Iran War Day 31: Trump To End War Without Opening Strait? Holy Week Dustup, And NYC Church PACKED

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. This is Tom, Erika, and Josh. Happy Holy Week, everyone. I'm going to go on record immediately. April Fool's is the favorite holiday of the most annoying person you know. I move in favor of getting rid of it. I've already been had three times this morning. In particular, I thought that the Lions were going to get Miles Garrett. That turned out to be fake. I was very frustrated about that. I'm frustrated in other ways, so I just say we get rid of it.

Trump is addressing the nation tonight. Maybe this whole thing has been April Fool's. I don't know, but we have a show to get through today. Josh, you were coming in from a special location that you didn't tell any of us about and then showed up two minutes late. Would you like to explain yourself? Hey, I'm at the lovely Franciscan University of Steubenville campus and getting to see a lot of people here, so it's a lot of fun. My daughter, Margaret, is thinking about coming to Franciscan, so it's a beautiful place.

Oh, a city on a hill. That's pretty awesome. I don't know if I'd go that far. It's nice. Yeah, over at Zeal, we do have an episode coming out in Forgotten USA about Steubenville, Ohio. So, Josh, maybe you can verify all over there. Hey, can I also give one shout out today? So, yes, April Fool's Day, also Spy Wednesday. No shout outs for Judas Iscariot. Thumbs down. But it is my parents' 48th wedding anniversary today. So, happy anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Love you. And shout out to the parents. That's beautiful. Yeah, right? 48, wow. 48 years of what? That is amazing. Not bad. That's legit. My parents also got married, you know, this week. Would have been a few extra years than that, I think, but too tired to do the math from driving.

Yeah, you had a nice little drive. The one thing about Franciscan, so I grew up going to the retreats, the youth retreats. So, you get huge calves if you go to Franciscan. It's tons of hills. I just remember going up and down and up and down and up. Same with Benedictine, actually. Tons of hills there. I don't know what's going on. And then Selene, our producer, is a baron. She said she lived at the bottom of the hill, so sweet calves on Selene, for sure.

But that being said, we have a lot to get through today. Trump will be addressing the nation tonight, I believe at 9 Eastern time, so very curious to see what's going on there. Someone said, I do not want to talk about Iran today. I wish we didn't have to. We are in a war, not war. That's over, not over. I'm not sure. We're going to get through all the news there. A lot of news on the European allies front. Trump is potentially floating, leaving before opening the Strait of Hormuz, which is very interesting.

We've got clips from all the cabinets. We're going to get through all of that. Next, we have, speaking of Holy Week, we had the Cardinal Pizzabala drama being locked out of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. That has since been resolved, but we have a bit of a timeline of events. And then we also have an address from Cardinal Pizzabella himself and Pope Leo in particular about using Jesus' name to justify warfare, which of course brings up questions like the Old Testament, what's going on in modern times, just war theory, lots to talk about there, and we have it all.

Finally, Josh, we had a statement from Tom McCluskey that we're going to read as well, and then you wrote it. It's in regards to the Title X language and funding. Planned Parenthood, the Trump administration opting to fund Planned Parenthood again. So, a little bit of questions there. I would like to get your two cents. We have some SCOTUS rulings. Trump is actually the first sitting president to attend a oral arguments for SCOTUS in regards to birthright citizenship. We are going to get the thoughts and how we feel about that.

And then we have some questions. We have some good questions this week. We are going to be doing Twilight Zone, good news. We got a full show today. So, just glad to have everyone here live in the chat. And work through it all with you. Before we get to that, of course, we've got to talk about Charity Mobile because it's… more important than ever to do business with companies who stand with you and your beliefs. Charity Mobile is a pro-life phone company that serves pro-life customers and supports pro-life pro-family causes.

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Use promo code LOOPcast to get their free phone offer with every new line of service, plus free activation and free standard shipping. Switch to Charity Mobile and buy the way you believe. To get started, visit CharityMobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. That's CharityMobile.com, promo code LOOPcast. Love you guys, Charity Mobile. Thank you for sponsoring today's episode. Okay, so if you're following along on Zeal, again, fantastic reporting there on this conflict. The Iran war, day 31, is what we're up to, and Erika, I had you kind of assemble what we know at this point, what we're looking at.

Take us through it. Yeah, I'm going to do my best to stay structured here with plenty of time for commentary, but just a reminder, so we are now into the fifth week of the war, which when we began it. Or the operation, as Thomas is correcting us in the chat, thank you, Thomas, that this is about the time, Trump said initially, we would be starting to back out. So, we got a flurry of posts over the last week on Truth Social from the president and on the White House accounts signaling that Iran has a new regime, and Trump is talking to them.

So, this is from Zeal News Update this morning. Trump told the New York Post. That the U.S. is negotiating with Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, thank you, my Iranian is a little dicey, and added that the U.S. will, quote, find out in about a week whether Ghalibaf is willing to work with the administration. Trump said there has been a, quote, total regime change, and the new people Washington is talking to have been, quote, much more reasonable than regimes. Of the past.

So, then we get this, yeah, we have this tweet here this morning, or actually this was last night. Now, we have a new regime president, who's another dude, much less radicalized, far more intelligent than his predecessors, apparently has just asked, according to Trump, the United States for a ceasefire.

And he said, we will consider that when the Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion, or as they say, back to the stone ages. President Dainai, that's not me. I'm just reading what you said.

So, if we want to get a little beyond the bluster. Probably get President DJT. I mean, like, it's just, okay. I mean, it's too much to write out Trump. It's two more characters. It's too much. Yeah. And like, this isn't cute. I don't know. All right. We get Marco Rubio actually came out. He was interviewed by Al Jazeera this weekend. And also, he was on Good Morning America on yesterday. So, the yesterday show, we can go ahead and play the clip.

He's describing again what the goals were. I think he's kind of like setting up a softball pitch to Trump for tonight, but go ahead. Okay, and that's what this is. It's about very specific objectives. The president laid them out on the first night of the operation. I'll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don't know what the clear objectives are. Here they are. You should write them down. Number one, the destruction of their Air Force.

Number two, the destruction of their Navy. Number three, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability. And number four, the destruction of their factories so they can't make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future all of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon that was our objective from the beginning that remains our objective now we are on pace and in fact ahead of schedule on some of those things and we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks not in a number of months this operation yeah so obviously like trying to put some clarity on what the goals and objectives are the The issue that we're beginning to see, and we talked about this last week as well, is that in terms of the alliance that we have, our allies in the Middle East, specifically Israel, also came out with statements this weekend saying that this is their forever war.

They are just there until the total annihilation. There is no stopping. They will not stop the war. We also had statements from the Saudi government that they would like to continue the war for a long time, quote unquote. To see a total realignment of the Middle East. So, I think that Rubio continues to state very consistently what he has said from the beginning, the concerns being that we're getting additional noise from the White House saying things like regime change or not regime change, or the Strait of Hormuz open, Strait of Hormuz closed, Battle of Hormuz, and then that it seems that the goals remain fuzzy outside of the State Department.

So, that is a concern that has continued to be. Speaking of the Strait of Hormuz, to give you an update there, the Wall Street Journal, they had a couple of reporters saying that Trump was telling top aides over the weekend that he is open to withdrawing from the Middle East and ending the war without securing the Strait of Hormuz or even, you know, waiting for it to be reopened. And again, that is a little bit different from the tweet we just read.

So, from the Wall Street Journal, ...that a mission to pry open the choke point would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. There are military options the president could decide on, but they aren't his immediate priority. The Pentagon has prioritized strikes on Iran's power projection capabilities. As Rubio was mentioning, if that fails to break Iran's will to resist, the journal continued, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait.

Interestingly enough... Hours after that report dropped, we got this from Trump. If you want to go to the next tweet, Tom. Oh, the tweet? Oh, yeah. This one. That's a good one. So, here's Donald Trump again, and this is so deadly serious, guys, I'm not going to try and do my Donald Trump impersonation, as much fun as that is. All right, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you, says Trump.

Number one, buy from the United States. We have plenty. And number two, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil. President DJD.

I don't know if we want to pause there, or we could keep going. Josh, could you do some Trump-splaining here? What's going on? There's been a lot of conflicting. Whatever it takes to get Trump to be able to say, I'm done with this, I'm wiping my hands, and to get the heck out of there.

I would be supportive of, you know, I just want this to wrap up as fast as seemingly possible, and if this is the rhetoric that he needs to do, you know, to say, you know, to move on to the next step in getting out of there, go for it. Yeah. I see Trump strongly considering pulling out of NATO. He's telling reporters that actually might be a part of his address tonight, which is almost kind of, besides the point, I think...

As you're saying, all of the... Let's just say I agree. I think the quicker we can get out of this, the better. I don't think anyone voted for this. I think all the people warning that this was going to be a quagmire in the beginning have been proven correct. We've completely upset the global economy. Gas is now over $4 a gallon. Trump's approval ratings are the lowest for a modern president ever. I think we're in the 30s at this point. There's actually an interesting...

Nate Silver collated a lot of different, I don't know if we see, yeah. Yeah, right there. Well, the question is, I think he can survive that. It is just like, how deep is it going to go, and how persistent is it going to be? It can snap back if people feel like he got out of this Iran thing relatively in good shape. So, we will see.

It is interesting because it seems like domestically, in the United States, Trump can come back from this. Like you said, Josh, if we can get out of there quickly, we recover, the gas goes back to where it was, we did not sustain casualties, he can make a case for, you know, look at all the good things that happened because of that. I mean, it is a big if. So, it could happen.

I think the trouble is that unlike the rest of the world, the United States, we're kind of insulated from the impact that this. Really, this war of choice has had, because we have our own energy supplies. We can see it out, but looking at the rest of the world, even if it were to end today in the straight opens, we're looking at months, if not years, of recovery. Well, see, I think the thing about that energy thing is not quite perfectly true, though.

I mean, the fact is, oil is one of the easiest things. It doesn't spoil, you know, and if we have a lot of it domestically, and then all of a sudden people can't buy it from Because Pakistan or whatever, India can't get oil, or UK can't get oil, then they turn to us and say, we really, really need oil, and we'll pay top dollar for it. So, just because we are a net producer doesn't mean that we aren't going to get those price impacts.

We are. We already are. We're getting $4 gas. So, that's kind of a Trumpy, like, oh, it's not affecting us. No, I mean, it is. Obviously, you can see it at the price of the pump. It went from $2.79 to $4. That's obviously affecting a lot of people. It is additive costs for everything. That is one of the things about energy. That is why I emphasized, for example, during the first Trump administration, his drill, drill, drill stuff was really helpful because lowering the price of gas lowered the price of everything else.

