The “who wants to be a millionaire” example is actually quite profound. As a convert to the Catholic faith, I feel like before I was Catholic, if I wanted to know the answer to something, I’d either have to study it myself, or phone a friend - there is no 50/50 button to push. In the Catholic Church, not only do I maintain my ability to study things for myself and phone a friend, but I also have the option to “ask the audience”, but in this case asking the audience means receiving the wisdom of Christian leaders and laypeople for the past 2,000 years. Granted, there is an “audience” to turn to as a Protestant, but it’s much younger, much more divided, and Protestants are actually discouraged to rely on any authority other than the Bible. So, it’s no contest. Will I fare better at ascertaining the truth about the Creator of the Universe by relying on my own brain and the Bible, or by using my own brain, the Bible, and 2,000 years of Christian wisdom? The answer is obvious.
I was in a Barnes and Noble earlier last month and had picked up some Catholic books “City of God” and some works on Aristotle. My wife and children were with me and they spotted witchcraft/Wiccan books and spell books. I couldn’t afford to buy them and destroy them so I said a prayer over them and made the sign of the cross over them in front of everyone. My children witnessed it and it wasn’t overly aggressive or anything. Saint Benedict believed in the power of the sign of the cross, I believe we could definitely use that same kind of faith in our age.
Just my two cents, but I would caution against purchasing these types of books, even if they are to be destroyed. By purchasing them, the authurs are incentivized to make more and the store is incentivized to order and stock more. If nobody buys them, the store will not carry them.
As a defense for the golden legend: these stories were the spiritual nourishment for generations of Christians. The old breviary saint descriptions are usually lifted straight from it. The problem is not with the genre of the golden legend, it’s that people are expecting the wrong thing from it. The golden legend is a collection of hero stories and miracles. This has a place and is edifying. It engendered awe and wonder in the faithful. No well adjusted person in the middle ages explicitly believed this was the height of the spiritual life (heroism, legend, and miracles), though for many/most it was the beginning (as it is for children) and a beloved place of repose for the cultural imagination. There were the Escriva’s of the middle ages, the unsung, uncanonized, unremarkable local saints. The problem is not with the golden legend: its original audience received it as intended. No, the problem is with us, who 1. Unable to discern genre are not interested in awe and wonder and 2. Lack a Christian culture furnishing us with down to earth examples of sanctity. It is an uphill battle for us in the spiritual life for both of these reasons.
The "wisdom of the masses" plays out in force in economics. Those who try to organize the economy centrally never do a better job than people making their own buying and selling decisions.
What a refreshing discussion. Very enjoyable, thank you Joe and Matt. Joe, please make your next book about the Reformation on Trial, next Exorcisms, Spiritual toolbox, and then Mormonism. Thanks again
Thank you for NOT commenting your opinion on everything, Matt! People don’t realize it but ultimately, their own opinion doesn’t matter. Opinions are usually based on people’s likes and dislikes or their preferences and are not factual. Joe has got it right, also… God bless you both!
Yes yes yes to the part about research. I am taking an intro to research class in college and have to cite scholarly papers for my topics. And you can find a peer reviewed study that will agree with you on ANYTHING. It really does become arbitrary.
Could we get someone talk about the scapular, its promises, the different versions and how to go about attaining said promises i.e. daily little office prayers etc... Thank you so very much for what you do. Your talks have changed my mind and who I am as a Catholic. God bless you and never stop! We need men like you to stand in the void with.
As a brown scapular wearer, a talk on it would be nice! When I made my first communion at 7, the priest enrolled all of us making our first communion. Once enrolled, I do know all a person needs to do is wear a brown scapular- no additional blessing.. other than that, I don’t know much. I’ve been wearing a scapular constantly for over 5 years now. At first I was a bit self conscience about it. Now I am a bit ‘proud’ about wearing it and it makes me full of joy when I see another scapular wearer!! I recognize a fellow child of God, with Mary as our Mother helping us!
(Hip Hop Harry tune) Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe! Made my day to see Joe on the show. I missed him when he visited my college a couple months ago (Fort Hays State, January 31) and was SO SAD. I didn't know he was there till after he came! :( So sad. Shameless Popery is my favorite Catholic Podcast!
Hey, what is this? A mini-episode or something? The people demand six-hour episodes for all, not just Jimmy!! In all seriousness, great episode. I loved the last episode with Joe Heschmeyer, and after listening to it I found his book ("The Early Church Was Catholic"), and greatly enjoyed it - it was a great part of my own journey into the church. Loving that he is a regular guest.
