Pope Leo on Pachamama: "Nature Is Not To Be Worshiped", AI Bishop Barron, and LOOPcast Origin Story

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. The LOOPcast, of course, brought to you by The Loop. We just got to state this up top. Josh, you're looking phenomenal. Okay, you're looking diplomatic, may I say.

What's the occasion? Well, I mean, for the audio listeners who can't see, I got a nice little lapel pin on my blazer here. It is the US and... The flags of the Vatican and the United States together, because I was able to witness the ceremonial swearing-in of Brian Birch, the new ambassador, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy Sea, and so it was an absolute blast last night in Washington, D.C., getting together. One of our friends posted that picture of Brian and his lovely wife, Sarah.

They have both sacrificed so much. To make everything work for us at CatholicVote, and we absolutely wish them the best as they're heading to Rome within the next few days. Yeah, it's getting real. And a little secret. With all the kids. A little secret, because the State Department, all these guys are having to get things ready and prepared, and when they first heard about this appointment, they're like, oh my goodness.

What are we going to do? Nine kids. Yeah. They're like freaking out. I mean, it's not like a palatial embassy, right? I mean, it's not. And Brian's like, guys, guys, I'm not. Some of my children are adults. I'm not. You know, Josh, this would make a good requirement for future Vatican ambassadors. You have to have a certain amount of kids. I think you need to have at least four. Then I would be in the running, right? I got six. There you go.

What are we doing here? I mean, it's kind of funny, though, because now you have. Two of the original three co-founders of CatholicVote, who have become appointed, and Become ambassadors, right? So, Joe Sella, who helped start CatholicVote back in 2005, he became ambassador to Fiji. Now, Brian's the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, and I'm like, okay, so what about the third guy here, right here? Hello.

I mean, you're looking diplomatic today, dare I say. Well, I do have to tell you, I couldn't stay in D.C. I'm here in Chicago, and I'm getting ready to fly today to Poland. Amazing. I love Poland. And you're going to Poland to test out Polish McDonald's orders, or what? What's the official reason for it? Listen, I might just go to the Golden Arches, but, I mean, it's always good food, Poland. I probably don't need a reprieve. Pierogies. Oh, kielbasa. Kielbasa. The OG kielbasa.

This is just CatholicVote going international, baby. It's great. CatholicVote World Domination Tour is essentially what's going on. You know, actually, a lot of this stuff I shared with, you know, Kelsey and I shared with our audience. If you become a monthly supporter of CatholicVote, you get our special insider email, so Kelsey detailed a ton of the information and stuff that was going on with the swearing in last night of Brian, and then also what I'm doing in Poland.

We'll let the LOOPcast listeners know more about that as we get going, but I just, you know what, honestly, if you want to get some of this information sooner, you want to be a true champion of the CatholicVote, man, you got to sign up. Become a champion, and you get that insider info earlier than anyone else. Rosie, toss that link in the chat here, CatholicVote.org slash champions. We'll put that in the description for people listening afterwards, too. I mean, truly the only reason we're able to operate the way that we do right now, it's completely impossible without our champions.

So, thank you to all the champions in the chat here. Absolutely. Can't say enough. And yeah, the Director of Domestic Affairs and the Director of International Affairs. Thank you for that. And Director. Just the Director. That's me. But, another reason we can do the show today, of course... I hate to play favorites, but maybe my favorite sponsorship, our first sponsorship here on the show, Charity Mobile. So, it's not more than ever, it's important to buy the way you believe and do business with companies who support what you stand for.

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And so does Josh. Okay. A block. So, here's the deal. Here's what came across. And for a little bit of summary of what we're going to cover today, we're going to talk this Amazon memo that Pope Leo sent over. He's hanging out in caves, and I just have a lot of fun Pope Leo content to start up up top. Love it. The second story we're going to get into today is a negotiations roundup. A lot of signaling, a lot of fun photo ops.

I have the hard and fast of what came out of that meeting, but we are going to indulge in some of the fun photo ops. And so, let's get started. Trump wants to go to heaven, which is a good sign. Got good news, got twilight zone. Hillsdale stirred up a little bit. Larry Arnn. Spicy. But anyway, I say we dive right into. So, Pope Leo XIV addressed the bishops of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon. Which meets, I can't even pronounce this place in Colombia, Bogota is going to be my… Dude, Bogota.

Bogota. See, I would have gotten it wrong. There you go. That's why I'm here. Come on. Bogota, you've never heard of that? Never. You know what? It's just that… What do you mean, never? Are you going to be the ambassador there? Since when were you… I mean, Bogota was mentioned in the news all the time in the 80s and 90s because of the drug trade, so… Oh, yes. Well, I was a star in my mother's eye. What do you mean? Come on, dude.

I'm 27. What are we talking about? All right. It hasn't come up much since then. I realize that you're just a pup, okay? We're getting back to it, okay? We're getting back to it. I'm going to say the only reason I was aware of the Amazon was, of course, is it Pacamama? I've heard Panchamama. Panchamama. Panchamama. That's the first pronunciation. According to Lucas, I say.

Got it. Pachamama. Pachamama. Okay, so I want to do two things here. I want to address Pope Leo's memo. Why did he send it? And then, of course, there's tons of subtext here, because everyone read this as, okay, we're finally addressing the Pachamama issue, the Amazon issue. It was much more bizarre and strange than I thought, so I'm going to toss it right to Erika. What was this memo, why was it done, and why was the subtext read that way?

As usual, the drama on the internet is not as accurately aimed as it could be, so we're going to try and tease this out. Accuracy, clarity, and a lot of joy, because this was actually really cool. So, he sent a telegram to this ecclesial conference of bishops, covers the Amazon region, not like Amazon, the package store and the bookstore. It's Amazon, like Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, so all this northern half of South America. And he sends this telegram as a way of Greeting the conference as popes are wont to do when groups of bishops get together.

The reason why this was so interesting and why it provoked such strong reactions online is, as Tom said, because of the recent history with this particular ecclesial conference. So, the telegram from the pope, I'm going to read it a little more after I give the background, but in short, it explicitly warns against falling into idolatry of nature. Which has been a problem in the Amazon region, and of course, we think of that wooden statue of the Pachamama when there was the, in the Vatican gardens with Pope Francis in, I think it was 2017, they had the little wooden statue of a pregnant woman during a tree blessing ceremony in the gardens, and here's why it was weird.

So, the last time the Amazon church made headlines was when they had the Pan-Amazonian Synod. Which concluded in 2019. It was several years long. And that Synod of Bishops, this was the era of the Synod, right? We had so many Synods. Yeah, Synod-coded, for sure. Like, all we could do out of the Vatican was have more Synods. Synods, yep. Yeah, so their recommendations coming out of the Synod that they presented to Pope Francis and that our friends at the National Catholic Reporter just were, like, fawning over, included things like, quote, here's the tamer one, new evangelical paths in the Amazon responding to urgent ecological, cultural, and ministerial needs.

