Episode 8

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Catholic FQ : Welcome to the Catholic Frequency podcast. Today, we're gonna have another conversation, our third conversation, in fact, with the user Imperator. He's on the x platform, and he goes by Imperator, and he lives down in Australia. He is a theologian, a biblical historian. And we've been talking, over the last couple of months, we've been having a series of discussions about what the Catholic church has contributed to civilization, and we're gonna continue that right now.
Imperator : It's a very important topic, and I think that every time we get together on a space, Catholic frequency and and philosophy, and we tend to have these great discussions that tend to sometimes veer off into other places. But I think that's the beauty of the conversation is that we you know, all these ideas are flying around, and I think it's good to see how, all these different disciplines intersect so that people can see the the rich tradition of the Catholic church. It's very important.
Catholic FQ : Well, one of the ideas you suggested to me when we were planning this space is to talk a little bit about the dark ages. And, of course, I I think we're kind of we're in the dark ages now, but, you know, history has this term of the dark ages. So maybe tell us in what is your definition of of the dark ages? When does it begin? When does it end?
Is that even a fair term?
Imperator : Yeah. Absolutely. So the term dark ages, in my in my opinion, which is obviously just a represent representation of the opinions of much smarter people than myself, It's more of a, a term used it's a derogatory term used by the enlightenment. So the concept was or the the perspective is that the ancient Greco Roman world was this flourishing civilization, which it was. And once the Roman the western half of the Roman Empire fell in April, to the Visigoths and a few other tribes, what ends up happening is civilization is essentially in in a in a state of darkness.
And And what ends up happening is we have according to the enlightenment propaganda, we have this this rise of this esoteric sort of superstitious church that tries to suppress humanity in the in the light of the the structure of the Roman Empire. And for a thousand years, this this church kind of dominates the European continent and keeps everyone in a state of superstition and savagery where they're wielding power over the people and there is no political, economic, or technological progress, and people live in servitude, and the church and the state operate together in order to suppress the people. And it's not until, you know, fig the French enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire come up that, you know, that they they did a challenge, the establishment, and throw off the yoke of the Catholic church, and then civilization is reborn like a beautiful sunrise. This is kind of the the propaganda. This is the way it's it's depicted in in, like, popular propaganda.
And, unfortunately, in our schooling systems and our education systems, they still follow this narrative even though it's categorically false. There is there is so much untruth to that statement. It really is a, a smear campaign, I guess, you could say against the Catholic church because if you're trying to dismantle the Catholic church and its authority and its, contribution to Western civilization, you have to invent this idea of the dark ages because that is the time for for essentially a thousand years where the Catholic church dominated Western Europe. So in order to justify your, revolution or not to justify your liberation from religion, of course, you have to demonize that period. So it's essentially from let's just say, let's I I like using round numbers.
The mid four hundreds or the late four hundreds up until, obviously, the Renaissance is in the, begins in Italy. But let's just say to the French Revolution ish, we we have this dark age where the Catholic church reigns supreme.
Catholic FQ : I know that one of the chapters in Tom Wood's book is is about monasticism. And so while, like you say, the propaganda that nothing was happening, that civilization was, you know, collapsed and the church was wielding its power unjustly or trying to influence people in some immoral way. There was a lot of wonderful things going on in the monasteries around Europe. Can you talk a little bit about how, you know I don't know. When I was a kid, when I was growing up, I mean, I would think of, like, monasteries.
I would just think, like, the word boring would come to mind. Right? It just seems like it's just a bunch of old guys in robes and, I don't know, they're just writing all day or something. But talk about, how these were, like, incredible centers of real really preserving the fire civilization.
Imperator : Absolutely. So you'll find that once the so, essentially, my thesis is, and I'm I'm after reading Tom Woods and, again, many people smarter than myself, the the thesis is once the Western Roman Empire falls, the Catholic church essentially becomes the Roman Empire. And I know that might seem a bit, I don't know, controversial to some people because they say, wait, the Roman Empire is pagan, how does that work? It it really does. So even if you see the way that bishops and, bishops essentially replace the governors, it it it's it's almost like a seamless crossover.
And, again, that's something we we've got into in detail, in our previous, episode, but, if if that's something that people wanna delve into, I guess, we could do that in the comments, but I wanna dig it back into the Roman Empire again for another hour. What ends up happening is we see after the the the West falls or the Western Roman Empire falls, we see the what was the Western Roman Empire collapse into or fragments, sorry, into smaller states. So we have, like, the, Francia, which becomes France. That's where the Franks obviously invade and establish, like, their own sort of kingdom. We have, like, Germania, Germany, Hispania in Spain, and Italia, and all these places kind of, like, fragment into their own sort of, their own sort of autonomous regions.
And the Catholic churches or the Catholic church which followed the the political structure of the Roman Empire remains in these places. So even though there is no more quote unquote Roman governor, there still is an archbishop there because the church followed, the the Roman Empire's, geopolitical sort of structure. So what ends up happening is once the the infrastructure falls because there's no more centralized government authority, we start to see these regional, political entities start to emerge. And I'll use France as an example, Francia at the time or sometimes called Gaul. We see that these monasteries or these these religious figures who move into these secluded places, they really they really are the ones who save civilization.