And so, obviously, consequentially, raising the price of gas is going to raise the cost of everything, you know, transportation and that kind of stuff. Now, if it is a short-term thing, You know, and it had some sort of value, then great, fine. Wrap it up, move on. But if you have sustained $4 gas, That is going to really cause, you know, strain on an economy that was, we thought, just hopefully dusting its shoes off and getting going here again, so. Yeah, yeah, and it was on top, like, seeing the, just for me personally, like, seeing the gas prices go back up, it's like, oh, okay, we got a reprieve for what, like, maybe it's been good for six, seven, eight months, but that's on top of all the losses we suffered under the Biden administration prices, like.

Like, we're still recovering as a family from that, and then to see it go up again, which, of course, is the original argument of MAGA, and one of the, I'd say, like, most convincing arguments was this foreign... Foreign policy adventurism is not just expensive and damaging and potentially, you know, upsets the global order. It is a missed opportunity to do things at home that you probably should have been doing that actually could benefit the American people, all that money. I believe there is a Marco Rubio quote for the Twilight Zone.

It is like, could you imagine if Iran put the money that it is spending on the military into its people instead of on the military? And I just had to pause for a second. I was like, yes, I think that is a convincing argument for ourselves.

This applies across the board, Marco. Yes, yes. But a couple of other things really concern me, too, in regards to the international situation, because I saw that we asked Poland to send their Patriot missile defense system, and Poland just outright said, no, we can't. We need this to defend ourselves. I'm like, well, one, it's embarrassing to ask, so now that's embarrassing to the national order. And two, why would you take that away from Poland? Why did we move our THAAD system?

From South Korea, a huge trade partner with us, the Pacific, a very important region, giving opportunities to China to potentially be more aggressive there, to the Middle East to defend on this. I think it was shocking, and I can't believe more people weren't talking about this, but you can finally start seeing satellite above a lot of our bases in the Middle East, and we've actually abandoned most of them. We can't operate out of them because of the drone warfare that's happening.

They're operating out of hotels in the Middle East right now, and that's according to two sources within the military. They've just had to move to sites off our own bases. Project American power to me. It seems like we're in this moment where our military is much too big, clunky, and expensive, and we need to take the time to adjust to this new asymmetric warfare of what was Iran's military budget? I think it was 20, I want to say it's like 20 billion.

It might even be kind of high, as opposed to what our 1 trillion budget, and they are winning this war of attrition, really. I'm not saying that they haven't taken significant losses. They have, but if they're able to keep the Strait of Hormuz locked down, Because they use very cheap and expensive drone warfare. We saw this play out with Russia and Ukraine. We're watching it now. The U.S. military really needs to adjust if we want to. Right, winning by attrition. I agree with you on that, only in that sense, but it does make you wonder.

The military, they create these systems where an incoming missile can come in and they can blow a missile from the sky, but we had no guys over at the Pentagon dreaming up, like, how do you combat drones? You know what? Like, really? The systems we currently have are so expensive, and we don't produce many of them. So, they can be taken out by things like fireworks or distractions, and then now drones all of a sudden become a really expensive problem for us in which they spend a couple bucks.

We have to spend millions of dollars to defend against the drones, and we're seeing that. Israel's taken a lot of hits. Our bases have taken a lot of hits. We had one of our reconnaissance airplanes completely destroyed by a drone.

In one of our bases, and we have three of them, I think, four of them, and that's now basically irreplaceable because of the supply chain it takes to rebuild that. So, I'd say if I'm walking away from this at this point. I don't want to fall into a sunk cost fallacy, and that's why I'm happy that Trump is even talking about just leaving, although it is frustrating to leave having the Strait of Hormuz closed, even though it was open before. So, it feels like you really haven't accomplished that much, like it was open before, and now it's not.

But just because we're in a bad position doesn't mean we need to sink in deeper, because, oh, well, you know, we sacrificed for this. We need to see the job through. The sunk cost fallacy is a very important thing to talk about. I mean, Yeah. You know, I remember trying to explain this to my wife. It's like, if you go to a movie, and after 10 minutes, you realize the movie is horrible and terrible and waste your time.

Get out of there. You're not getting your $8 back or $12 back. Don't waste the next hour and a half of your life watching a dumb movie. And she's like, no, you paid for it. You've got to stick it out. I'm like, oh my gosh, you're getting the wrong message here. Not good foreign policy, or any policy. And I think that there's a scenario where a lot of these countries, especially in the Pacific or the Europeans at this point, say, well, either I need to put up the military might to go try to free the Strait of Hormuz.

Or, I pay a tax to the Iranians so that I get energy, because they don't produce their own energy. Exactly. So, now we're pushing them closer to... They have to. Someone has to, right? They need that energy. And so, in terms of... It's really hard for me to sit and see...

How this benefited us in the global order from a strategic perspective that didn't embolden China or didn't make Russia more successful, because Russia is making a lot of money off of their oil, too. Well, it didn't trigger a global recession. What was the payoff? And I think, too, for me, it's frustrating to see, again, Marco Rubio lays out these objectives, and three of them, pretty clearly, we can claim are accomplished. Like, we've decimated the Air Force, the Navy. You can look at the, you can find graphs of the ballistic missile capabilities, and their missile capacity, and even like factories producing, decimated.

But the idea that somehow we have all of their enriched uranium at this point, we know we don't, because Trump has said he's still trying to get it back. So, we still have not neutered their ability to build towards.

...material is going to be, would be boots on the ground. And so it seems like we won't be able to achieve that objective without the sort of like continual escalation of the war, which is why at this point, I'm like, we just have to get out of there. And then I hear on the, like coming from... Not all the guys over there, but, like, at the National Review, a couple of them, like, Rich, Lowry, like, saying things like, well, we need to stay until, like, we have, like, we know that the new regime isn't just the same.

And you're like, how is that going to happen? That's not, that's, no, we must not do that. Not listening to the National Review on foreign policy. Sorry. I try to listen to all comers, all right? I was listening to Dave Smith. I was listening to Ben. I'm listening, I'm trying to do it all. Yeah, but I guess it's just hard, like, just, if you just... Put yourself in their shoes and think logically. I don't see how this doesn't produce a more hardened, more extreme, like it's the classic Middle East example of you're creating more terrorists than you actually kill, because if you blew up a girl's school with 100 girls in it, if you were hitting civilian infrastructure targets, if you killed a religious leader during Ramadan, it'd be like killing the Pope during Lent.

Right, those parents aren't going to blame the regime. They're going to blame the U.S., right? Right. And I think, too, like there might have been. ...leaders in opposition in Iran, but the timing for this could not have been more terrible, because we had uprisings in Iran back in January, and they killed between 20,000 and 40,000 of the leadership there. And most Iranians just want to get on with their lives. They're like most Americans. We just want to live our lives and raise our families and do this.

They don't want to be part of an uprising to replace the regime, overthrow the Ayatollah system, and all be hanged publicly as so many of the opposition leaders. Just were two months ago. So, I don't see any evidence that Iranians are going to rise up and have a regime change. So, why would we stick around and wait for that to happen? It just seems dumb. Like, get out. We just need to get out. Yeah. And frustrating on the same front is now Israel is officially expanding into southern Lebanon.

They're destroying all the homes near the border. I have... So, we have images of the bombing here to demolish all houses in the Lebanese border towns. Let me show a pic. Like China came out and they're like, this is terrible. They shouldn't do it. They just blew up every home here. And then we have from Benjamin Netanyahu in Hebrew. We are working on transforming Israel into a super nation in the region and globally.

I think there is one country really benefited from this, and I do not think it is the United States. So, take that as far as you want. I am not going to go down the full conspiracy corner, but it seems like Israel is taking every opportunity to expand. Another thing that I wanted to point out, too, which was in the loop and I think well done, was this death penalty law for Palestinians. I have talked a lot about what is going on in the West Bank with the illegal Israeli settlers there that go and harass Palestinians, Christians in particular.

Sometimes killing them. The Knesset voted 62 to 47 to pass the death penalty law for terrorist bill. Under the new law, every West Bank Palestinian convicted in an Israeli military court of a deadly act of terrorism could face mandatory death sentence by hanging to be carried out within 90 days. The law removed two procedural safeguards that previously limited the use of the death penalty. Judges no longer need a request from prosecutors to impose a death sentence and may do so on their own, and a simple majority of the military panel is now sufficient to approve an execution.

Whereas before, every judge had to agree unanimously, this only applies to Palestinians and not Israeli citizens convicted of the same crimes. This is backed by a lot of people backing this expansion effort. Ben-Gavir, the National Security Minister, and Atzma Yehudit, he's a Jewish Power Party coalition, and then Benjamin Netanyahu himself traveled to the chamber to cast a vote in his favor.

This is kind of ironic because Ben-Gavir himself is actually convicted of being a terrorist. ...and supports the group Koch, which is designated as a terrorist organization in both Israel and the United States. You can make arguments for capital punishment. I think they're all out there, but he was in the chamber popping champagne, said whoever takes a life, the state of Israel will take their life, called the law historic, and soon we will count them one by one. Here he is with champagne.

In my opinion, pretty disgusting. Yeah, I hate separate legal systems, no question about it. Yeah, separate legal systems are bad. And no such thing, there is no such thing as a Jewish terrorist. He was speaking at a fundraiser for convicted terrorist Amiram Ben-Yuleh. She called him a holy righteous man and insisted he was innocent. Ben-Yuleh was convicted in 2020 on three counts of murder for burning a Palestinian couple and their 18-month baby alive. Again, this is their speaking at a fundraiser, and this person would not be convicted for the death penalty.

But, separable legal systems, so. China has gone to the UN to be like, hey, Israel needs to immediately withdraw from Lebanon. Lebanon must not become another Gaza in particular. I will say, extra frustrating on the international front that we are not joining this call to be like, does Lebanon have the right to exist? This is pretty pure aggression, in my opinion. So, I think also losing us credibility in the international community. If you look at a map of Lebanon, too, those border towns are primarily Christian.

What you see with Lebanon is like a sandwich. You have got the primarily Maronite Christians on the border with Israel, and then a vast swath of Muslims, Muslim settlers, and that is where a lot of the conflict happens, but then it is Christian again towards the middle and then the north of the country. And so, these are people, it is terrible. I know that the argument is that Well, the terrorists go in and they occupy these homes, and so we have to salt the earth and destroy them so that there's nowhere for them to hide.

But like you said, Tom, there's no... Yeah, does Lebanon have a right? There's no justification for it. There's no justification for it. Zero. And this has just been the playbook, unfortunately. I mean, you look at Gaza, it's 80% rubble, and Hamas still exists in some capacity right now, and it does kind of go back to the sunk cost fallacy, like, we're just going to keep blowing everything up until, I guess, nothing comes out.

Are we creating more terrorists than we're actually? Right, and I think just to go to your point that, I mean, who's the winner here? Is it Israel? I actually don't think Israel is the winner here. They might feel like they have this stronghold and supernation status that they're going for, but I think in the end, the feeling globally about Israel is going to be so soured by this entire play of events that Ultimately, in the long run, Bibi Netanyahu's government is going to harm the state of Israel more than they're helping the state of Israel.