They emphasized integral conversion as central to renewal. This is the word salad that we were getting used to coming out of the CDF during the Francis Pontificate. They recommended specifically ordaining married permanent deacons as priests in extreme situations and with conditions. This would be only in that geographical region. We would now ordain married deacons as priests because of the priest shortage. They also called for further study, another euphemism that we got used to during that pontificate, on allowing women to serve as deacons, and both of these measures were passed overwhelmingly.

We're talking like votes of 128 to 41 from the bishops, 137 to 30. And to clarify, this is the bishops in that region? Yes, this is the bishops in that region, and it also urged more enculturation, which in In church terms, enculturation can mean a couple of different things. There's a wide variety of enculturation. Most famously, we think of Francis Xavier, St. Francis Xavier and the early missions to Asia, where they would learn the local culture, learn the eating habits, the artistic predilections, the kind of music, and they would understand the local culture in order to be able to communicate the truth of the gospel.

What enculturation has You know, more popularly come to mean in the 20th century, especially in Central and South America, was something more along the lines of, oh, they worship the Pachamama. Oh, we have the Blessed Virgin. Oh, female figures in religions are like the same thing, and you get this sort of like syncretism going on. It is very confusing.

Pope Francis's response to the working document, in addition to having the tree blessing ceremony with the wooden Pachamama statue, which they refused to clarify whether this was the Virgin Mary or it was an idol, and of course, it ends up on the altar of a Marian church in Rome, very confusing. He said, this working document is, quote, a martyr text, un texto martyr, destined to be destroyed, because it is the point of departure. So that the Spirit is going to work in us, and now to walk with us under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will cause a new process to be born from dialogue that will begin, so that the defunct text can be resurrected in renewed spiritual form.

One of the guiding principles of the Synod was we will start processes and not seek to dominate spaces in the Amazon region. I'm just watching Josh's face glaze over right now. I feel like I'm at a Kamala Harris rally. This was very confusing. I'm going to finish it off, and then Josh, you can go.

This is the background of where Catholic commentators are coming from when they now see this telegram coming across from Leo to that same group of bishops, and they're waiting and waiting because much clarity has been requested from the Vatican on what did this all mean, what is the status of the Pan-Amazonian Synod, are we getting married priests for specific regions in the church, this seems. There was no clarity coming out of Rome for this, and I think Robert Royal really summarized it best in his response to the Amazon Synod, so I'd encourage you all to go over to the Catholic thing and look up his analysis of the Amazonian Synod from 2019, but he talks about why the Pachamama was Such a lightning rod, and sort of an icon of what was going on in the church at the time.

And he said that there's two ways that Pachamama could be interpreted. First of all, that this statue, and these idols, and this call for enculturation, and married priests in this region, were irrelevant sort of playthings. Like, it didn't really matter. It could just be trivialized as like, oh, this is just a gesture, like we let them burn their incense in the bowls, and the women dance around in their... Costumes.

Even though the indigenous representatives who were there in the Vatican were giving them reverence, and bowing, and incense, and, you know, idolatrous gestures were being made, option B was that the Vatican and Pope Francis and the priests who were there really did regard these items as sacred, and they allowed pagan symbols into sacred spaces. Those are the options. Right. Right. Two options.

There was no clarification ever. Well, please, pick door number one or door number two. Just tell us what you're doing. Just tell us. No, Josh, no. It is a process, okay? Stop dominating spaces, Josh. Yeah, wrong. Can I tell you something? Yeah, sure. With the internet and the ability for people to have idle time and to share ideas, you've got this blossoming of conspiracy theories. Much more. I mean, like when I was a kid, you know, the JFK stuff, you have to make books on this stuff and beg channels to put your conspiracy theories on TV.

But with the internet, oh my God, Bush, 9-11 was an inside job. All these conspiracy theories, dude, right? I mean, tons, they flourish. Life of their own, right? Right. And I'm thinking all the conspiracy theories, the one that I think is totally undersold.

Pachamama, the pagan idol, the pagan idol brought to a sacred space in our Catholic Church in the Vatican in when? October of 2019. What happened in late 2019? Something called COVID-19. Boom. I mean, I've always thought that that was a chastisement. I mean, I always thought that was a correction from our Father.

Sorry, you said chastisement, where God allows a correction for his children. I mean, ultimately, the Chinese released COVID-19, I believe, to try to get back at Trump. Oh, okay. Listen, you're talking about conspiracy theories. So, you're like, they released it. Okay, go ahead. Okay, I do. But the good Lord intervenes in history, and there are things that God, our Heavenly Father, protects us. You know, like, through our prayers and our holiness, I mean, like, I mean, I think the prayers of the faithful prevented nuclear war in the 20th century.

Absolutely. You know, I think John Paul II's creating Russia helped all that stuff, right? Okay. But to me, I'm like, Pachamama. I mean, this is, like, absolutely, you know, like... Can we get a meme? God is rightly jealous. I say that exaggerating, but God wants us to worship him and no one else. Right. And so, he does that not because he's a sycophant, not because he's an attention-starved social media influencer. He doesn't need us. He does it because, yes, he doesn't need it.

He does it because he knows you need it. I need it. That's an important point. That's why he does this. He goes, I am here. I love you. You're my child. Don't do stupid things. I mean, look at the Old Testament. How many times his chosen people were just so stupid, and you're like, oh my gosh, how stupid can they be? Oh, the golden calf? And then you look at your own life, and you're like, oh yeah, maybe I should shut up a little bit.

But I've always thought that, like, okay, yeah, the Chinese wanted to diss Trump. They released COVID-19. And normally, a worldwide pandemic like that, maybe the good Lord would have prevented us from... You know, that ravaging, you know, scourge, but maybe he held back from his protection because of Pachamama. I've always thought that.

I mean, like, you know, Pope Francis, oh, you guys want to have lots of kids, you're like rabbits. There's a lot of things he did that make me roll my eyes and annoy me, but like the Pachamama stuff, I'm like, brother, be careful. Yeah, I was telling Pogo yesterday, that was like a red pill moment for me, where I kind of went from like, all right, I'm going to defend, defend, defend, defend, and then you see that imagery, and you're like.

Oh, like that plus the four Dubia cardinals being ignored. That was a big moment. So, I think that with that background, what we get from Leo here is really important. It's a very brief telegram. Everyone should go and read it. Very, very brief, but it is so clear and simple, and he doesn't address Pachamama. He doesn't name names. He just preaches the truth, and so I just want to read a little bit of this refreshing clarity coming from our Holy Father, and he says to the bishops, it is necessary that Jesus Christ, in whom all things are recapitulated, Be announced with clarity and immense charity among the inhabitants of the Amazon so that we may strive to give them fresh and pure, the bread of the good news and the heavenly food of the Eucharist, the only means to truly be the people of God and the body of Christ.

In this mission, we are moved by the certainty, confirmed by the history of the church, that wherever the name of Christ is preached, injustice recedes proportionally. For, as the Apostle Paul asserts, all exploitation of man by man disappears if we are able to receive one another as brothers and sisters. And then here comes the ecological Pachamama part. Within this perennial doctrine, no less evident is the right and duty to care for the home that God the Father has entrusted to us as diligent stewards, so that no one irresponsibly destroys the natural goods that speak of the goodness and beauty of the Creator, nor, much less, subjects oneself to them.

as a slave or worshiper of nature, since things have been given to us in order to attain our end of praising God and thus obtaining the salvation of our souls. I mean... Okay, so here's the wisdom of our Holy Father, Pope Leo.