And it was most prominent, obviously, in Northern Italy because we have, you know, Monte Cassino where Saint Benedict is, Saint Benedict of Nursia. Well, we obviously have it in France as multiple monasteries in there, like, that's where we get the clumiac reforms and things like that. But, obviously, we have the the hermitages and the beautiful tradition that's very specific to the Irish people. We have a lot of these patrician, monks who preserve education, that preserve writing. One of the, misconceptions is that and there is a a tiny bit of truth to this or sorry.
There is an element of truth to this, I should say, where a lot of pagan literature was destroyed because it's not like the the Catholic church was going through and categorically burning everything, but it was after the the assault of the vandals of the Roman Empire, they really did burn down the cities. And they burned down the libraries, and they burned down everything. And if they didn't burn it down, it was, you know, cemented to the floor, then they just left it. So that's why we have a lot of the structures still remaining. These monks actually were the ones who preserve these ancient texts and these ancient traditions because they would start by hand recording all these ancient texts.
And, obviously, in the Western world, it wasn't as prevalent because of the just the sheer amount of invasions that they face from Germanic and Gothic tribes. That's why a lot of, like, the Aristotelian and platonic works don't tend to emerge out of the East because the Eastern Roman Empire was still very much alive and healthy at this time. So we start to see them starting to retranslate Aristotle and Plato and all these ancient writers where the West didn't have that tradition. They they they very much, were starting from scratch in a in a way. So these monks end up going into these little places, and they start building civilization because they're not, obviously, there for temporal means.
They're not there to make, you know, make a financial gain. They work on if we look at the Benedictines, for example, their their mother, work and pray. They would live in their monastery. They would pray. People would base their days around the bell times which aligned to the vespers, to the divine office.
Sorry. So they'll wake up at a particular time. They knew it was noon because they knew that's when, you know, certain divine officers were being sung. They would base their whole day on that. That's why we have, like, this this concept of, like, the town hall and the church tower and the church bell.
These are all monastic ideas. So they they would then teach agriculture to the people or remind them of agriculture. They would create these little communities around their monasteries, and people would flock to them. And they also they essentially rebuilt civilization alongside the people who were trying to reemerge out of a state of, political instability.
Catholic FQ : You mentioned Saint Benedict of Nursia. I think it was May when he established his order. Eventually, out of that group I can't I can't believe this statistic. 37,000 monasteries across Europe. That's incredible.
Imperator : Absolutely. It's just the amount of work that they did and the amount of people. The influence that they have is is is staggering. It's absolutely staggering.
Catholic FQ : And they were doing all kind of, of things. They they were centers of hospitality in some cases. They were educating. They were preserving knowledge, As you mentioned, not just, you know, preserving the bible, but I believe texts from from ancient Greece and Rome as well. And there were some innovations too.
Right? You know, we think of the word innovation, and I think of, like, you know, iPads and smartwatches. They weren't quite as exciting maybe, but they were they were life saving. They were transformational agricultural innovations. I think one of them was the the was was, like, how they would rotate the crops in the fields.
And what do you what do you know about some of the innovations that came out of that period?
Imperator : Yeah. So definitely when it comes to things like crop rotation and, agriculture, that was definitely a big part of the monastic tradition. So that's why we see even as a side note, a lot of the, alcohols actually developed in monasteries because, obviously, they they had low subsistence on food and things like that at the time. So they would invent these high carb beverages that people can essentially drink while they work so that they can remain sustained without having to necessarily eat. Obviously, in excess, it creates drunkenness, but, even things like, you know, these the brewing factories and these beers and even things like I I know, for example, like Jagermeister and things like that.
These are things that were actually developed in monasteries because of their expertise in not only agriculture, but then also fermentation and and developing, you know, beverages and things like that. So a lot of the a lot of these things that were developed were very much people didn't necessarily attribute them to them because, again, it's not like a Benedictine monk is gonna run around Europe saying, look what I invented. I'm so great. They they obviously tend to be more humble about it. So the developments that they made in agriculture and, other things of that nature, domestic sort of developments, kind of get un unnoticed, and they end up, just being, at least historically, being seen as, oh, this was just developed in the Middle Ages.
We don't exactly know when. It kind of had developed in France at this time. The monastic orders had a very big role to play. And again, they they benefited from their status. So, obviously, at this time, there's a lot of, infighting and wars between, you know, local tribes, local kingdoms, as kingdoms emerge and things like that.
So the the monks are in a state of relative peace. So it's not like they're going to be attacked by, you know, Catholic knights from another or knights aren't necessarily developed until, you know, a couple thousand hundred years later. It's not they're gonna be attacked by rival Catholics. So they do have the actual safety to develop these things and redevelop and rediscover, you know, secrets about agriculture. So it it it's it's very much like a perfect storm for them.
So it it allows that they're able to preserve or given the opportunity to rediscover or redevelop technologies that may have been lost with the fall of the Roman Empire.