And even worse than that, I think that we're seeing this in the United States, we're seeing this on the right and on the left. We saw it on the left back with the pro-Palestinian protests. I think that it also harms just Jewish people, because people start to, in our simplistic human way of trying to grapple with this kind of extreme violence that we're seeing on both sides, we automatically assign, okay, Israel action. I think we're going to see an even greater rise in anti-Semitism and attacks on Jews because of that, because it is so hard to separate the two.

It will be interesting to see if we get, you know, later in October, elections in Israel. Hopefully, I would like to, I mean, it is their country, but I would not be sad if they picked somebody other than Benjamin Netanyahu.

I'm into that. I think that kind of gets a little bit into the Cardinal Pizzabala drama. So, I remember I was just, I think I checked my phone after mass. I think it was like around noon, and I was just getting texts like, did you see that? When Cardinal Pizzaballo, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, was locked out of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and for those who are curious, that is where we as Catholics believe that Jesus was buried after he was crucified.

Very important site to Catholics worldwide, Christians worldwide, and I knew that there was restrictions, and so I wanted to dig into this just to get all of the context, because on its face, it just felt like such a bald insult to Christians all over the world. I was like, this can't possibly be the full story here. So, there were sites that were closed down before, and there were certain restrictions, because obviously a war is going on, and the Israeli authorities were saying, we are restricting it for all religions, and they have to fit within these narrow definitions.

So, no large crowds, you know, things of that nature. And have like 50 people in the church, you know, that kind of thing. Right. You know, makes sense, right? And it was applied to all religions. Applied to all religions, yes. And so, but what ended up happening was Cardinal Pizzabala went with the other father. There was Father Francesco Lopo. He is the custos of the Holy Land. It was just those two. They were nondescript. They were just going in to celebrate Mass, and they were prevented by Israeli police.

According to two statements, or according to the statements from the Latin Patriarch and the Custos. The two leaders were approaching the church privately, without any procession, ceremonial elements, or large group. Police stopped them and compelled them to turn back. This prevented the traditional Palm Sunday Mass at the site for the first time in centuries, according to church officials, and the backlash was swift. I mean, Italy's prime minister... It's important to remember, for people that are sympathetic to the Israeli government and the security measures they put in place, literally just two people.

And they were going into the church to celebrate mass and record it so that everyone who was not able to go there for security reasons could watch it at home. They were abiding by all the regulations and restrictions that the Israeli government and the security officials were asking for, and yet they were still turned around unjustly.

Yep. And historical context here. This has gone on for centuries. There pretty much is no precedent for this not happening, and then a little background on Cardinal Pizzabala, who I've said this a few times, and I think keep getting exonerated. I remember people wanted him to be Pope, like he was potentially thought of as going to be the Pope, and I was actually really happy in hindsight that he wasn't, because he's exactly where he belongs. Little background, Italian Franciscan who served in Jerusalem for decades, and he's known for his fluency in Hebrew and engagement with local communities, has generally maintained pragmatic relations.

This is like newspeak, but complex multi-faith environment of the Holy Land, I think is the understanding. That's a very nice way of putting it, yeah. Absolutely. If you remember, he made headlines for offering to exchange himself for the hostages during October 7th, which was really heroic. He's just done a great job in a tough environment, navigating both sides and just upholding human dignity of both the Jews and the Palestinians, which is a very tough job. I honestly don't know how he does it, but...

Pretty quickly, there was a lot of international outcry, including concerns from the Vatican. I know Parolin, I think, reached out personally. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intervened. He stated that the decision to ask Cardinal Pizzavala to refrain from holding mass was made out of special concern for his safety due to Iranian strike risks. Netanyahu instructed authorities to grant the Cardinal full and immediate access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the remainder of Holy Week. And an agreement was reportedly reached between police and the Latin Patriarch to allow services to proceed.

Pizza Ball, of course, I think really made the best of a bad situation. He instead led a procession, a really beautiful procession, carried out a blessing over Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives using Holy Cross relics. That's really beautiful.

Really amazing. You gave a great homily, and do you know why the Mount of Olives is significant, Josh? Well, I'm going to let Erika, the church expert, answer that one, but what I wanted to say first, though, was that this was so egregious that Israeli First, Mike Huckabee, Even our ambassador to them, he even condemned this decision. I mean, that just shows you how on its face this was just a terrible decision.

Yeah, I mean, my hot take on that is I actually do think it probably was a mistake, and funny, I'm seeing people in the chat, like, I'm not even sure that's a big deal. I think it was probably two level policemen who may be a little overzealous, maybe didn't read the situation, didn't know what was going on. That in itself, I don't think, obviously being stopped and not allowing to proceed is offensive to Christians everywhere. But, this becomes a powder keg when you take a picture, like, zoom out for a second.

We're experiencing, you know, state-sanctioned violence against Christian villages in Taiba and Nazareth by these settlers, armed and supported by people like Ben-Gavir, who just has the death penalty on the table for everyone just voted for and excited about it. Territorial conquest into southern Lebanon, the Greater Israel Project, as our ambassador, Mike Huckabee, and has not been taken back, said it's from the Euphrates to the Nile, and it seems like they're really acting on that at this point. Not retracted by either the United States government or Israel, spitting on Christian evangelizers and priests in Israel, shelling the Holy Family Catholic Church in Palestine, and frankly, an intentional equivocation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, leveled at American Catholic critics.

Now you have a powder keg. So, I think it's all about context, and it's not the individual. Yeah, and the thing is what drove me crazy about some people, you know, commenting on this. They're like, everything just turned out fine. The government, Israeli government. Apologize, and all these people are making such a big deal about nothing. No, it is not nothing. It is not nothing. Everything in this situation in the Holy Land is governed by a lot of precedent.

And if you allow something like this to happen, then next year, like, well, wait a minute now, you know, and then they never give it back. So, if you don't push back, and if you don't create an outcry, then that's lost forever. So, all of these things that, you know, this keeping the peace is important, because otherwise, we lose the right to worship. So, it was good that there was an outcry. It was good and justified to stand up for what, you know, this is, you know, an insult.

This can't be, this can't let stand, and so what's important about this is that we're not going to have this problem again. 100%. I hope so. It kind of had, like, it had rings of COVID for me. I was like, if we had been more forceful when they shut down our churches during COVID, like, it would have sent, it would have, one, we would have been able to have mass sooner, which is the most important thing, and two, it would have set a precedent.

Next, the authorities think twice before they're like, oh, church is so inessential, right? And that's a, it's a, it's a stretch analogy, but again, like, when this kind of thing happens, we really believe that the mass is what it is, and that the Holy Sepulchre houses what we say it houses, which is the place of Christ's resurrection, then absolutely there should have been outrage over this. And I mean, the whole like, well, it was just two policemen doing their job. I mean, that, what other actions can you excuse with that?

The message from the top down should have been to those low-level policemen, under no circumstances are you to prevent the Catholic and the Orthodox and whoever wants to go worship where they're going to worship. That should have been the top of the training. Next time you're not sure, use that little phone that you have. Or Google it like I did. You can Google the freaking regulation.

Also, you don't know this guy? He shows up all the time and says mess there, I'm sure. I think Kelsey's statement on this on Sunday was really well said. It is not like he came with a whole crowd behind him. It was like him and one other guy, maybe? I mean, come on. Let him in. What is the problem? And listen, I'm not one of those kind of warm and fuzzy, ecumenical kind of guys. No, you're not. I actually do believe that Jesus Christ is king of the universe, and I do sincerely believe in Catholicism, and I'm a Roman Catholic, and that's part of my identity, and it's the most important part of my identity.

But I really like that Pete Zabala... Thanks, Josh. I had to clear that up. But I like that Pete Zabala made the point of this would be a problem if a Muslim was blocked from their worship, or if a Jew was blocked. From synagogue, it's a universal human right to be able to worship, and Israel serves as the custodian of those sites currently, but it's not an Israeli authority as to whether or not you get to worship. They serve at the behest of the people that come and worship at those sites.

Those are important sites for the three big things in the world, and no one should be blocked from able to do that. It's really not up to you, and I felt very similar during COVID of like, who does the state think that they are to prevent my right to worship? And I was disappointed in my church leaders at the time for not having a stronger stance on that. We've worshiped through worse times in the lens of history. The Black Plague, everything, like nothing should be preventing the worship of Jesus Christ as a Catholic, especially in our holiest week of the year.

And like, I will say, I think that all of this is really, in a very positive way, made me reflect upon. Holy Week and the message of Jesus and my own religion in a really profound and good way, and I feel like other people are probably having that experience of like, nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed. Like, you're not promised tomorrow.

And so, that's why we're glad the Cardinal fought back. Yes. Okay, so cool. And then two things on that that I wanted to bring up because we had it at the top of the show. We have Pope Leo's Palm Sunday address, and then Cardinal Pizzabala actually spoke out as well for the first time since about February, but here's part of that address. In Ukraine, Leo dedicated his Palm Sunday homily to the insistence that God is the, quote, king of peace who rejects violence, saying, brothers and sisters, this is our God, Jesus, king of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can justify to use war.

He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. As leaders on all sides of the Iran war have used religion to justify their actions, U.S. officials, especially Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has invoked their Christian faith to cast the war as a Christian nation trying to vanquish its foes with military might.

So, that got everyone riled up. Although, I did see some positive reporting, too, from Pope Leo at a gaggle talking about Trump seeking an off-ramp, which I thought was cool. I could play that. Audio is not going to be good on that. I am told that President Trump recently stated that he would like to end the war. Hopefully, he is looking for an off-ramp. Hopefully, he is looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence of bombing, which would be a significant contribution to removing the hatred.

That's been created and is increasingly, constantly in the Middle East and elsewhere. I appeal to all leaders, come back to the table, to dialogue. Let's look for solutions to problems. Let's look for ways to reduce the amount of violence that we're promoting, that peace, especially at Easter, might reign in our hearts.

And then Cardinal Pizzabala also chimed in there, too. I just want to get to that before we get reactions. Said, the use of God's name to justify war is a grave sin, stressing that God is present with those who suffer and die in conflict, not with those who exploit religion for political ends. The abuse and manipulation of God's name to justify this and any other war is the gravest sin we can commit at this time, the prelate said. War is first and foremost political and has very material interests, like most wars.

So, we have the late Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem warmed against what he described as Sato religious language. No room for Sato religious language. We must do everything we can to leave no room for the Sato religious language, which speaks not of God, but of ourselves. This is the first time he spoke publicly in the U.S.-Israeli Iran war that broke out in February. So, how do we feel about that?