He is not an internet poster, okay? So, he is not just, and I do not say that disrespectfully to anyone on the internet. There are a lot of good people who explain exactly why Pachamama was wrong. We do not necessarily need our Holy Father to do this. We just need him to outline what is the correct path, and allow people who love Pope Francis to say, yes, see, that was what it was all along. We just respect nature, respect indigenous cultures.

We are not for pagan stuff. Love it. And we just be like, sure, okay, buddy. I thought that all along. Great. Whatever, bro. Get back on the team, you know? Get back on the team. That's what we need, yeah. We need everyone back on the team, yeah. And I do love that he didn't point out names and go all in. I mean, I like to do that. You don't need to dunk, right? Right, we don't need to dunk. I like to dunk.

I'm a contrarian. That is my weakness. But for the Pope to, like you said, Josh, to leave it so that here's the truth, and people who are on all sides of this issue can just... Be like, okay, we're back on the same team. We were talking about this a couple days ago, that all these little battles within the church, which are important, like Pachamama was really important. It was important.

In a way, we have to come back together onto the same team, because the battles are there, but the war is on, right? There is something much bigger going on that all Catholics, like NCR, get back on the wagon. Other NCR, stay on the wagon. You know, we have a much bigger battle going on. Let's not get distracted. That's what Leo's doing. I think it's revealing, it's going to reveal who actually...

Like, the on-the-wagon, off-the-wagon thing is interesting because it's not really up to me to judge someone's, you know, personal faith, personal convictions, but it seems like some people are kind of addicted to the scraps and the fights, and if you are not able to see this message and just move back on and look at, you know, where's your prayer life at, or, you know, what's your... Where are you? And you're more focused on just like the same kind of fights we were getting in before, and it just, that goes from pontificate to pontificate to pontificate.

It's like, well, then what are you really doing? I think it's just going to, this is going to be revealing my senses of the people that are, as you said, like, okay, we are actually all on the same team. We're all trying to attain the same thing, and then there's other people that are like, oh, no, I'm just addicted to the fights or to the attention or whatever. Well, I mean, I get that there's a... A fight that goes on, and people get sort of addicted to the fight or whatever, and as much as we want, we would endeavor for unity, but we can't just kind of say, unity, unity, unity, either, like just scream it a bunch of times, because there are fundamental differences that people have.

I mean, the sexual revolution continues to rip all through the church and through our country. We don't want to say unity, unity, unity, like we're plugging our ears and pretending there aren't differences. We have to talk about this stuff and try to work it through. So, I mean, I understand, but to me, it's like I like to have the rough and tumble debates in politics.

And the church, I think, has mostly decided a lot of these things that are still being debated publicly, like, you know, is it immoral to kill your child in the womb? I mean, yeah. Why is this a debate in the church? But again, you know, we are the church. All the people are the church, and there are people who are very confused by this, so we have to work on it. Like, that is the point, like I mentioned before. A few times before, Janet Smith, a really smart theologian, and she made the point that some of these Catholics who knock on President Trump for being wrong on IVF, but it is like she says, yeah, he is wrong, and we should push back on him.

Thankfully, he has not done anything really damaging yet, but this idea that we should hold him to a higher standard than our own bishops? Oh, Janet. She came low with the bear, you know. Interesting point, and I think the final point on, I think we talked about it a lot. There's a lot of wounds in the church, and there's a lot of...

Like, we talk about it in politics, too. Like, I think my generation, especially, fundamentally has been radicalized and will never go back to where we were before because of how we were treated during COVID, and there's been no apologies. There's been no people put in jail. There's been no accountability over, in my view, treasonous and criminal activity from our own government in terms of what they did to us, took from us, and until that happens, it's going to be hard to move forward.

In this case, Pope Leo attacking the problem, not the person, in a way within the church that you can move forward. I feel like this is a check of, like, addressing pain in a really good way that goes after the problem, not the people, and so that we can move forward. Yeah, you don't just ignore it like it never happened. Right. This, to me, checkmark, I'm really happy about this. It seems like we've addressed it now, we can keep moving forward, but at least something's been said.

Yeah. So, I don't know. And I think, too. I think that he brings it back to, it's not ignoring the problem, to bring it back to the most fundamental question, which is, who do you say that I am? And that question that confronts every Catholic.

That he understands that the connection between all the confusion with Pachamama and the married deacons, and are we going to ordain women in the Amazon, and what are these bishops doing? What do we do with heretical bishops? The first question to answer is, who do you say that I am? And some of these bishops might be like... No, I do worship nature. I also worship nature. This is not the God that... Taking it back to the most fundamental question is a healing process.

It is not that we do not address the really important other questions later on down the road, but the first question is, who do you say that I am? And I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no gods before me. Yeah. And then quick, wholesome Pope Leo content before we get into the next section. He visited the ancient Hillsdale Shrine of Our Lady of Grace. Hillsdale? No, not Hillsdale Shrines. Buddy! Hillside. Wait, he went to Hillsdale, Michigan? No, Hillside Shrine of Our Lady of Grace.

Marion Shrine dates back to the 13th century, with the church on the site dating back to the 300s. J.P. Taylor Benedict also visited there early in their reigns. Cool stuff. Erika, I know that you really love this place. I love this place. I've never been there, but I love it now, because he literally, he was hiking through caves. There's like these great... The cave footage is hysterical. I'll show you some of it. Yeah. And through the ravine leading to the cave.

It is just really based. Yeah, here it is. Look at that. He is walking through the cave. He is like a squeeze through. It is so funny. Wait, sorry. What did you say, Josh? I don't think I would have.

Yeah, I don't know if you're like AC kicked up or something, or you're a laptop fan, you're sounding underwater. But you're getting a lot of compliments in the chat. Everyone loves your tie, your outfit, your pin. Someone mentioned you looked very presidential. I mean, Josh, this could become a habit. Pogo is going to show up in a suit on Friday. Yeah, I know. One of my favorite keep you under toes random flexes is just randomly showing up in a suit and just flexing on everyone, making people feel inferior.

Speaking of showing up in a suit. Yeah. Did you see that segue? Yes, I'd be happy to take, I'm picking up what you're putting down. So, we have a lot of photo ops from the latest meetup at the White House. So, August 18th, Donald Trump met with Zelensky and several European leaders at the White House to discuss ending Russia's war in Ukraine. Much warmer. One of the main takeaways, much warmer reception. If you remember, did you even say thank you came from this?

I believe that was the birth of a lot of the JD Vance memes. He didn't wear a suit. That was a point of contention. Did not go super well. So, this is quite a change, but so brass tacks before we get into some of the fun stuff. I had a couple takeaways. Number one, focus on security guarantees for Ukraine. The discussion centered on providing Ukraine with robust security guarantees to deter future Russian aggression. As we talked about from the meeting with Putin, they talked about something that could...

resemble Article 5, which would be an attack on one considered an attack on all. And even Zelensky stated that a formal agreement potentially involving a $90 billion purchase in American weapons would be finalized within days seemed to move there. There's a shift in Trump's stance on the ceasefire. Trump moved away from his earlier insistence on a ceasefire as a prerequisite for peace talks. This aligns more closely with what Putin wanted in his position. There's a plans for a Putin. Zelensky meeting.

