you know, Webster's dictionary defines innocence as I hate I hate that. I hate I hate that technique. But Saint Thomas Aquinas defines innocence or explains innocence as the state of man before the fall. Adam and Eve before the fall.
CA:Not just sinless, having not done an act of sin, but also innocent because of their proximity to God, their closeness with God. We live in a world that is wicked, not just because it does evil things, but because it is so far from God. And the far farther you get from God, the more wicked your actions. So important to understand that bit first. For Aquinas, innocence was not just sinlessness, but it was absolute purity, sinlessness.
CA:And it was proximity, closeness to God. So who were the innocent ones? Adam and Eve. After Adam and Eve, the only innocent ones were Jesus Christ and the blessed virgin Mary. Now Jesus tells us to be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect.
CA:We're encouraged to grow in innocence. Right? Diminishing our vices, growing our virtues, and to grow in innocence. Well, how is that possible? Because we can never escape we can never escape the state of sin.
CA:We're fallen. Right? We're fallen. Even if we're baptized, we're fallen. We our baptism and the cross did not return us to a state that Adam and Eve were in before they fell.
CA:We're fallen. Baptism and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross save us from the effects of that fall. But we are fallen, and we just can never get out of that until it's made right through purgation on earth, purgation in in purgatory, and until we come into contact with God. So it's ultimately hopeless if that's what innocence is. And if God sees innocence as so valuable that he'll spare the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if he only finds 10 innocent people.
CA:Clearly, innocence is very important to God. And the gospel of the son of God called everybody wicked. Right? Pretty important. So, ultimately, there's just no hope for us.
CA:Right? I wouldn't go that far. God knows that we can never be Adam and Eve before the fall. He knows that he's not a dummy. What does it mean for us today to become innocent?
CA:How do we swing that? What does it take to become innocent? Anybody in the chat room wanna chime in? How do we become innocent today? Oh, JM Kasich.
CA:KM Jasich just chimed in. How do we return to innocence? Grace. Okay. We're on the right track.
CA:But it goes a little further than that, my friend. It does go a little bit further. Anybody on Instagram chiming in chiming in? Looks like nobody's chiming in on Instagram yet. Anybody on Substack?
CA:Grace. Okay. Let me just go ahead and answer because this will get annoying for me to just be pausing, pausing, pausing, waiting for other people to answer. How do we return to innocence? First, it does require grace.
CA:We cannot do it on our of our own strength or power. It literally requires grace the way a car requires gasoline. Okay? Actually, grace is better compared to not just the gasoline, but the transmission and the engine. And what we're doing is we're just the frame of the of the car.
CA:That's how important grace is. So we need grace in order to return to innocence. We also I mean, we hear it at mass sometimes. We can do acts of penance. Right?
CA:We can restore by penance what we have lost by sin. That's a real thing. Have you ever tried that? This is listen, this is my bombshell advice to you. Spend a week doing penances.
CA:Here's a prescription. Take a cold shower in the morning. Skip your breakfast if you're a breakfast eater, okay? Or skip some other fairly important meal to you. If you like milk in your coffee, skip the milk, or skip the coffee and have tea, And then do some kind of act of penance in in the evening.
CA:Do three acts of penance or three categories of acts of penance. Like the coffee thing, you don't have one coffee a day. Right? You might have two or three or maybe even four. So that's one category.
CA:You get what I'm saying? Do three acts of penance every day for a week. Pair it with prayerfulness. Come find me in a week and tell me how you feel. Think I'm kidding?
CA:Give it a try. So that's one way that we can restore ourselves to a state of innocence, acts of penance. Another way is through a prayer through a life of prayerfulness, Getting closer to God by spending more time with him. Getting closer to God by gazing upon him more frequently, spiritually in prayer, but also with your eyes as you as you go to when you go to Eucharistic adoration. Another way to restore innocence is to always be trying.
CA:Folks, if you're a regular at my podcast, you will know I'm always telling you, always try. Keep trying. Because perfect for us is not being Jesus Christ or the blessed Virgin Mary. That is impossible. But you always have to be trying, which means rising after you fall, and rising again after you fall again, and you keep rising every time you fall.
CA:That's what it is to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. We'll never be perfect like Jesus and Mary. We'll never be innocent like Adam. Well, I mean, we will be, but not here. Not here.
CA:But the path to perfection is a forging and purging fire that involves the pain that comes with rising after you have fallen. The pain that comes from getting back up and trying again after you have failed. Whatever the failure for you is. I'm talking about, like, in the moral life, in in in in a life that you're trying to rid yourself of sins and so on. It's part of the process is the forging fire that comes from the pain of standing up again after you have fallen.
CA:The pain that comes with again and again telling your sins goodbye forever. The the pain of having to kiss your sins goodbye again, goodbye forever, whatever your sin is, whatever your sins are, it brings us pain to have to say goodbye to them. Right? Especially if they're sins that we really enjoy. It brings us pain to say, I have to get back on this horse.
CA:Goodbye forever. Maybe in the back of your head, you know you're going to fall to that same sin in a month. Tomorrow, who knows? But then you try again. But you see what I'm saying?