Okay, go for it. I mean, look, I don't want this war. I didn't want it. I would like it to end as soon as possible, and you could make the case that the justifications for this war, people have made the case for why it's justified, and I'm not so sure I agree with it.

But what I want to speak to is not necessarily the justification for this war per se, but what he had said was there is no justification for invoking God on behalf of this conflict, I might agree, or any conflict. That is where I disagree. You're telling me that there is no justification? I'm sorry, why would you not want to invoke God?

When General Eisenhower was trying to encourage our troops in the lead-up to D-Day, he called it a crusade. He invoked God. I would think that was perfectly justifiable. Like, we are trying to liberate an entire continent. We are trying to free people from this horrible thing of slavery. Like, why would you not invoke God? Now, a lot of times, you know, I think it should be done with humility. And so, like in the Civil War, you had people who really loved Jesus on both sides of the war, including the South, which I thought, of course.

They were unjustified in their positions, but they still believed in God, and they would invoke God, and both sides invoked God. And I actually prefer what Abraham Lincoln said. Like, you know, they would ask him, you know, is God on your side? And he says, I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky. And there's actually, I actually think that's a really good humility, like, not to be so... So braggadocio that you're like, oh, obviously God is on my side because I'm doing everything justified and everything I do is right.

No, no, no, no, no. With a certain humility. But to me, like General Patton praying for weather so that he can bring his troops up and liberate, to me, yeah, I think that's fine. I mean, it's not like you wanting to kill. It's not a bloodthirsty thing if the war is a justified thing.

This is the problem I've had with not just Pete Zabala or Pope Leo or our bishops and Pope Francis. It seems just about every time they talk about war, like John Paul said, every war is a tragedy. I agree with that. Of course, it's tragedy, but that doesn't mean that every use of military force is...

Somehow wrong. You know what I mean? Because the way in which they talk comes off as almost of it's a default pacifism. Now, I say all this, I'm not in favor of this war. I would like it to be ended over as fast as possible. So, don't confuse that for me saying, oh, you're just, you know, I'm not asking for them to sprinkle holy water on bombs. I mean, I think that would be gross, okay? But what I'm saying is, there can be.

You know, justifications, and you can hope that God is, you know, justifying your cause, and the just war theory is important to abide by, but there are wars that are just. Right. I think the church has a really robust tradition of understanding this. Actually, first, I just wanted to make one clarification, because the clip that you played, Tom, that was talking about his homily, it made it sound as though the Pope called out Pete Hegseth by name in that homily, which he didn't do.

So, just very clear. And actually, some of the headlines this weekend from the mainstream media were like, Pope calls out Hegseth, which he did not do. He didn't, but I will say, I think that it's... Sure, they might be playing it up, but Pete has been saying some things that have been, like, legitimately shocked me. Like, the language he's used, the justification is, like, crazy. It would also be shocking if the Pope named him in a home. Exactly. I would just say that.

I just wanted to be really, really clear on that. The Pope speaks in principles, yeah. In principle. There might have been some subtext, though. I think Tom might have a point. Sure, yeah. Yeah, there can be subtext. But I did want to say, like, if you look back at... Stories in the church, and you mentioned the Crusades, Josh, as an example. I was just watching Joan of Arc, the classic old Joan of Arc movie, and that was a case of she was so sure that God was on her side, but she also wept over the deaths of her men, and she went in clear-eyed that this would probably result in her own death at a very young age by terrible means.

And I think that... To neglect even a mention of that robust intellectual tradition and lived experience, to use a progressive term of the saints, is to do a disservice to how we should think about our life while we're here on Earth.

Joan of Arc never drew a sword. Fun fact. Yeah, fun fact. But yeah, I think... But she told her guys to. Because I immediately thought of the Old Testament, too, because I think it is impossible to read the Old Testament without being a little bit shocked and torn about the violence. Some of this is like, you are killing the children and the animals. I am in the middle of numbers right now. Yeah, exactly. Some of it is kind of crazy. And so, when you go back there and you are quoting the Old Testament for modern violence, it does feel...

Like, a little bit off to me, and I think that is in particular because I don't think even the Pope himself, Josh, maybe just use some poor wording there, would say that it's never justified, because even Jesus himself, you know, I think he talked to a soldier, and he didn't say, drop your profession, stop being a soldier. I just want to be clear. I'm just saying that the language that is often used by Pope Leo, Pope Francis, Pete Zabala, our U.S.

bishops. They don't outrightly say there's no justification for war, because that would be opposition to the just war theory. I'm just saying that the way in which they speak of it often is like it leads you to that conclusion if they don't outright say it.

It's like a backdoor to pacifism. And look, most of the wars that have been waged in the last 25 years have been really, really just dumb and bad and horrible. A vast majority. Yeah, I mean, I agree. So, I'm just... But that's why I would say, Josh, I would say, what would you want them to say? Like, wouldn't you want our church leaders to draw upon the teachings of Jesus Christ himself, the revelation that's been given to us through the New Testament, using a very narrow and specific interpretation of just war theory to create a very high bar, because understanding all of the perverse...

Look, I just want to be clear. It's a mild critique. It's not, I mean... My heart is with them on most of this stuff. I am just saying. Yeah. No, I appreciate it, but I just thought about it more, and then even going back. Because the analogy I would say is, the U.S. bishops, as also Pope Leo, are so critical on immigration, all of the enforcement actions that we are doing here in the United States. And it seems like they're so on that, that it's like, well, it almost seems like you're for open borders by default, because if you're criticizing everything that we do, it feels like we should be able to abide by church teachings on the rule of law and controlling our borders.

And so, again, The analogy isn't perfect, but that's what I'm getting at, like sometimes where it feels like, okay, if I wanted to abide by just war theory, but you almost make it seem like there would be no ability to do so.

Yeah, can I land the plane? So, anyway. Yeah, let me land the plane. The church recognizes the state's God-given role in protecting the innocent and maintaining justice. Legitimate defense is viewed as an act of love towards one's neighbor, and it prevents greater evil. So, I agree that the rhetoric... Can lead to that conclusion, but if you were to actually, you know, draw upon the intellectual treasure of the church, you would see that. You'd find that very quickly, especially a lot of the church fathers do.

It's almost like there's a break somewhere where we stop speaking so seriously, and it just becomes unserious. But I appreciate the distinction that you made earlier, because I really think a fair assessment of this war of choice that has now just thrown the world into a situation where it's like, well, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what to do. Chaos, at least the Middle East in particular, does not meet, in my opinion, the very narrow definition of just war theory, and therefore, I think it's very reasonable to critique it in that way in the death of the innocents, the impact of the people all over the world, and I would like my church leaders to have their default be.

Peace, bring people to the table, create agreements, and I wouldn't even want them to just hop in and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, go slaughter everyone, or I'm loading up on one side. No, I agree. In fact, of course, there's no ability to jump in a DeLorean or to hit rewind, but wouldn't have been a greater world if George W. Bush had listened to Pope jump all the time. Yes. Yes. Yeah, for sure.

For sure. I appreciate that. Yeah, I was actually really wrestling with that, because I heard that, and I thought back on everything I'd heard. And then, recommended reading Pope Benedict's Verbum Domini. Yes, Verbum Domini on Scripture. Very good. I thought it was really good, and it does talk about the reconciliation of the Old Testament violence with Jesus in the New Testament, the New Covenant.

As a way of teaching humanity. I just, I love that man more and more as every month goes by. Like, Benedict, gone too soon. For sure. But not too soon for him. I'm sure he was relieved. I do love him. I love him. He earned his rest. All right, let's run Good News Now, Erika. Oh, yeah.

This is pretty great. So, yesterday, this was the case coming out of Colorado, so Chiles v. Colorado, and the state, the 2019 law out of Colorado, had banned, quote, conversion therapy for minors. We went over this when the oral arguments were held last fall, so you might remember. But broadly, the law forbade all counseling, medical, psychological, psychiatric, that sought to change. Or reduce same-sex attraction, or what they call gender incongruence, which would just be dysphoria, gender dysphoria.

So, Chiles, in the case, she was the counselor who sued the state of Colorado, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, our good friends. Shout out, many congrats. And she said that, of course, this violated her First Amendment free speech rights and her First Amendment. Freedom of religion rights. So, the court ruled on the basis of free speech. Colorado had argued for, and you got to love this, in the oral arguments, we got this proposal for the court to create a First Amendment free zone.

So, zones where the First Amendment does not apply to censor unpopular speech. Unpopular speech as defined by the state, of course, which is what I can only call interest. Yes. This was one of the proposals from Colorado. That is so crazy. Predictably, they lost, and thank God they lost by eight. I will give you, you probably already saw this time. Are we going to play the game where we guess which one? Yes. Who dissented? Any guesses? Any guesses? You already know the answer.

The woman you know and love, the KBJ. She dissented. But a couple of shout-outs here. Neil Gorsuch, he wrote the opinion of the court, and in that opinion, it's worth quoting. He's on a roll, this guy, this year. He stressed that in cases like this, Colorado's ban censors speech based on viewpoint, and because the First Amendment reflects, quote, a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas. As the best means for discovering truth, any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an egregious assault on both of those commitments.

And he said, when the government seeks not just to restrict speech based on its subject matter, but also seeks to dictate what particular opinion or perspective individuals may express, then the violation is all the more blatant. So, great. Great out of the court. I thought that this tweet... Wait, wait. I have one tweet. I have to read the tweet. Yep.

This puts it perfectly. Summing up the KBJ, this is Brandon Gill. He said, to illustrate the total absurdity of Justice Jackson, she ruled last year that states do not have the right to ban child sex changes, but ruled today that states do have the right to ban counselors from telling boys they are not girls.

Which is all of it in a nutshell. Josh, go for it. Well, another analogy someone put is that it is insane that parents were allowed to hire a doctor to chemically and surgically castrate their kids, while they are prohibited from hiring a therapist to tell their kid that they are actually a boy, and R should stay a boy. That is the nonsense of Colorado, but the thing is, if you asked me ahead of time, how is this? You know, Corky's going to go down.

I'm like, oh yeah, well, 6-3. Maybe we'll get Kagan. Maybe it's a 7-2. That we got Sonia Sotomayor even in this one. I was like, what? I mean, I guess this is just her ability to say that she's not a complete total psychopath, but I mean, we of course know she's still, you know, a Marxist at heart, but, you know. You go, girl. Justice Jackson, obviously. She doesn't even know what a woman is. She's living her truth. That's what she's doing.

Oh, I was seeing the discourse online that people are encouraging Clarence Thomas to step down. What would you say about that, Josh? I would actually prefer Justice John Roberts to step down. I do not think that Justice Clarence Thomas will step down. Ironically enough, though, Sam Melito, happy birthday, buddy. It is his birthday today. He is only 18 months younger than Clarence Thomas. He is actually also old, even though Clarence Thomas was on the court for 15 years before him. They are about the same age.