So, Trump announced he was arranging a bilateral meeting between Zelensky and Putin to be followed by a potential trilateral meeting, including himself. And again, main takeaway, much more cordial. So, going into a few of the photo ops here, we have Zelensky popping on a suit for the boy.

There he is. For the audio, first thing Trump said, you know, I love the suit. He kind of pats him, too. He's like, oh, I hate to be the guy. I mean, it does look like a JCPenney suit that you get for your first meeting or something. Yeah, but he should have just worn his military uniform. Anyway, okay, good. It's a virtue, though.

And then, yeah, the other one that everyone was talking about was. How fall a lot of these proud European countries have fallen at this point, this photo op of the entirety of Europe sitting across one table. And then there's Trump. I love the angle with Trump at the Oval Office. Yeah.

I've called you all here today. We're assembling a team. Oh, my goodness. And then the one that everyone really, you know. Gavin Newsom is also trying to impersonate Trump on social media, which is hilarious. Oh, we should talk about that. Yeah. So, here is Trump showing off four more years in Trump 2028 to, it looks like, Zelensky, Macron.

It's his collection of, like, Make America Great Again hats. I love it. My favorite, though, is where he had them all lined up for a photo op on the red carpet, and, like, the things are flashing, and you see Trump kind of, like, turn. To one end of the hall, and just look at that. And it's the fight, fight, fight mural at the end of the wall. It's this larger-than-life painting of Trump with the blood coming down his face and his fist raised, the iconic photo.

And he just looks at it. He's like, that was not a good day. And you can see all the European leaders kind of give it the side eye and look at it. They're just really uncomfortable. It was great. Classic Trump. Okay, so, I mean, everything about that. I mean, just power move. But every time these leaders get together, I have to confess a little bit.

of absolute celebrity crush I have on the Italian Prime Minister. Maloney? Yeah, short queen. How tall is she? She looks pretty short. I mean, she's gorgeous. I'll look it up. Literally gorgeous, obviously. And she's so funny. She's so hardcore. And like her eye rolls are absolutely legendary. Do you see they got her on the hot mic? I aspire. They got her on the hot mic. I could watch compilations of her all day long. Her eye rolls.

There's no filter. If anyone's going to give us a hard time for this, I want to get out in front of it. Basically, we're going to learn nothing from this. They're like, okay, we've got to do the wrap-up. We learn nothing from this. Nothing changed. It's all about the photo ops. It's all about... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, what are you going to say?

We didn't learn anything from this. This is what people keep... Like this... What do you expect from diplomacy, right? So... So... Trump brings Putin to Alaska, does the flyover, is basically saying, don't mess with me, brother. I've got big planes that will knock you out of the sky. Right. So, that's step one, and step two is getting Zelensky and then all the European leaders in Washington to meet and talk and stuff like that, and you're setting up the stage for the third act.

So, just because nothing's been announced yet, I mean, like... What do we expect? You have to go through the motions. You have to have these talks. Then there's going to be photo ops, naturally, and then there's discussions behind the scenes. So, it's still a negotiation. Yes, Linda, exactly. I think maybe the reason we're feeling this way as a collective is because the first meeting was such a blow-up, and that was so unusual. You mean with Zelensky? When Zelensky came to the Oval Office, and they're outright sparring and insulting each other in front of cameras in the Oval Office.

Well, I think that's because— They canceled the lunch, you know? Zelensky came in there, because he's used to going to European leaders, and then Joe Biden, and just hat in hand, I need money, do what I want, we have to stop Russia, you know, whatever. And then Trump's like, I would like this war to end. What are you doing? You're being stupid. And Zelensky wasn't used to a Western leader actually holding him accountable. Yeah, I know it sucks. You invade your country, but let us try to get some sort of path to getting this thing to be over with.

So, that first meeting that kind of blew up, he just walks in like he is wearing a t-shirt. He bought at Sears, like, whatever, give me money, and it was just very insulting. And again, is Trump egotistical? Yes, of course. But Trump looked at it mainly as, you are insulting my people coming into this White House dressed like you are a schlub. And just basically, with a condescending attitude, saying, give me money. Right. I mean, Trump's like, that's absolutely insulting to the American people.

Screw you, you know? So, that's why it blew up the first time. This time, it's like... But, you know, he got the message. Like, Zielinski got the memo from people, put on a damn jacket when you go into that White House. And, like, you know, part of it is, like, don't pretend like you're owed this money. Like, the American people don't owe you anything. We don't have any treaty. You know, we don't think it was a good thing that you got invaded, but, like, we don't, you're not, there's no Article 5 here, bro.

You're not NATO. Like, you know, treat us with respect. There was a certain amount of arrogance because you're, like, you're coming hat in hand. He couldn't even do the, like, the bare minimum of what is required when you go and beg for money. Like, the bare minimum is act respectful, wear nice, you know you're going to get it, right? We were going to give it, they had everything set up, and he couldn't even do that. So, it was like, okay, that is a bridge too far.

Yeah, and I think, too, J.D. Vance, in that meeting, like, he was kind of testing his spurs as well. Oh, yeah, the whole meme. Yeah, yeah, and then, like, Marco Rubio's in there. So, like, the whole thing was very new, but, like... Josh said. He took the memo. He got it. He showed up. He was even joking about the suit with the same reporter who called him out. He was joking about the suit. He was saying thank you to the American people.

It was a 180 in terms of tone. Lesson learned. Lesson learned. And I will say, a lot of the European leaders, at least what they're signaling, the fact that they were all together, they all said, this is the closest we've been to peace in years, I think many are saying. Hillary Clinton said, if Trump ends the war. She's going to put him up for a Nobel Peace Prize, so it's like, the vibes are hot, I'd say, internationally. It's probably the best it's felt so far.

The other clip that came out of this that I thought was cool was, yeah, I'll just play the clip here, Trump talking on it. I want to end it, you know, we're not losing American lives, we're not losing American soldiers. We're losing Russian and Ukrainian, mostly soldiers, some people as missiles hit wrong spots or get lobbed into cities like Kiev and towns. But, you know, if I can save... 7,000 people a week from being killed? I want to try and get to heaven if possible.

I am hearing I am not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons. Well, I think I saved a lot of lives with India. Planes were being shot down. That was going to be maybe a nuclear war if I let that go, and I did that through trade. That is true. You know, I got to say, I mean, he's joking or whatever, but like, I've said this before, Donald Trump has a persona of, you know, of being a very proud, brash, you know, ego New Yorker, and then every few years, he slips out of that caricature, and he says something that's actually quite humble.

He doesn't do it often, and I don't know if it's his true self or not, maybe it is, but I have to say. Thank you, Donald Trump, because having that kind of self-awareness, I do mean this. It might be. It could be. I don't know. That might honestly be the only reason. I say this, I'm in the hot seat too. I'm a sinner too. I have mercy on me, Lord, but I actually appreciate that.