CA:It brings pain to say goodbye forever to those sins that you love so much. That's part of the process, is the pain that's involved. The more we surrender ourselves to that cycle of the rising after the falling, and the rising again after the falling again, God is working something out of us. And each time we try harder, and each time we try again, we get a little bit closer to innocence. Not innocence the way Aquinas defined it.
CA:Although Aquinas acknowledged in the Summa that we can never he basically said what I just told you. We can never get back to Adam and Eve, so there's a different kind of innocence for us, but it's not true innocence. And that is true. But there is a different kind of innocence for us, and that's what it involves. It involves a determination to no longer be wicked, and a staunch determination really to want to be like Jesus.
CA:What other model can you look to apart from the Blessed Virgin Mary? But she's not divine. I'm talking about God. Right? To conclude, what happened to modern day innocence?
CA:We've stopped believing that it can ever be real. We have stopped believing that it can ever be real. The kids are going to do it anyway, so give them condoms. Tell them about abortion options, because they're going to do it anyway. What an insulting thing to say about any child or to say to a child, son, I know you're gonna do it anyway.
CA:So here's a condom. Here's how you use it. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. Hold children to a higher standard because they can live up to it.
CA:But they won't if daddy is telling them you're going to be a failure anyway. So here's how you can fail without suffering the consequences, which, by the way, is a lie. There will still be consequences. Grave ones. Not just spiritual ones either, but those two.
CA:We've stopped believing in innocence. We corrupt the youth. We corrupt others. Have you seen oh my god. I was gonna say, have you seen what's on TV and movies these days?
CA:But and then it just brought back a memory. I was with my family shopping at I don't know what you would call that. Is that a strip mall? I I I don't know. It was outlets and stuff, and we're shopping for stuff for school.
CA:Passing, I think it might have been the gap. There was this huge post huge. It was twice my height, at least. If that tells you how tall it was. And then it was proportionally wide.
CA:Of a man in his underwear, and his underwear were hiked down in the front quite low. You couldn't see all of that. Right? You couldn't see junk. Let's just put it that way.
CA:But they were hiked down real low. There are families shopping in this damn place with young children. Why would you why would you put that? And it's not even that it's not even like an 11 by 14. It was gigantic.
CA:And then there was another one at a different store in that same place. I I I don't even remember, but I'll I'll tell you this. Between the thing in the gap and then this other thing, I think it was I don't remember, but it was vulgar. It was very vulgar. And it and it was like a double whammy for me between those two images.
CA:This is broad daylight. This is a place where families come to shop. And there's, frankly, pornography in store windows. And that's just one stop. We haven't even talked about mean, we don't we're not a TV household.
CA:We haven't talked about, like, things that we see on t that people see on TV or in movies, PG 13 or even PG, stuff that passes for PG, and it's like, oh my god. They said that? Oh my god. They did that in that movie? It's raped PG or even PG 13.
CA:Unbelievable to me. We've stopped believing in innocence. Because we've stopped believing in innocence, we've stopped holding ourselves to the standard of innocence, the standard of God. Because we've become okay with this idea that we'll never be the blessed virgin Mary. We'll never be Adam and Eve before the fall.
CA:Okay. So we won't. So what? God still holds us to a very high standard. And he holds us to a standard that we can live up to.
CA:If only we will try and believe. We stop believing in innocence, you and me as well, probably to lesser degrees though. Right? I would think. I hope.
CA:We stop believing in in innocence so we don't aim for it anymore. But my friends, you have to start aiming for it again and aim for it anew. Bring prayerfulness back into your lives. Bring sacrifice back into your lives. Frequent penances, and they don't have to be extreme.
CA:They can be small, but as long as they're challenging. Frequent penances, good works, obviously. Good works is a form of penance even though it's an act of charity. And obviously the sacraments, mass, and Eucharist. The point is we have to build our way toward innocence, and that has to start by a return to a belief in it, that it is a real thing.
CA:Oh, by the way, before I get out of here, if you're not already following me on socials, you should know I am the hardest working man in Catholic podcasting, probably the most amazing Catholic communicator since Fulton Sheen. If you're not following me on socials, you are crazy. Click that follow. Tap that like. Just tap and follow anything and everything on on my account.
CA:Follow, reshare it, restack everything. Just just tap it. Because Jesus is counting all of that stuff. Okay? He's keeping a tally.
CA:Every time you tap like, tap follow on something that I'm doing, everything. Just tap everything except for unsubscribe. Just tap everything. Seriously though, follow me everywhere you find me if you enjoy my stuff. Consider checking me out on Substack.
CA:If Substack is a little bit too heavy for you, check me out at the, website of my new newsletter, the waypoint dispatch. Waypointdispatch.beehive.com. Beehive is spelled weird, beehiiv.com. I I don't I don't understand what people are thinking with with, like, name conventions like that. I let me get the hell out of here.
CA:I'm tired. This has been an episode of the Catholic Experience simulcast live before a studio audience on Instagram, Twitter, and home base at Substack. I hope this wasn't too much rambling and jibber jabber for you. It's been a long day, and I had to get on and, do this broadcast. Like, I really wanted to connect with you guys today.
CA:I had the time to do it, and I wanted to do it. Might not be able to do it again for another couple of days. Who who knows? God bless you, folks. I hope you enjoyed it.
CA:God be with you all. Check it out. The Waypoint Dispatch. Hope to see you there. God bless you all.
CA:Bye bye.