He was born, I think, today in 1950. You know, hey, Sam, you know, maybe you should retire and get replaced by someone that is even more conservative or whatever. But, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I am optimistic about 2028, so.

I'm optimistic. Thank God. I really needed to hear that today. Wow. Josh, hit me with the take on, you might be the only Republican in the country optimistic about 2028 right now. I'm not. I've been very clear from the start that, you know, 2026, the midterms.

Are not going to go so delicious, but I thought that even before I ran. So, obviously, this war of choice with Iran for now, you know, going on a month, if Trump wraps it up pretty quick. But, I mean, I've always thought, and I've been honest with people, even people, you know, CatholicVote, like, hey, we're very, very, very, very likely to lose the House. We have a razor-thin majority. Like, what do you think? Come on. The Senate.

I still think Republicans, you know, I disagree with Tom. Tom's a little bit more pessimistic. I still think we hold the Senate because you're talking about losing states like Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, but it could happen. So, you know, we should be worried. Like, that's why we should wrap this stuff up in Iran, and we should, you know, take care of the domestic agenda and make prices lower, make houses more affordable. But I'm not total doomsday on that. And like 28, like, no, I mean.

Is your argumentation that it's just too much time, like that too much can happen between now and 2028? There's way too much unknowns. Way too many unknowns. Just think of the last three years of this podcast, Tom. All the things that have happened.

Yeah. Someone always brings up the James Carville book. Is it 40 years of the Democratic Party or something like that? Basically, his book predicted that Democrats were going to run the country for 40 years, immediately after they lost everything. No, he was like, we're locked and loaded. Hillary forever. It'll be great. Michelle Obama, Obama 2024.

He was like, we have got this. Both political parties have had that kind of, where they just think, oh, we are going to have a permanent majority. Karl Rove thought he was going to have a permanent majority. So, I mean, come on.

So, do you think, let us get in the oracle for a second here. I will take a pause from the good news. Do you think we will get impeachments and then potential removement? No removements, but there'll be impeachments. Yeah, they'll impeach Trump, and they'll probably do it for Vance and Hegseth and, you know, whatever. I mean, I think it's mostly just a waste of time. I mean, there's no way. Who are you going to convict on two-thirds? No one. Because, you know, the only person that would have been likely would have been Kristi Noem, but she's out.

She is out. Kristi Noem is out. A lot is coming out about her situation. Yeah, we don't need to get into that. Pray for the family. It's all pretty, yeah, pretty rough. Okay, back to good news. Back to good news. Can I do one more? Oh, yeah, yeah, run it. Okay, this is just a shout out to my Dominican friends. So, the Pope received this past week, he received the head, the rector of the Angelicum, which is the Dominican University in Rome.

Father Thomas Joseph White, who also happens to be the lead banjoist of the Hillbilly Thomists, and if you zoom in on this picture of him, he has this big academic backpack, he's got it on the Pope's desk, and it appears that he is handing Pope Leo CDs.

And I would love to think that Pope Leo is even now listening to bangers, such as Bring Me a Rose St. Therese. Do you think you just slid it to Brian and Brian is headbanging while they were doing it together? I love it. I just love it. We just got America everywhere. I still love my country, and there's a lot of Americans going on there.

Word. Yep. Okay. Very nice. Josh? This is like a nature's healing moment. So, like, we have terrible things that happen in our country where we have judges with, you know, radical, crazy empathy, you know, decide to, you know, be lenient on criminals, and then the criminals do very bad things. This judge, her name is Tiffany Baker, out of Florida, released a criminal. And while on bail, he raped, tortured, and killed a five-year-old little girl. Oh, my gosh.

And Ron DeSantis was talking about some reforms that the Florida legislature was going to do, and he said, these reforms are good, but it's not good enough. And I think we should roll this little clip here. Jeez. Passing this. I appreciate the legislature for passing this, but I will just say to my friends in the Florida House of Representatives, I don't think what you've done is enough.

You have the power, and you have sufficient numbers in your chamber to impeach this judge, Tiffany Baker. Until you start holding these judges accountable, they are going to continue to find ways to benefit the criminal element. This was an outrage. This was such an easy call to make sure that this guy was put behind bars. And this judge refused to do it, knowing the risks, and the result has obviously been a tragedy. So, Florida Constitution vests the House of Representatives with the ability to bring an impeachment against a circuit judge with two-thirds majority.

You know, last time I checked, we've got way more than two-thirds of Republicans. Honestly, I think some Democrats would vote to impeach, given what happened. Sure hope so. Yeah. Wow. Go, DeSantis. It would be nice to see, like, to actually remove a judge, not because of corruption, they were given $50,000, you know, like, oh, well, we better do something like that. No, because you did something psycho and crazy. It is time to go. Go, Florida. Okay. My Noogie advice worked last show.

We get a viral tweet, many of you may have seen. We have a tweet, totally amazed by the mass I attended this morning at St. Joseph's in Greenwich Village. Greenwich. Greenwich Village. Not Greenwich. A queue out the door, standing room only, full of young people. I've never seen a mass with this many young people. Average age was probably mid to late 20s. Father Jonah and the team are crushing it. The revival of Catholicism, very real. And then tons of people were quote tweeting it, saying the same things.

Some are even calling this the hottest club in New York City. This is a, I mean. I don't even know if I've seen that. Is this after Mass? It looks like they're outside of Mass. It's wild. People are saying single parish run by Dominican friars.

Shout out to Dominicans. No surprise there. Dominican Day. And I will say, too, just in my own personal experience, went to a different church for Palm Sunday, and it was same deal. Packed, packed. And usually you see that for Easter. Like, they always make the joke. Listen.

Welcome in the creasters, okay? Show them a good time. Don't make fun of them. Don't get mad about the parking spots being taken. Listen, come back. You welcome them in. You show them the ropes. Awesome. Exactly. But for Palm Sunday, I was even surprised myself how packed this church was, even more packed than it usually is. And we had a joke because, listen, the parking situation of this church, I feel like it's worse than a Costco parking lot. So, you park, and it's impossible to get out of.

So, I just, like, my friend was parked not far from me. I was like, listen, let's just get a campfire grill and a griddle or something and just make pancakes. Just have a good time. Wait until the parking lot clears out, and then we can leave, because it's just going to take that much time anyway. But I was foiled because the next mass was filling up, too. So, it was almost like you're in the matrix. So, I was happy about all of this, of course, but it was insane.

Like, the parking's out of control. So, I have been seeing just record numbers of people coming into the church, lots of excitement, and maybe it is. Honestly, I don't want to understate what we're seeing right now in the Middle East, and this profound, seemingly Christian revival, Catholic revival. Everyone likes to debate about it. I do feel like, just on an anecdotal level, I feel like a really good spirit, especially with lifelong Catholics too. Something feels different this year. Well, I mean, even people in my extended family that I didn't think they were super Yeah, I was on retreat this weekend, praise God.

It was a silent retreat, but on the last meal, everyone can talk together, and so I was with 30 women from all over New England. This was just parishes in Boston, New Hampshire, upstate New York, and every woman to a tee was like, my parish this year, we've got like... 30, 40, 50% more adult converts coming in. Like, we've never seen anything like this in our lifetime, and like, to your point, Josh, one woman, she said her son, who's in his mid-30s, he had left the church forever and ever, and then like a year ago, he has a couple kids, a year ago, he starts being like, oh yeah, I went to mass like once a month, and then this year, it's like every month, and this year, he's like, I'm coming for Easter, we're going to go to mass, and she's like, it's just, it's wonderful.

Whatever's happening is very beautiful, and I'm so here for it. I love the Easter vigil. I love it. You're saying it was a silent retreat for women? It was, Josh. What are you going to say, Josh? Oh, Josh. No. And you had to be silent except for the last meal, right? Yeah. I'm just, the pent-up energy from that meal would just have been gust of wind. That's a classic Joshism right there. Yep, it's true. He's not wrong. But I've been to a silent retreat, and then we're all like.

You gave him the head nod, yeah, like the cheap way. In fact, we didn't even know it was a silent retreat until halfway through. We just didn't talk. But final shout out, Father Jonah Teller is apparently the big draw there. Over 100 people in the OCIS class, graduate of the University of Dallas. Congratulations. Fun fact, he is also in the Hillbilly Thomas band. Oh, is he really? Yeah. Shout out. Shout out.

Wow, Hillbilly Thomas takeover. I love him. Appalachia up. Okay, Josh, we had an article. I want to keep people updated on the pro-life front here. We have a report coming from the Trump administration. They are extending Biden-era Planned Parenthood funding another year. Many people bewildered, upset, betrayed. We have been on record defending the Trump administration's efforts in the HHS. Tom McCluskey had a pretty scathing A critique of this? Can we just say what is going on? I am not sure.

Yeah, I mean, the failure for the Trump administration to, because, you know, and Trump won, they put the Protect Life Act, preventing HHS funding, you know, under Title 10 to go to Planned Parenthood or organizations that support, you know, and, you know, kill babies. And then, obviously, Biden came in and got rid of it. And then Trump came in and didn't put the Protect Life Act in, you know, right when he got into office, you know, and we're like, okay, that's kind of, let's get, we're getting to, we're returning over to another year, and they just haven't done this Protect Life Act, and it's like, well.

There was not really any bad political fallout, so it is very frustrating, very disappointing. We do not understand why the Trump administration is refusing to do this. There is not going to be a big political backlash. I mean, of course, the Democrats will squawk, but I do not really have a good answer for this, and I do not think there is a good answer for it, frankly.

Are we kind of in, like, the cheap date period, where there's no leverage in... They're just going to give up on pro-life causes. There is leverage. I mean, the thing is, this opens up an opportunity. So, again, this is where ambition can be a helpful thing. So, J.D. Vance will have to defend this, and it's like, if you want to be the standard bearer for the party in 2028, this is your opportunity to shine. You need to nudge the president and say, we need to fix this.

We need to do this. And if not, you're opening up an opportunity. For somebody like a Josh Haley to say, this is ridiculous. We have had too much backsliding. We need to reaffirm what we are doing, and the Trump administration was awesome on this in the first term. We just want that implemented again. It could be done in a stroke of a pen.

Sure could. Speaking of J.D. Vance. Josh, I want to get your political backrooms conversation. He went on many podcasts saying that the last thing we were going to do is go to war in Iran, kind of known in the circles of the anti-interventionist camp as the champ, and so now as the vice president, in a tough position because even if he does privately disagree, he kind of needs to go along. The vice president doesn't really have a lot of power. I've been seeing leaks from different camps, like he let Benjamin Netanyahu have it over the phone.