I appreciate that, too. One of my favorite Protestant follows online, I think it was Megan Basham reposted it, but they said, breaking, Donald Trump denies Lutheran doctrine of sola fide. I saw that, too. Yeah, like the workspace salvation. And then, like, some Catholic dude was like, Donald Trump embraces Pelagius, and I'm like, oh, come on.

No, but this got blown up. It was very sweet to hear. It was very sweet to hear. But, um... For all the, I mean, Josh, you alluded to this, like for all you could say about Trump, even, well, it's hard to argue with results, right? Because I, oh my gosh.

You're good, you're bad. You're good, okay. You're good now. Speak the truth. I still need to figure this out. I'll draw my point here. Even if you're just looking at the tape, the record, how many wars that he's ended? Look, not a perfect record, but if I were to change that in rhetoric from, say, what I hear from Mitch McConnell on continuing the war or Lindsey Graham.

Total warmonger. Exactly. I think that from all that I've read about him, and I think this is genuinely true, he genuinely does have an aversion to war and death in a way that I have not seen at least publicly or reported on from, say, Obama or from Bush. Or from Biden, especially. No, certainly not.

And I actually think that it's closer in tone to what we should be expecting in general. And again, I have my issues with how he's conducting what's going on in Gaza right now. Of course, he's not perfect. But if you were to look at the tape and everything that is going on, I actually genuinely think that's closer to the tone that you should be reaching as the leader of America.

Then say what we've heard from some of our senators, some of our previous presidents, and the just general disregard. War at all costs. We need to continue the empty posturing that just continues throwing people, not Americans, by the way, and he brought this up, not Americans, into the meat grinder as if somehow that benefits America. It's still one of the most insidious things I've ever heard out loud from a politician. Mitch McConnell said it. This is going to benefit us, right?

It's going to benefit our contractors if we continue this thing. And so, I actually say what you want about authenticity. This is how you should be speaking about war. In foreign conflicts. So, I hope it extends to all of these foreign conflicts. You know, even Bill Maher gave credit to Trump for that. Like, he says, I really do think he hates war. I mean, I really do. Like, yeah. You're right. Yeah. So, it's good news. Actually, speaking of, on to good news.

That's good news. That's me. I'm up. So, I'm going to continue my Pope Leo highlights of the day. I just loved this exchange. Pope Leo, he's apparently responding to personal letters in this magazine called Piazza San Pietro, and there's personal papal correspondence, and this was an initiative that actually Pope Francis began, God bless him, and he's responding directly to letters. So, the woman who wrote in this last week, she She's a mother. She has three daughters. She's raising them with her husband, and she talked to the Pope about, I try to have a prayer life.

I love the gospel. We're trying to raise our daughters, and it's really, really hard to have grace in a busy life when you have three small children, and I was just like, I feel seen. So, she wrote to him, she wrote, Holy Father, my chaotic life, my hectic pace, do not help me admire the grace that surrounds me. I pray every day the Lord will enlighten me, that I may be a guide for my girls, and I ask myself how the Virgin Mary raised the Lord, but I feel temptations taking over.

Does this mean my faith is really not that strong? Is it not solid enough to avoid these distractions and intrusions? So, the Pope responds to her. He says, Your enthusiasm of faith and the truth of your heart, which you describe without concealing the difficulties and risks. Take care of the spiritual treasure of yours, which will always be protected by God's love.

When we face the temptations that sometimes arise, precisely when we live with greater gratitude and coherence, the strength of the grace of the Father who gives life, of the Son who receives it, and of the Holy Spirit who shares it, it will never leave us, is the gist of it. And just really comforting, and again, I love that the Pope is responding directly to someone who is living very much my own station of life. I'm sure we'll get to you guys.

I hope so, because if I sound dumb on this, I slept for like two hours last night. I don't know what's going on. My toddlers don't sleep. We should talk after. Yeah, I needed that today. You are in the sleep deprivation stage, like two small children, a third, it's going to really push you to the edge, and then at four, it starts to be like, oh, there's another one, right? Oh, man. Yeah. What did Jim Gaffigan say? You know, when you have three kids, and then when you have a fourth, it's like...

Somebody told me a life preserver, and they throw you another baby. Yeah. Okay, thanks. And after that, it's just like, I'm just going to think, yeah. No, but I slept more with my fourth baby than I did with all the first three.

Yeah, combined, probably. By the way, in all these little tips and tricks that moms and dads give you, there's, I mean, there's no universal rule anyway, so. No. We are talking about unique human beings, you know. Yeah, I wish there was sometimes.

Josh. Well, I just wanted, I mean, we talked about this at the top of the show, but I did want to show, this is so funny, this is, this is the, so there's the feminine genius, there's the masculine genius, there's the things that women, like, why don't they think of this stuff? And there's things that, where guys were like. We don't think of this stuff, okay?

So, one of these days, I'm looking through, I'm like, I should get a photo of the three co-founders of Catholic Photo. Like, nowhere. In 20 years, there's no photo of the three of us. That is so on-brand for how we have operated for so long. So on-brand. I'm like, this is crazy. So, at the swearing-in ceremony last night, and I don't even have a photo of Brian and I, just Brian and I. Oh my gosh. So, when I'm coming up to the line for the photo line.

Which is right next to the bar, which is a very Catholic thing. I'm about to say, Sarah, I want to get a photo of you and Brian, like everyone's doing here tonight, but I also want to have a photo, just Brian and I. I literally don't have one. She's like, oh my gosh, yes, absolutely.

And then Joe Sella, the other co-founder of Catholic Votes. So, the three of us, we got a photo. I posted it this morning here on X. I think it's... You can show it in the chat if you want to. Oh, is that on your ex-account? Yeah, it's on my ex-account.

And, of course, I'm not wearing this tie, gals. I'm wearing a different tie. I've got to mix it up a little bit. I'm wearing a CV blue-colored tie, and I'm just going to give you a little flavor. I mean, I really mean this. You say it's so on-brand.

These are like three barbecued dads who just love their families, love their kids. I mean, I joke about bragging a lot, but it didn't ever occur to us. We need to have a photo of all of us. Let's promote ourselves. We don't care about ourselves. We just want to do the mission. Which was unbelievably frustrating to a marketing department. I suppose so. I suppose so. I mean, Brian, when he got nominated to be the ambassador to the Vatican, his profile picture on X was a bald eagle.

Yeah, all he's done is update it to American flag, so, I mean, it's not like, I mean, brother. Oh, my gosh. I didn't know what Joe Sella looked like. I'd never seen him. Yeah. He was just, he was this amorphous third family that we kind of heard about when I first joined on. Never saw a picture of him until today. So, there you go. I mean, you know, again, I do think it speaks to, like, in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

There were a lot of Christian organizations like Jerry Falwell and all these guys, Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, and in order to get media attention, to get on CNN, to get in the New York Times, they would have to promote the founder. A personality, right. Yeah, promote a personality that would embody sort of like these ideas. And I'm not like, look, it was sort of what you had to do, and maybe they weren't opposed to it either. I'm not trying to say that, but...