No one should be arguing that bullying is in any way acceptable. Bullying is not the same thing as constructive criticism. I have major problems with catholics or "conservatives" who refuse to make necessary distinctions, or who say that erroneous and idiotic behavior is acceptable, simply because it's rejected by the general culture. The culture isn't always wrong, and counter-cultural is certainly not always right. If someone is doing something wrong and doesn't realize it, this ought to be resolved by peers in a charitable way. Bullying is based on baseless exclusion, questioning and even denying someone's worth, and a complete lack of self-reflection. These are all antithetical to the Christian life. When you have someone's good in mind you don't bully them, you love them. Love looks different in different circumstances, sometimes it requires correction, but it never requires bullying.
Love those book ideas, especially the one on the reformation. As a new convert that came in to the church at this year‘s Easter vigil, my mind had turned to mush, trying to answer all of the questions about whether all of these Catholic things were true, i.e., the rosary, Mary, etc. Finally, I decided to land on learning more about the reformation and why /if it was wrong. Your book will be exactly what I’m hoping for, @shamelesspopery
“If your philosophy leads you to deny the apparent reality” The problem with this statement is many will use that against Christianity in regard to thinks like the Resurrection. They will say in reality people do not raise from the dead.
@@RealSeanithan I didn't realise you were serious in your original post. In that case, I disagree. The Kingdom of Israel is a dead legacy of the old covenant. The Kingdom functioned because of the Temple, the line of Kings and the Mosaic Law. All that has been fulfilled in Jesus the High Priest, the King of Kings and the New Covenant. The body of believers in Jesus is the new Israel, and we have no need of a retrograde system anymore. If the people of Israel and Gaza became Christians, they would figure out a way to live with each other without need for a "Kingdom of Israel".
Hearing my own username (though spelled differently) is a little unnerving. Popuri is pronounced the same way as potpourri or popery, and it makes so much sense how my heart is always with the masses even though I wouldn’t have said it at the time. My support for Donald Trump was based mostly on the idea that I didn’t hear anything good about the other candidate and was ill liked as is the case with Bill Clinton in 1992 in my school’s mock election where everyone in my class voted for Bush, but I thought it was stupid to go along with everyone else.
There is a significant difference between constructive criticism, encouraging social norms, and bullying. I love ya but lets not try to diminish the trauma of bullying
Well I always thought, we don't need to know about the "bad days" of the saints. Cause who cares if they did or what they were like. We look to them for how to be faithful to the Lord. We don't need to look to them to learn what bad days look like. We ALL have those and we all get lots of examples of bad days every day
Am I the only one who thinks Joe might be contradicting himself when he says follow the wisdom of the masses but also don’t be discouraged if most polls or studies contradict your study?
Aye. IDK. Its troublesome to picture myself burning anothers love, even if its false. If I burnt that, and they became atheist, I SENT THEM THE WRONG WAY! Though if engaged in prayer snd study alongside this individual, we would both be giving the decision to how the Holy Ghost interacts with us(fear of sounding Calvinistic in this statement, we would choose to interact with possible revelation given to us by the Spirit, and that would lead to the outcome). I appreciate your alls passion so much, this is where the spiritual conflict comes, for me. Idk fellas, thank you for sharing the conversation. Mulling material for time to come.
Good Show. I bought a garbage book from our Catholic Church gift shop. I threw it away and went back and told the lady working there about it… CK Out Your Gift Shops too. 😮
Book #5: a book length treatment of your Easter 2023 video on the proper of view of salvation in contradiction to Calvinism. Please, please! Would give it to Calvinist friends. It as fantastic, clear, compelling.
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, I kid you not, has been stopped from full Canonization, because he sometimes kissed his girlfriend in an alley near his Parish. He was 24! So should we strip Augustine of Hippo of his Sainthood then?
You’re inadvertently justifying atheists who would take a box full of free bibles and burn them. When considering censorship and other abrogations of people’s rights of expression, you should consider how it WILL BE reversed on your beliefs and sensibilities.
How does it justify any of that? This is only true if you think a Bible is equivalent to the book of Mormon. The difference in this case is the atheists would be wrong and we aren't.
I agree with Matt about the book of Mormon. They have corrupted the Word of God! I wouldn't take their book from them and burn it...but one laying around...burn it instead of spreading our Lord's Word in era!
Secular governments have already prohibited speech that they believe is harmful to society. ex. You cant write a book that tells you how to make an illegal item even if your not planning to hurt anyone. After all, a tolerant society has to be intolerant to a reasonable extent.
Secular governments have already prohibited speech that they believe is harmful to society. ex. You cant write a book that tells you how to make an illegal item even if your not planning to hurt anyone. After all, a tolerant society has to be intolerant to a reasonable extent.
Yo, it is wild to me that sometimes these guys forget that Jesus told us to love our brother as we love ourselves. It is wild that they talk about stealing peoples personal property that they disagree with, but would probably be appalled if an atheist did the same thing to the Bible or some Christian literature. I did not even make it through the whole episode because in the first 10 minutes they consider violating commandments and move directly into uncharitably.