You know, he's been critical of this and that. Nothing publicly from him for the 2028 conversation. I think that leak was intentional, you know. Yeah. Right, right, right. So, well, I guess, what do you think? That wasn't an accident. Like, J.D. Vance was happy to see that news headline. Well, right. So, I'm like, okay, I guess, one, do you think it'll be effective enough, and how do you see him navigating being tied to very unpopular Trump actions? Like, you just mentioned the abortion thing.

He's tied to that now. Iran, he's tied to that now. What do you think's going on, I guess, in the back rooms? I know it's conjectured, but I'm just curious. Well, there does become a point where the, you know, the vice president has to, you know. Usually, what ends up happening is the Vice President, when he starts running for President himself, starts to say, you know, I like all these good things that the President did, and some of these other things I am not a big fan of, and I would have done differently.

And that is just sort of natural in the course of a campaign or whatever. And so, I mean, the Iran thing, you know, again, I just know that he is working on… On the inside, I'd try to, you know, wrap this up as fast as possible. I hope that Donald Trump is doing the same. You know, on this Protect Life stuff, yeah, I mean, J.D. Vance just announced, you know, or through his agent or whatever, that he's got a new book coming out on his conversion to the Catholic Church.

Okay, good. Let's talk about how your faith can infuse what we're doing. And, you know, that's only going to up the ante on questions like this. Hey, are you going to do a Protect Life Act, or are you just going to, you know, let, because if you don't fight for these things, then the machinery of the bureaucracy funnels money to our enemies. I mean, just from A GOP, like the Trump era, like the beauty and genius of Trump was understanding, hey, the left is using all the levers of power and the money and everything to try to enrich their friends.

To combat us. And so, even people who aren't really give a rip, let's say, on abortion and our poor lifestyle, like, whatever, I don't care. Just on that level, Planned Parenthood is doing everything they can, not only to kill babies, which is the worst thing, obviously, but they're also trying to elect Democrats at every level of government. So, why would you enrich them?

Why would you allow millions of dollars to flow into their coffers? Just on a pure Machiavellian standpoint, you should be in favor of a Protect Life Act, you know? Makes sense. The questions will only increase if they don't get this thing done. I've seen rumors that he might just not run in 2028 because he's having a kid, and then he can separate himself from the Trump stuff more and then run again. Do you think that's a possibility, or he just wouldn't do it?

The amount, I mean, if he decided, I would be completely stunned. I would be floored. I mean, if he didn't run. Right. To go out of the public eye and then try to come back in, like the momentum you lose, just, it would make no sense. It's not just that. It would be that he would be so convinced that he could not, that a Republican is not going to win in 28. That's what that would mean. I certainly don't think, because the thing is, even if, let's say, the Republican presidential candidate in 2028 will have, let's say, a 45% chance of winning.

That is a very good chance, actually. It is not like 20. It is not like 1 in 3. So, if your chances of winning, given the environment might be a little bit more sour, is 45%, but your chances of getting the nomination are 75%. I mean, you really would just have to completely trip all over yourself not to get it.

I just can't imagine that he would not run. Do you think historically it's a disadvantage to be the vice president if you want to run for president? No, of course. It's very much an advantage. Even though there's been many unsuccessful vice presidential candidates running for president? There have been ones that have been unsuccessful, but obviously George H.W. Bush was able to ride two terms of Reagan into the White House, and other vice presidents.

I guess Joe Biden, yeah. Joe Biden would have won in 2016 if the party hadn't been stupid and said, we need to nominate a woman now. You really think he would have? You think he would have beat Trump? Oh, wow, that's interesting. I have no doubt he would have won in 2016. No doubt. Interesting. He still had all his faculty. Hillary Clinton is much more unpopular, and she still almost won. Yeah. No, I very much think that would have been the case.

Interesting. Here is the thing. It is hard for a party to win the White House three times in a row. It is really hard. So, that is the disadvantage, but being vice president is the best chance you have of making that third term.

Now, in this case, it won't be three terms in a row because there is the break with Trump. So, we will see. Okay. Keep an eye out. I got some questions for us, okay? All right, let's do it. This one's an interesting one. This is for all three of you, especially Erika, though. This has happened once recently, but it could happen again. I know another mom in town with a baby, so I brought my boy, only a few months older than this other baby, over for a play date.

At the house, the baby had a four-year-old sister. I was chatting with the mom, who casually said, my husband is taking estrogen and is transitioning to being a woman. Even more casually than saying that, this mom went on to say that the four-year-old went to therapy earlier that day and was fine, so the therapist said that the girl doesn't need therapy. I got ready to leave the house with my kid when I heard that there was a party later that day to celebrate the transition.

If you were at a house for one of your kid's friends and the mom said that her partner is taking hormones to transition, what would you do? How would you approach this situation? This was the first play date, but I can imagine this would be even harder if my child was a longtime friend with a kid who will soon have two moms. I think that's a really extreme version of the question, and I think totally worth answering. But the second would be, how do you approach...

How do you square free-range parenting and just letting your kids do their thing, but then also, how particular are you about the people that your children hang out with? Is that something that make you guilty? Is that something you're really intentional about? I'm actually just curious myself, because I've heard a lot of people in various situations where people have different norms or beliefs or whatever that then they're like, okay, I can't have my kids around them. So, I'd say just go where you want to go, Erika.

Yeah, so Josh is like, I'm going to tap out. So, to go to the first question, so this particular situation, the great news is your children are not friends yet. You have babies. So, it will not be a deprivation or confusing to your month's old baby if you say, this is not a friendship we are going to pursue at this point. That being said, God has put this into your life, who clearly, if you're sharing things like your husband sexually transitioning with a perfect stranger who's at your house for the first time, there is some deep wound there that she's actually like, I need to talk about this.

So what I would do is say, we're going to pack the babies away, and you and I are going to go out for coffee, and I'm just going to listen to you. And I will listen to you talk, but you don't even have to involve the children, but don't abandon the woman. Amen to that. Great advice. Thank you. There to that particular, and this has happened to me, not this particular situation like that extreme, but that seems to be where God would, your child is not a missionary, you are.

Then, in terms of Tom's more sort of general question, I think that there's two sorts of levels of acquaintanceship or friendship, whatever you want to call it, with kids. So, there are those friendships that you truly cultivate because your families have a shared vision, a shared understanding of what is valuable in life, what is true and good in a family, what are the things that our families are. Excited about, and most importantly, what is the point of life, which is pursuing virtue and seeking our end in God himself in heaven, right?

Those are the deep friendships that we as parents look for opportunities to cultivate, and not every Catholic family is going to, like, their kids aren't going to gel just because they have the same worldview or the same religion. So, it's a rare thing to find families in the parish where your kids gel, the parents gel. But when you find them, you don't let them go. Then, on the other level, there's acquaintanceships in neighborhoods, and this happens a lot. If you live in a suburban setting, like here in Hamden, Connecticut, our road, there's only five or six kids besides our seven on the street, but the opportunity is there to play around.

I have friends who live in a more urban setting, and so if there's neighborhood play, your kids are going to come in contact with kids whose families have two mommies, or they have F-Trump signs in the front yard. Spring Glen Hampton, I'm talking to you. And so, this happens naturally where you bump into people. Those aren't friendships where I'm going to cultivate deep experiences together and encourage it, but I would say if your kids bump into them around the neighborhood playing capture the flag or whatever, if that happens anywhere anymore, not sure it does very often, then that would be an opportunity for you as a family to then come home at night after the game.

You're not going to have sleepovers at each other's houses. You're not going to go to events together. But maybe you'll talk about, you know, how's Johnny doing? And like, we pray for Johnny. Johnny's two mommies. They don't know about Jesus, so we're going to pray for Johnny. We're going to pray for the mommies and that. So, I would say, like, we have levels of friendship, and you absolutely, though, need to be prudent and wise about where the deep friendships are being cultivated.

That was long. That was like a deep episode. I can't do better than that. That was like my deep episode for next week. I can't do any better than that. Josh, do you want to do anything? I mean, that was pretty good. I mean, I live in a pretty rural area, so I haven't seen too many two-mommy situations. It's a pretty conservative area I live in, but, you know, we're... We don't do sleepovers. We don't do that kind of stuff, and we're very particular about it.

We make sure. We tell the kids, we love you a lot, and we know you're trying to find your identity and your place in the world and different friends and acquaintances, but we are concerned about making sure that you help me make the right decisions. We're not trying to live your life for you, but we want to make sure.

You know, that someone isn't dragging you down or whatever, but, and I totally agree that kids aren't the evangelists. You know, you're not trying to convert the whole world, but, you know, maybe I'll have them hand out some Luke business cards, you know.

Yeah, that is an interesting, so, Erika, what you said of, There's naturally situations that are going to arise, like in the neighborhood or wherever, where you're not in complete control, and that's not the deep friendship level. But I like that you're like, okay, they come back, and there's an open line of communication between the kid and the parent. Yeah, you've got to talk to your kids about what they're doing in the neighborhood. And it's kind of nice, because I feel like the kids, especially at a younger age, they can't really keep anything silent anyway.

Like, they're telling you about what they ate that day. I'm just thinking of my three-year-old, like, it's just constant talk all the time. So, I'm sure it'll come out naturally, but. Don't worry about it. As boys get older, they talk less.

Yeah, I believe that, but it's an opportunity. How's your day? Fine. What did you do? Nothing. Nothing. It kind of makes me sad. I'm like, sometimes, you know, the boy talks a lot, but then you're like, oh, I'll be sad when that day goes. But anyway, good opportunity for the open line of communication to discuss the things that they saw, and then to provide the perspective. And then there's an intimacy that breeds of that, of like, we're just talking about the real things, you know?

Yeah. Josh, I had a question for you. We kind of talked about it a little bit off-slack, but you went to visit Harmel Academy of the Trades. That is in Grand Rapids, right? That is right. I absolutely loved it. I brought two of my three boys there with them, and it is one of those things where I think it is a really great opportunity. It is a Catholic thing, and they are actually very devout. I went to their Adoration Chapel.

They pray the evening prayers together. They live in community, and then they learn. They spend some of their time, like half their time, working in the workforce, and then the other half of it, they are learning a trade, whether it is welding, or CNC, or working on automotive. So, there is all this kind of stuff. The whole thing is, I went with my friend, and he brought his boys. And I just like, okay, I'm not, you know, it's that fine line.

You hope that over time, like, you know, the pendulum swinging, you know, like, so my parent, you know, like, the boomers had to deal with parents that were maybe a little bit, you know, pushy, pushy with how their kids should, you know, what jobs they should do or what they should, you know, and so the boomers snap back and then, you know, go your own way. And so that my parents then, total boomers, they're like, whatever you want, man, whatever you want.

I'm like, okay, I would like some of that. Tell me what to do, yeah. They're like, no, no, no, you got to pick for yourself. Like, thank you. So, I try to think, like, you know, I don't want to be like the parents to the boomers where they're being overly oppressive and pushing too much so that you get a snapback, but I also don't want to be like so hands-off that I don't care. So, I was just like, hey, this seems like this might be a good opportunity, but I didn't want to push them too much.