When we started this in 2005, we just said, Who cares about us? What we care about is the mission, and so we weren't into promoting the three of us. I mean, who cares? I mean, it just doesn't even matter, and I'll give you just a hint of what I mean by this humility. So, Brian, of course, is so thankful to all the people that came to this reception, and it was so awesome seeing people I haven't seen in 10, 15 years or whatever, and oh my gosh, how are you doing?

It was just a total backslap and good times, and then Brian, like, He grabs the mic and does these remarks and thanking everybody. He says, thank you to Sarah and his wife. Thank you to all these people. He calls out me, and everyone in the room looks at me like, okay, thanks. I am trying to do one of these things.

Oh, yeah. Hit him with it. But you couldn't see Joe, and we get done, and he's like, oh my gosh, I didn't say your name, did I? I forgot. And Joe's like, it's okay. It's no problem. And Brian felt mortified, because of course, that's the biggest fear. You've got that list of people you want to thank, and you forgot to thank Joe, and he felt so bad. And that's why I said, Brian, honestly, I really, truly believe.

One of the major reasons that this endeavor has taken root and prospered is the humility. We don't care about ourselves. It's all about the mission, and you just forgot, and Joe doesn't care. He's humble, and the three of us didn't care, and now our new president, Kelsey, you want to talk about a woman who's got humility. I mean, she's amazing. She's saintly. So, I do feel like- Spending eight years in a convent will do that to you. That'll do it. That'll do it.

You know, our Heavenly Father has blessed this organization, and we're so thankful to all the people who have contributed their time, talent, and treasure to help us out. People have donated, people have prayed, activists, volunteers, people make phone calls, write postcards. There's so much that has been done, and we all dedicate it to Our Lady.

Mother of the Americas, a patroness of the unborn, and so, hey, look. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis. Good time. Pray for us. Speaking of all that. You guys did this forever, and then I got hired during COVID, my first job out of college, and I somehow snuck through. I don't know. I only did like two interviews, and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll give you a run, and then I did like three, four different jobs up until Erika was like, I don't know if we've said this, but we were hiring a copywriter, and It is almost like, oh, there is one candidate who is far and away the best.

I was like, oh, great, what is her name? Erika Ahern. My mom's favorite co-worker, Erika Ahern, and sure enough, Erika Ahern, the one and only, I went out to her house when I was a sophomore in college because her and my mom worked together, and my mom was then mad because she could not work for CatholicVote, and then Erika comes on, she is writing copy, and then we are like, Josh, you say all these things that are interesting and funny.

Let us just get a mic in front of him. And then you're like, all right, fine. And then we get a mic in front of you and finally pull teeth to get your time. And then we're like, okay, we'll do beta testing, see what works out with. And it's like, okay, Tom, Erika, and Josh. And then, bam, LOOPcast born out of a closet. And you can go back to some of the early editions. Visually, probably not as striking as it is now.

And to say like, okay, now Brian is going to be hanging out with Pope Leo is crazy. I mean, that's just my first day at CatholicVote. We were at a retreat. He T-boned me in a mini-cart, like a go-cart, because he's so competitive. He couldn't stand that his cart was a little bit faster than mine, and I was riding pretty good. I was boxing him out. Sure enough, T-bones me. I was in play for like a week.

I was like, okay, workman's comp. Brian, I'm about to make a bag here. Now he's off to T-bone Pope Leo, if you ever raised his hand. Man, what a time to be alive. I can't wait to hear the stories. Yep. Yeah. Catch me out in Italy, hanging out with Brian, hopefully, having some gelato. That'd be sick. Yeah, Brian, if you need a ghostwriter for your autobiography, I am totally in down for that.

We'll find a room, of course. Yeah, right. I have to go, like, yeah. Well, you'll need to get some pictures of him first. Literally. Yeah, good luck with that. Tie him down. Okay. So, my good news, Josh, I was hoping I had an aspirational good news to throw to you. Yes. The Texas Democrats have returned to Texas. Well, you know why, though? See, they did a little forecasting of this, because they knew they weren't going to be able to hold out forever.

So, even like a week and a half ago, they telegraphed the condition upon which they would come back, and that was if Gavin Newsom would introduce a plan to win back a bunch of seats over in California. Which is already gerrymandered to the nth degree. So, did you also hear, Josh, that they potentially could get removed? I think 13 of them. It is working its way through to the Supreme Court, I think. No, I think just removed from their seats. They would have to run special elections.

That is what Abbott is saying. That would be interesting. Yeah, but that would be the Texas Supreme Court, because these are states. Yes, Texas Supreme Court, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll see what happens. I mean, incidentally, what people aren't talking about is, like, when you compare the gerrymandering proposals between Texas and California, both of these, you know, prospective states with their dominant political parties in each are trying to maximize their seats. But the Republicans, yes, the Republicans already have a gerrymandered Texas, and they're going to try to gerrymander it more.

But they're not going for absolute maximalist potential. The reason I say that is because there's still some seats that, you know, if they get overextended, they could lose a few. I get it. But here's what people don't realize. California, this new proposal, dude, if the Hispanic men continue to vote Republican.

It's actually not. These new gerrymandered seats, they could end up losing like eight seats. Do you think the ICE stuff has moved the Hispanic vote in California? I mean, it may be more Republican. You think more Republican? Hispanics, yeah. The Hispanics who are here legally and who can vote are not happy at all with people who are line jumpers. That is the myth. Hispanics are going to be totally brotherhood with people who are here illegally. No. If you came to this country and you applied for citizenship, you do not like the fact that these guys are line jumpers.

I mean, it's time to tell, but I'm keeping my eyes on these maps of California. I think there's an opportunity. We'll see. Time will tell. Hillsdale is going to wait until Friday, so you've got to tune in to the Friday show. Yeah, we need more time for Larry Arnn and Alexis de Tocqueville. But we do have time for Twilight Zone, Josh.

Well, you know, it's going to be hard to kind of walk through this, but... Um, there was, you know, a lot of, there's a, there was a post on the internet talking about the Catholic Church, and this is a good news story, right? The estimated number of adult conversions has gone up. Were you on the show that we, didn't we debunk this, or?

Well, I mean, I just want to, I got a little, I mean, okay, so the number of converts, adult converts to Catholicism was like at 170,000 at the turn of this century, and then it's just constantly gone down until about 2022, and then since then, it's gone back up, and it's almost to where it was in the year 2000. It was like 170,000 converts.

I'm sorry, $150,000 this year, which is kind of cool. Now, Ryan Burge is someone I really respect. He's a Christian. He understands data. He was kind of throwing cold water on this. Yeah. You know, and he said, look, there are 62 million Catholics in the United States. These adult converts constitute 0.2% of the church. Not 2%, 0.2%. One-fifth of 1%. One-fifth of 1%.

to the church, you know, and so he was like saying, like, you know, don't get don't get too hyped up on this. And I just thought that normally, Ryan's really smart, sharp guy when it comes to the numbers, but I didn't think he was being fair. Interesting. Okay. I said, you're comparing annual converts 150,000.

To the total population of Catholics, 62 million. So, it does seem small, 0.2%. But that is annual converts to the total population. I said, wouldn't it be a better comparison if you had annual converts and annual deaths? Now, I don't know how many Catholics died. I asked AI to constitute it. If Catholics are 23% of the population, and it spit out something like 600,000, just as a guess.

Okay, well, 150,000 converts to 600,000 deaths, that doesn't sound bad to me. And obviously, but I said, wouldn't actually the better comparison be? Annual increases. Converts and babies being baptized. So, that is the two inputs, right? And then the decreases. Those who are leaving the faith, that stinks, and those who die. So, Josh. That is the real comparison. You are talking about this chart, right? So, that was the graph, right? And I am not getting into whether or not that is accurate or not.

Like, I could not find the source of this. I do not know if anyone did, but. Well, I would imagine the source of it would be. You know, the Catholic Church itself, I mean, we keep records of people who go through, now it is OCIA, my brain says RCIA. When did that change, by the way? I don't know, I don't want to get into that. Early 2000s.

So, I mean, again, we have, I assume that this data is probably pretty reliable because the Catholic Church, if anything, has good records when it comes to people who enter the church every Easter. So, I think that is probably fair and accurate. They probably got it from You know, the Catholic Directory, all the different dioceses give their data of, you know, converts who come into the church.

So, anyway, I just think it's like, you know, he was throwing a little shade, throwing a little water on it. I just like, well, I don't think you're actually being fair here. So, a lot of people like what I said. He hasn't responded to me yet, so we'll see.

The people want. I mean, I just like, you know what? You can throw a lot of shade with statistics, but like try to be a little bit more. You know, delicate or honest with what you're trying to say. And by the way, even if it's a net negative in terms of raw numbers, like let's say that with births and deaths, adult converts to faith, people leaving the faith, is the church better or worse? Well, I'm not trying to be, you know.

A grump here, but when you have a lot of nominal Catholics who die every year, but if they're being replaced with families who are bringing their children up and baptizing them in the faith stronger than ever, that's good, and adult converts are worth the price in gold, as far as I'm concerned. I do love adult converts. So, even if the raw numbers are a little bit lower, the church might be better. Right. If we're talking about people who have an on-fire relationship with Jesus.

Yeah, I've seen some funny memes about... It's like, if you meet a cradle Catholic, like, I go to Mass on Sunday. I'm at an adult convent. St. Thomas Aquinas said this in the Summa, and I was like, kind of true, but I love it.

Pretty accurate. Yeah, I did the best. That's great. Okay, Erika. All right, Twilight Zone, this is a two-part one. So, the Department of Education is going to pursue now cutting federal funding to five, count them, five Northern Virginia school districts. Because they have refused to conform their policies regarding men in women's sports or boys' and girls' bathrooms, all the trans stuff. So, the school boards in Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Arlington, Prince William, and the city of Alexandria, in fact, according to the Office of Civil Rights, have been violating Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex.

And so, they are now in danger of losing their federal funding ASAP. Which is great. So, we've got Loudoun County is listed. They were the first to bravely declare that they would not conform to the Trump administration's discriminatory and hateful policies. Because they have such a stellar record. Right, and so I was like, wait, Loudoun County, that sounds familiar. Oh, they were also in the news this week. Loudoun County this week just suspended two high school boys because they ...expressed their discomfort over sharing the boys' locker room with a biological female.

The girl, and the footage is crazy, she brought her phone into the boys' locker room and was filming the boys. They've blotted out all the faces, so there's no privacy violation there, but she's filming the boys, which is already a violation, and one of the boys, you can hear him say, why is there a girl in here? Or, that's just weird, man. So, the school comes back and says that they, those boys now, have violated the civil rights. ...and cause discomfort and harm to this girl who identifies as a boy and was using the locker room.

Loudoun County decides to punish the boys by suspending them. One of them has moved since out of the county, since the incident was recorded, but if he were ever to go back, he would have to serve his 10-day suspension sentence. This was insane. This is the same Loudoun County that in 2021...

The dad comes into the school board meeting because his daughter had been sexually assaulted, and he ends up being thrown to the ground by the police. This was the same Loudoun County that moved the boy who raped a girl in the girl's bathroom to another school, where he then sexually assaulted another girl because he was in the bathroom because he said he identified as a girl. This is insane. This is Twilight Zone stuff, and they're still persisting in it. Even today.

So, cut that funding like yesterday, Loudoun County. Well, incidentally, too, one of the schools that's going to get its funding cut from this is the school that paid for abortions. Yes. We didn't even cover that. We did cover it last show. What are we doing here? The funding isn't being cut because of that. That school was one of these schools that is refusing to play ball in this. So, they're being cut funding because of that, but it just happens to be.

One of the same schools that's doing that. So, you know, hey, good, good. And people still think homeschoolers are weird. I'm like, no, this is weird. Preach, girl. Yeah, I don't know if Loudon should be waving and touting its stellar reputation as it comes to... Loudon and Fairfax, a lot of crazy.

Nuts, man. Nuts. Okay. Well, mine is, I'm really glad to hear this. I actually have had a few people email me asking about the authenticity of certain Bishop Barron videos. So, here's Bishop Barron addressing what's going on. Hi, everybody. It's Bishop Barron. I want to talk to my Word on Fire family, and really anyone that follows me online, about a problem that's becoming increasingly difficult, and that's the presence online of these... Videos generated by artificial intelligence that purport to be from me and that are not from me.

I'll tell you, it first came to my attention several months ago. A lady stopped me and she said, Bishop, I feel so bad about that altercation you got into at the restaurant in Chicago. I said, what altercation? Oh, it was online, you know, that you had a disagreement with someone at a Chicago restaurant. I said, I've not been in a Chicago restaurant for about five years. Well, it was one of these AI-generated, silly videos.

Another one that I came across has me being summoned to Rome by Pope Leo for high-level discussions about points of disagreement. I've met Pope Leo once. It happened a couple weeks ago in Rome. We put it up on our social media. I shook his hand, and he smiled at me. That's my one contact with him. I'm not being summoned to Rome for high-level discussions. One that just came out recently had me giving recommendations about how to remove demons from your toilet.

So, my point, everybody, is this is more ridiculous. I would watch that. No, no. I think if you spend just a moment, you can tell the difference between an authentic video from me and one of these. Of fakes. But here is the other thing. It is not just people having harmless fun. These are fraudsters. What they are doing is making money off of these things, because they monetize them through ads. So, think of someone… A third-rate band that does a knock-off of a pop song, but puts the original musician's name and picture on the cover, and then sells it.

Well, that is what is going on here with these things. So, it is not just harmless fun people are having. It is doing damage to my reputation, but also damage to people who are being defrauded. So, can I urge you, don't take these silly things seriously. Don't watch them. If you see Bishop Barron talking about exorcising demons from the toilet.

Don't watch it. Do not click. Don't do it. That does sound hilarious, but don't do it. It's one thing to do, parody, where it's an obvious parody. Yeah, like the babies, like when they do the AI babies, the conversation.