And they loved it. They couldn't get enough about it. They loved seeing all this stuff. They think it's so cool that the priest is the teacher for the welding, you know, and they just think they loved every bit about it. My brother, my one son wants to do the CNC stuff, and the other one wants to do automotive or whatever, but like, it just, they loved it. And then, and they also love the fact that at the end of the year, They have a tradition where the students, when they wrap up their academic year, they put a big go-kart race, and they make their own go-karts, and they race them around, and they have five balloons tied to the back of the go-kart, and people are shooting paintball at the balloons, and if the balloons pop, you have to pull over into the pit and put more balloons on it.

This is an all-boys school? Is this all-boys? Yeah, yeah. Not a female silent retreat, but better, yeah. So, it was pretty cool stuff. That's great. Two thumbs up. Yeah, Hormel Academy of the Trade, sick. Speaking of, I spent a day with a plumber. That was pretty cool for Time Across America. I just posted that one.

Trades, man. I was talking to Josh. You were sending the pictures, and I was like, this has just got to be crack to a young boy. The welding, it's hands-on. You see, the instructor was the most masculine dude I've ever seen. I'm like, you just look at that dude, and you're like, I want to be that one day. That's easy. And then, I was like, dude, you're potentially setting him up to be- He is the Chad of all Chads. Hands-on, masculine.

I was like, dude, this is just easy sell. So, anyway, but then, yeah, I had an experience with a local plumber here. He started his own business and has grown it, and I think, especially with all the AI data center talk and the infrastructure talk, the energy talk, it's going to require a lot of young boys that can work with their hands.

Seems like the opportunities coming up are certainly... Well, and there's also, you know, a shout-out. I'm here in the city of Steubenville, which, of course, is mostly known for Franciscan University Grade School, and we're in their green today. But also, they have St. Joseph the Worker, which is not affiliated with Franciscan, but it's also a very devout Catholic school based on the trades, and so that's another opportunity for young men to consider that. Yeah. It's awesome. Okay, I'll go final. Well, other than Erika.

So, your boy, Tim Carney, Josh, had some thoughts, and I would like to hear yours as well. So, someone was doing some numbers on the explosion of Christianity, and so we have a chart here. There were maybe 1,000 Christians at Jesus' death. In 100 AD, there were still only about 10,000 Christians. 100 years later, it was still less than 1% of the Roman Empire. And then 100 years later, there were over 6 million Christians, more than 10% of the population. Go forward another 150 years, there are over 30 million Christians.

It is the official state religion of the Roman Empire. It is one of the most stunning transformations in world history, and yet there is wide... Disagreement on why this occurred. I don't think anyone disputes the numbers, but everyone has different reasons for it. Tim Carney, very focused on the natal element, said, I've come to believe that Christianity was a bit anti-natal compared to the norms of the day.

One, no premarital sex. Two, monogamous marriage. Three, wife had to consent to marriage. Four, father had a duty to stick around and care for his children. Today, Christianity is very pronatal. One, sacrificing for others is a virtue. Two, marriage is a standard part of growing up. Three, sex, love, marriage, and baby-making are bound together. Four, material comfort is not the highest good. And five, humans are fundamentally good, though fallen. I am not sure if you had any thoughts off the top of your head on this explosion of Christianity.

Yeah, so, I mean, in the Roman Empire, I mean, the thing, you know, after a while, through the holiness of many Christian women, you know, we hear about the stories of Lucy and Agnes and Agatha. So, after a while, the men that wanted to get married, the Christian women were like, well, here is the deal, and precisely what Tim was saying, that we have no sex until marriage, and then once we are married, we have to accept the babies, we have to raise them, you have to stick around, and so very virtuous women.

You know, men were like, well, if I really want a good wife, you know, I am going to have to go along with this Christian stuff for a while. And so, women were really leading the way. Today, it looks like amongst people in their 20s that there is a lot of women that have kind of gone astray, and men are leading, that men in their 20s are going to church on a higher rate than women.

It is astounding, and it is a good sign, I think. The leading indicator, if you ask me. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, and again, like, it is also the case that, you know, in the Roman Empire, like, you know, if you gave birth to a baby and you didn't want it, you just leave it out and let it die. And so, the Christians would come by, and they would scoop up these babies, and they would raise them as their own.

That is one way to add to the ranks. That is, absolutely. Erika, you read the book Dominion by Tom Holland, not just by an actor, but did it touch on this at all? I feel like a lot of people are talking about that book these days. I was curious. Yeah, yeah. The Incredible Explosion and Enduring Success of Christianity.

The book is really, really good, but he definitely comes at it from a sort of academic, scholarly, historical. Critical perspective. So, he's giving very human reasons, which are all true. So, you know, talking about this sort of pro-family, which leads eventually to more people, talking about the service, the undeniable virtue of Christians as they win people over, even as they're being slaughtered by pagan Romans, the Romans are like, gosh, these guys are kind of cool, you know, chop off their heads, maybe I'll turn into one.

And so... His explanation of the rise of Christianity, like I said, it doesn't take into account the fact that, oh, Jesus was God, and there's something truly transformative about receiving. The revelation of Jesus Christ that redounds into all of our human aspects of our lives, economically, sociologically, familially. But also, there's that added something more, which is, of course, the work of the Holy Spirit in history. This man whose death and resurrection we're about to celebrate was also God. Yeah, and I was struck so much.

By this tomorrow, I got to continue our conversation with Bob Rucker, the Shroud investigator, a nuclear physicist who applied all his scientific knowledge to the Shroud, and I was struck so much in our conversation, which everyone can watch on The Deep tomorrow for Holy Week, that there is nothing in history like what happened in that tomb, and there is nothing in human history like what happened with the rise of the church.

Yeah, those are my thoughts. Fire me up. Fire me up. It's a great conversation. I love when you preempt the chat, because it was like, strange to attempt a materialistic demographic explanation. For it's clearly the work of the Holy Spirit, it can be both ends. Come on, guys, like, nail that, Erika. Yeah, and it always is a both end, right? Because we are both spiritual and physical creatures, so it's always going to be a both end, for sure. But, yeah, I think Tom Holland was, you know, he himself is on a journey.

And I think he's heading in the right direction. Love that guy. Okay, on to the twilight zone. Josh, what do you got? Well, this is truly a twilight zone thing, and this is such a sad case. The photo, in fact, on this tweet is just about perfect. You see this young woman's face, and I don't know how your heart can't break. Now, her name is Noella. Her parents got divorced. The state took, this is in Spain, the state took custody from the parents.

She was sent to a youth center at age 13, tragically got raped by three migrants there. The suspects did not face any criminal charges. She tries to kill herself. She ends up paralyzed. The state then decides to help her by euthanizing her at age 25, against the wishes of her family, and to me, like, this is the perfect embodiment of just about everything that is wrong with Western civilization. You know, the horrible thing about divorce, the state taking custody of a child, like, why?

Sending her to a youth center, like, and then migrants coming into the country, and Like, those three migrants should have been executed. They should have faced justice, you know, and she needed the help. We, I mean, it's Spain, okay? So, we're not Spaniards. I get this, but the fact is, as a culture, Western civilization, we failed this woman.

We can pretend like this kind of stuff isn't going to be America's future in the year 2040, but we need to turn stuff around, because we are doing a lot of these same horrible things here. So, I pray for her. I hope that this woman is welcomed into the loving arms of Jesus Christ, and will spend the rest of eternity in peace that she did not receive on earth. Do you, sorry, it's a bit of a tangent, but people are giving Bishop Barron a hard time because of a reflection he had about Judas.

So, Judas taking his own life and the Bible teaching that he's in hell. And then I think Bishop Barron basically suggested he might not be in hell because we don't know judgment, and that might be the one clear case of someone being in hell.

Well, right. I mean, even Teresa of Avila prayed for Judas and hoped that, you know, there would be, you know, that split second as, you know, could Jesus Christ still save Judas at the very last split second? You know, of course, it was offered. You know, could he have rejected it? You know, and so a lot of trads Get really angry with people who promote what this empty, they call it the empty hell theory. Right. The thing is, a lot of this discussion gets really kind of crazy.

Like, I would think everyone should aspire for an empty hell. Like, just be Lucifer and his demons, and no humans ever get there, because at the last split second, somehow... But I agree with the triads in one sense, that you have to be careful in speaking about the desire and aspiration for an empty hell, that you don't all slip into this thing like, whatever, it doesn't matter. I don't think that... Yeah, therefore, there is no hell right now. I don't think Bishop Barron does that.

But you've got to be careful, because the thing is, there is justice in the afterlife. And the whole point of, as we get into this Holy Week... I am always very moved by Dismas just recognizing how wretched of a soul he is and how he deserves everything that's coming his way.

And the other thief is mocking Jesus, and Dismas is like, dude, shut up. We earned this. We deserve this. You need to shut up. And Jesus, just remember me. That is all I am asking. And he is like, dude, you are going to be with me in paradise. Boom. That is amazing. That is awesome. But the thing to remember about that story, yes, the critical thing about Dismas is that at that last moment, you can still reach for Christ, and he will offer you a hand, and he will bring you up into paradise.

You might have a long purgatory, but you can do it. But the problem that people need to remember about it is, it might sound like the greatest conversion story, deathbed conversion, and all that kind of stuff, but sin makes you stupid.

And if you're like, oh, I got time. I can do my dismal conversion later. You never know. You might die in an accident. You never know, and the thing is... The St. Augustine approach? Yeah, the Charlemagne approach. For anyone who thinks that they're beyond saving, Dr. of the Church, St. Augustine, lived with a concubine for 31 years. Yeah, a long time. Had a kid. Sorry, not for 31 years, until he was 31, 32. And then came all around, but basically the approach of like, I'll put it off, I'll put it off, I'll put it off, I'll put it off.

And then also the story of good moms. Good moms to save the world. Most powerful force in the world are moms and grandmas praying for your children. Love it. I had one, sorry, Eric, before I do yours, I had one reflection because Joshua was sharing a reflection on the good thief on the cross. I got... A reflection from Cardinal Ratzinger on Good Friday in 2005.

Pilate is not utterly evil. He knows that the condemned man is innocent, and he looks for a way to free him. But his heart is divided, and in the end, he lets his own position, his own self-interest, prevail over what is right.

Nor are the men who are shouting and demanding the death of Jesus utterly evil. Many of them, on the day of Pentecost, will feel cut to the heart when Peter will say to them, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But at that moment, they are caught up in the crowd. They are shouting because everyone else is shouting, and they are shouting the same thing that everyone else is shouting.

And in this way, justice is trampled underfoot by weakness, cowardice, and fear of the diktat of the ruling mindset. The quiet voice of conscience Evil draws its power from indecision and concern from what other people think. That last sentence, so. That's great.