But there is something in particular I've seen many about Bishop Barron. Like, there's actually a whole YouTube channel that was started, claimed to be Bishop Barron. You know, in a way that he would. You could tell if you watched it, it was AI, but if you go to the comments, it's actually depressing how many people were like, thank you so much for this, Bishop Barron. So, he gets targeted more than other people. That might be Twilight Zone in itself. I'm not sure why.

Spiritual warfare. And then there's a second. He's also the number one priest online. Oh, no doubt. With the only exception being him and Father Mike Schmitz are the two most, you know. Out there, and in fact, he's a bishop. Obviously, it makes it more powerful, but yeah. Yeah, but we actually have a video in the works, which I'm really excited about. Another Erika banger, but just how everything's starting to feel really fake, and he brought it up too. If you go over to TikTok, it's like AI rabbits jumping on a trampoline, and it has like, and it almost makes me sick how many likes that some of these videos have, and it's almost like people know it's fake and don't care anyway, or they kind of know, and just that it's all monetized now, so there's all kinds of incentives, and the internet is just starting to feel more and more like fake content being interacted with by bots, and it's just like, it's becoming less real and less real.

The point of the video eventually is like, I feel like in some ways we're being chased into reality. Maybe that's why you're seeing the conversions go up. You're seeing people having to actually go and find real things, be in person, have real in-person conversations, and we had a good conversation with our co-worker Steven here about how a lot of these online fights, they just...

Because everything feels kind of fake, it's like, if someone would say something in person to you, you wouldn't fake the kind of outrage that I feel like is faked online over a ton of stuff. Maybe I'm just getting kind of sick of that personally. Like, if you were to talk to someone at your dinner table, and they brought up that opinion, you wouldn't... Like, oh my gosh, this is the end of the world. Yeah, you wouldn't do that. It's so dumb.

You'd be like, okay, interesting. You have that opinion, and then you come back with another one, and you all leave. Like, you're like, okay, you're all friends, but maybe it's the asymmetric communication that's annoying to me, like quote tweeting, and you got to get your point off, and then all your little followers, you know, get in on it. I'm not saying I'm innocent of it, but I just appreciate that Bishop Barron is addressing this, and that Pope Leo has a good emphasis, I think, on choosing his name, addressing AI.

It's going to be interesting. Another interesting point on this, too, Apple actually just came out with a document, a research document, on why they aren't investing as heavily into LLMs. According to their findings, it really struggles with complex reasoning.

So, simple reasoning, good, but their conclusion currently is that AI is not going to become God, and it's not going to replace everyone's jobs. It's going to be a useful tool for simple tasks. So, explain what LLM is to the audience. Isn't it Large Language Model? Large Language Models, right. So, yeah, it is basically like the, I want to say actually the first research into LLMs was either in the mid-1800s or mid-1900s, but it goes back way before all of a sudden you start seeing, you know, ChatGVT and whatever, but it is just large language models, they process large amounts of data, and they are able to spit back what comes to you.

Wasn't the first LLM, or one of them was the Cypher? The Imitation Game was based off of this. They were deciphering Russian code, I think, and he was using a version of LLM. So, it actually goes way back, but that is one of the engines, basically, for what you see, like modern-day Chai-GBT AI models based off of. Yeah, it is really fascinating, and then, of course, the psychology, too, of how the promise of godlike powers through AI affects human populations. Because it is not just, can it do it?

Do we think it can do it? So, yeah, this is going to be a really, I'm like, I'm deep in it. It's what Jurassic Park was all about. Exactly, exactly. The Matrix. Right, the Matrix. So, yeah, I'm deep in it right now. No pun intended.

Make sure you check out the deep. We have a video coming tomorrow, though. Yeah, a video coming tomorrow. It's going to be a baby, too. Oh, tomorrow is Orchid and, like, designer babies. Yeah. Guys, this one is intense. Go subscribe on YouTube. If you're listening to this, go subscribe on YouTube. So, that is where you can see the visual of it. We also put it up on Spotify and Apple, too, but Erika has great thoughts, and the inspiration behind that was we wanted to spend More time and actually build out a robust video on topics that deserve it, and that it'd be more tailored towards, say, a YouTube algorithm to reach more people for growth.

So, if you just, you hearing us, we know that you listen weekly. If you want to really support us in that, so you can build that up, go ahead and subscribe. YouTube helps us a lot. It'll be good anyway, because you'll love the topics. Yeah, topics are banger topics. And the video editing is amazing. Simon, shout out Simon Michael. Video editing is awesome. Shout out Simon. Someone made a great point, too. The people in the comments. On the AI Bishop Baron video could also be fake, and also very true.

I think it would be helpful if YouTube would do what X has done. So, on X, if you post something that is absolutely, totally fake, then you can get community notes, where people are like, no, no, no, this isn't true, this isn't true, and then it gets flagged. And we need a little bit more of that when it comes to YouTube, where you have these kind of community notes. And so, it's not YouTube having to... Look through and filter everything, but that somebody could put a community note on an AI video, like, this is fake.

Bishop Barrett never said this. Like, this isn't him. This is baloney. That would be nice. That would be a welcome addition to if YouTube would do something like that. From your lips to Meta's ears. Well, no, that would be alphabetical.

Again, I don't sleep, so. Okay, good show, guys. If you want to support us, Champions Club, best way to do so. And also, just heartfelt congratulations to Brian, and to you, Josh, on what you guys built. I mean, it's just crazy that Brian's going off the Vatican. Your ambassadorship will come soon, so we'll see where that goes. Maybe if the Upper Peninsula of Michigan secedes in the Union, I could be the ambassador to that. I like that idea. Oh, man, I couldn't have drawn out a better position for you.

I mean, I'm a half an hour away anyway. Well, you guys would break bread over pasties? That is an insider baseball reference for the people who know. If you know, you know. That is going to happen in the moonlight, baby. Yeah, baby. Okay, awesome. Great show, guys. Join the Champions Club. Leave us your views. You can email me, lupcast.catholicblood.org is where you can do that. But we appreciate you guys. We appreciate all your support.

Today's prayer. Next is a daily prayer, Happy Feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. I love that. Here is a section of the Divine Comedy. Is that a prayer, then? In which St. Bernard offers a hymn of praise to the Blessed Mother. Should I just read this and not pray it? Yeah. No, you should pray it, Don. Okay, we can pray it? You can post prayers, yeah. Legit. Sweet. Okay, pray that, and then we'll end with a normal. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Virgin Mother, daughter of your son, more humble and sublime than any creature, fixed goal decreed from all eternity, you are the one who gave us to human nature so much nobility that its creator did not disdain his being made its creature. That love whose warmth allowed his flower, this flower to bloom with the everlasting peace, was love rekindled in your womb. For us above, you are the noonday torch of charity, and there below on earth among the mortals, you are living spring of hope.

Lady, you are so high, you can so intercede, that he who would have grace but does not seek your aid, may long to fly but has no wings. Your loving kindness does not only answer to one who asks, but it is often ready to answer freely long before the asking. In your compassion is, in you is pity. In you is generosity. In you is every goodness found in any creature. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us, and we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Ready to rock. Peace.