Classic Ratzinger. Drop that in the chat. That was great. Rottweiler. Yeah. Yeah, if you ever need like a stiff drink, just go read Benedict's, any of Benedict's old stuff. He's so good at being precise in language in a way that is not boring.

He just had, in my limited experience reading him, he just had such a gift for that, a gift in writing. Yeah. He was a great professor. Oh, man. Awesome. Okay, Erika. Alright, so the one silver lining of the Iran war could be that we are looking at the end of the net zero regime of the green energy agenda in Europe. We got the news. This actually, people were like, oh my gosh, it's just April Fool's. This actually started to have rumblings back in January.

Worst holiday ever. This is why we can't be serious people, because we're all scared it's going to be April Fool's. Yeah, no. We should totally ban April 1st. Got it. But the German government has committed to rebuilding 15 nuclear power plants. And I say rebuilding, which this headline missed, because over the last five, six years, they were blowing up their power plants because bad nuclear power. Oh, Erika, you got got.

Did I? This is Nicole's prank. No, it is not. No. Are you sure? I have January 15th, 2026, Germany's renewed interest. They shut its last of the three power plants. Despite renewable energies, nuclear power will be resurging in Germany. Maybe I did. Did I get got? I think you got got. Rats. For immediate release, Berlin, April 1st, 2026.

Okay, so in January, the German chancellor, however, so this is January 15th, Friedrich Merz told the business leaders assembled for the seven-something conference, it was a serious strategic mistake. The country will rebuild our nuclear production. So, maybe that headline in that graphic was April 1st, but Mertz is behind rebuilding this, and I would definitely be totally in support of that. Yeah. Darn it. I'm sorry, you got got.

All right. Quote, it's time for Germany to open our energy economy. The best way to do that is via free markets, lowering taxes and regulations. All right. Well. Catherine Reich, Germany's economic minister, has called for the country to rethink their opposition to nuclear power. So, there continues to be movement, grumblings, the beginnings of something.

Yeah, because you are going to get all of your energy from Iran. In Russia. Yeah, that's not good. Or us, I guess. Well, because for Germany, it's 70% of their nation's energy is imported, right? Yeah. Either from Russia or from Iran, and I think they're realizing. Some European countries are close to 100, 100%, and it comes from Qatar's LNG. I think it's Pakistan, maybe? It's like 100% Qatar LNG. So, yeah, this is, of course, disrupting just about everything. And we are People bring up, we are kind of immune from it in America, in a way, but not totally immune because that messes up with global trade that we kind of orchestrated through the dollarization of everything.

Yeah, and I think for Europe, broadly speaking, this war could be the start of, or it could jumpstart, they'd already been talking about it, because net zero is ridiculous and anti-human, and it just doesn't work, and it drives your country into third world levels of poverty.

So, France, for example, they have committed to building six new nuclear reactors over the next, what was it? Yep, over the next 10 years, and then they're considering an additional eight to that. And so, I think that it's...

Tom, you're giving me faces. Do you need my story? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. January 15th, dude. No, no, no, I agree. Sorry, the one that you sent, the Wall Street Bets one, as soon as I saw Wall Street Bets, I was like, oh, no, that was in the doc. All right. I'm making a face because the SCOTUS oral arguments are going on and Trump's sitting in the front row. Oh, gosh, Twilight Zone. The fate of the republic hinges on whether or not one specific middle-aged white woman is willing to be slightly mean to minorities.

What? Who said that? Trump? No, Trump didn't say that. That was just a meme. It appears President Trump will need Amy Coney Barrett for a chance to end birthright citizenship for illegal migrants' children. Yeah. He should not be sitting there. I'm just going to.

That's just very, it's tacky, it's stupid, terrible optics. He should be working on ending the war right now, not sitting and watching oral arguments. How do you feel about that, Josh? I don't know. I mean, what's the play? You think he's trying to intimidate him by being there?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, listen, if that's his play, and then the court, let's say, denies birthright citizenship, like... Then just say, yeah, no, I'm sorry. Enforce it with your army. Like, if you can't, as a republic, prevent Chinese businessmen from bringing women into this country to give birth just to get citizenship, if that's what this Constitution binds us to, give me a break. Because that's absolutely not what the authors of the 14th Amendment had in mind when they enshrined it in the Constitution.

So, at some point, I would love to see judges defied when they're this crazy. I mean, we just had a judge the other day saying that Trump can't, you know, make changes to the White House. Like, what are you talking about? But he's also, he's building that under the, he's building some military complex under the ballroom that he's building.

I am having such a hard time keeping up with how crazy everything is. Because he will be in the middle of an Iran briefing. He is like, I am going to commit a war crime and destroy all of the water and electricity in the country to make the citizens starve. And then it will be like, oh, and by the way, and he will hold up like a diagram of the ballroom. He is like, look at this ballroom. It is so awesome.

That is why he really is like the next George Bush, right? Because George Bush would make some statement condemning Iraq, and then he goes, now watch this, and he would sit and make a golf swing. Dude. We voted for Trump. We didn't vote for George Bush, so get back on it, buddy. Yeah, Trump is kind of like flashing some neocon tendencies that are very unfortunate. There are times to recover. There is time to recover.

Please come back. Please. Get this war over with. Do the protect life rule. Come on. Come on, brother. Yeah, it's been tough sledding. I think it's really hard to have a very... It was kind of like fun and cute when I was making fun of Democrats, but having a really erratic, crazy, you know, truth social tweeting schedule when it comes to world and the global order is not as fun, I've found out over the last couple months.

Speaking of fun, someone was having fun in Disney World. Everyone's favorite single senator, Lindsey Graham, was holding a bubble wand in Disney. And Matt Walsh, I thought, put it very nice. Well, our country is at war. Our airports are a mess. DHS is not funded, and our elections are not secure. Lindsey Graham is wandering around Disney World with a bubble wand.

This is an image that should live in infamy. This one made the rounds. There's also video of him on Space Mountain. So, this is, of course, I think a week after he said that we need to do another Iwo Jima, that we can do another Iwo Jima to take Karg Island, which is insane. One of the most vocal supporters of the war. Again, I've said it, duels in the Senate, or duels would solve a lot of this, and then people that champion wars should have to fight them, or their kids should have to fight them.

There was a time where... Kings would fight their own wars, okay? We need to get back to that. If these people had to put up their own kids or put skin in the game, like, what's the alternative? Right now, we get Disney World and, like, catty podcasters. Yeah, it's dumb. It's so unserious. This is so unserious, and then it was so bad that he had to Tim Waltz it and post a picture. Spent some time breaking clays in Edgefield County today.

Doesn't get much better than that. Oh, my God. That was right after he got the Disney World picture. It was like, all right, buddy. Like, what are we... Oh, you're full. Yeah, come on, bro. You're trying too hard. What is with the people of South Carolina? You elect this guy. I know. I don't get it. What are you doing?

Well, Trump endorsed him. It's like the Texans. Oh, my gosh. Trump endorsed him. This is the thing. Like, he's been... Yes, but I'm not going to get the... People in South Carolina are off the hook just because Trump endorsed him. I mean, like, is there no man in South Carolina who would step up to the plate and save us from this guy?

Yeah. I don't know, man. And then my bonus Twilight Zone, not bonus, is also really serious, and I think I think a lot about Holy Week. This is a concern in Syria about a lot of Easter activities having to be paused because there is a lot of violence in Christian cities in Syria at the hands of Muslims.

And I saw it to the head of the Syrian Transitional Authority, Ahmed Al-Sharah, you are leading the country to ruin. My advice is to rein in your thugs who have been trying to storm the Christian city. For the second time in the past hour, I hold you personally responsible for what is happening to Christians in Syria. That's from Father Spidron Tanis. I believe he's Orthodox. And I simultaneously see this, and then I see that he's being greeted in the UK right now, wearing a $500,000 Patek watch.

Here is Keir Starmer hosting the Syrian president. Shaking hands, doing your thing. Now, for those who may recognize him, here is a previous picture of him. He was a terrorist. He was a founding member of Al-Qaeda. He fought Americans in ISIS, bragged about it. There's a $10 million reward on his head. If you also remember, he was hanging out in the White House playing basketball with generals. He's now had a moderate rebrand. Quite the arc. He's had quite the arc, yeah.

The reason I doubt he'll be sympathetic. Is because we forced them out. Sorry, we forced out al-Assad, the previous dictator of Syria. Now, listen, and this goes with all this stuff, which is stupid. I get these critiques all the time. I'm not defending dictators. I'm not defending Iran. I'm not a member of the Ayatollah, okay? I know these are not good people. That's good. I hate that I even have to say that. Like, I'm an American, but. When you force people out, and you destabilize these countries, every single time, almost without fail, Christians end up suffering.

Happened in Iraq, happened in Afghanistan. Right now, Afghanistan is being run by another terrorist group. It is insane. Egypt, every time. And say what you want about al-Assad, but he actually defended the Christian minorities and the Druze minorities in the region, and we kind of inexplicably forced him out at the behest of Israel, which is also part of their strategic objective. And so, now we get the situation where Christians are being killed, and they can't celebrate Easter, and a former member of Al-Qaeda is being greeted in the White House as, like, some new, cool, hip leader.

And, like, I get you want to try to work with people, but... It just kind of makes this all feel kind of fake, you know, like all of the Americans that went over there and died and sacrificed their health to go and unseat these people, and then just to see this happen, and then Christians have suffered, it just really frustrates me.

So, pray for the Christians in Syria, pray for the Christians in Lebanon. Pray for the Christians worldwide. Nigeria, I saw that there was a lot of Christians being slaughtered there, too, by Muslims. I mean, being Christian has never made you safe, made you safe eternally, but I think I feel like a little bit of extra solidarity having read a lot of these news headlines with Christians around the world, so please pray for them, pray for peace, and I just wanted to end with that on Holy Week.

Hope you guys have a fantastic Holy Week. We'll be praying with you. We'll be celebrating with you. We'll end today with the daily prayer, Daily Prayer for America 250 by Cardinal Burke. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, King of Heaven and Earth, I place today my nation, the United States of America, into your heart, pierced for love of us. On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I acknowledge that true liberty is your gift, and that our lasting homeland is the eternal kingdom of God, under the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, and through the intercession of her Immaculate Heart, bless my homeland anew, purify her from sin, and guide her leaders in truth, justice, and peace, so that she may safeguard all human life, respect the integrity of marriage and the family.

And honor the practice of religion. Reign in my home and in my nation. Draw every heart into communion with you. That your truth, love, justice, and mercy, and peace may triumph in America and throughout the world. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, our lady, go to Lupe. Pray for us. Good show, gang. We will catch you next week, and if you want some good Holy Week action, we got the deep episode with Bob Rucker. It's going to be awesome. Peace.