Catholic FQ : If you're enjoying our conversation, please repost it. Also, feel free to request the microphone. If you'd like to ask a question, you can request the microphone and then raise your hand. Yeah. The innovations, that came out of that period, the heavy plow, the three field system for crop rotation, advancements in horse harnesses, windmills were coming out, during this period in history.
So, people don't yeah. They don't appreciate, the foundation that that that the church gave us in Western civilization, but especially that came out of out of the monastic tradition. Beer, you were talking about alcohol. Trappist beer, for example, is is another one. Dom Perignon as well.
So, yeah, let's let's move a little, more into, around the enlightenment in in this this time where where the the secularists, as we would as I would call them today, sort of wanna throw off the church. Why do you think that is? Why is there this great struggle for civilization? The church, you know, stands for truth, goodness, and beauty for the common good. If anybody looks at the church with a fair and does a fair appraisal, they'll see the church is good for civilization, is good for humanity.
But there have been people that wanted to tear it down and chip away at its influence for, you know, since the beginning, really. But what would you say about that?
Imperator : Well, you see that with the Renaissance within the fourteen, fifteen hundreds, you see that there's this rediscovery of eastern or was I I should say, Greco Roman literature that was unknown for almost a thousand years, at least in the Western world. Again, they still existed in the East. Just as a side, though, a lot of people like to say, what about the, for example, like the Islamic golden age and all these developments and pretty much European civilization just copied the the Arabs. Like, if you look at Arab Abbasid, people like that, Ibun al Rashid, we just copied them. In reality, the only the the reason why these Eastern sort of, there was a Islamic golden age, I guess you could say, is because texts like Aristotle and Plato hadn't been destroyed in the East because there was no systematic invasion as it was in the West.
So they were just benefiting off Plato and Aristotle while the West kind of had to do it on their own for a while. They were saying civilization is just based on Plato and Aristotle, but there's also, Hippocratic texts and things about medicine and ancient knowledge about, surgeries and even things like that. So that's why those things had to develop in the East because they still were preserved there. When it comes to, the Western world, we start to see that as a lot of these problems with the church really do stem from, I guess, the the conflict between the East and the Western church. Obviously, it culminates in the great schism or the schism between the East and the West.
We see that because of this, there starts to be this dichotomy or this this combat between church and state. And there's always this overreach, by the East, there's overreach by the West, and there's just constant conflict. So what we start seeing is that there starts to be the the church or even princedoms, start to take more of a, geopolitical sort of avenue. And what ends up happening is because the West becomes incredibly wealthy and incredibly successful because of the systems that have developed, you do start to see a lot of corruption. And because of corruption, obviously, there is, response to that corruption.
And then we start seeing the fragmentation of Western Europe. So I'm I'm curious I'm I'm gonna stop there because I wanna see where you wanna take this conversation, Catholic frequency.
Catholic FQ : I wanna take it wherever you go because I always learn so much from you. And and it's like you say, we we just a lot of times we veer off we veer off the path. It's really interesting. You know, as you talk a little bit about the East, I know we haven't scheduled this, but we've talked about this. There's another person that you and I are talking to about maybe doing a space where we talk about sort of the eastern Catholic churches.
All of that is is so fascinating. And, yeah, the the East West schism does does so much to to hurt civilization, I think, even really to this day, just just as the protestant, revolution does. A lot of people, most people call it the Protestant Reformation, but, I think as Catholics, it's we view it more like as a as a revolution. I I wanna just sort of circle back and say as we're talking about monks, you know, how much they did for the world in addition to spreading Christianity. They were spreading literacy.
They were teaching principles of law, Latin in some cases. And it reminded me that that in the modern world today, when we wanna help people, like charities, right, the best way in the Catholic tradition is this term called integral human development. This is helping the whole person. So what this means is if somebody's hungry, you can feed them, but they're gonna be hungry tomorrow. Right?
So so you wanna build up their self sufficiency. It's it's that old phrase, don't just give a man a fish, but teach him how to fish as well so that he can be self sustaining. So integral human development in principle when when when the Catholic church missionaries do this very well across the world today, and people would be astounded at how many people I think in the West, we just don't appreciate how many people don't have running water, don't have a roof over they have they they live in the jungle or in the desert. There are many Catholic charities that are working to put water wells in Africa. You know, people are washing their clothes in the river.
It's our duty, you know, the corporal works of mercy, right, to help. But but this idea of integral human development, there's even a decastery in Rome named the decastery for integral human development where you're helping the physical need, you're helping the emotional need, the psychological need, and and the spiritual. And so there was a lot of this sort of happening, I believe, sort of like the monks that they didn't have that term back then, integral human development, I don't think. But it's kind of what they were were doing. You're you're helping the entire person.
There was a I don't know the name of it, but there was a, a charity in in I think it was in The Philippines. And they would they went in and they built, like, this whole new neighborhood for poor people, and they did not address anything spiritual. They just sort of gave them places to live, and it was all beautiful and painted. And within a few years, it looked like a slum again because they had not addressed the other aspects of the human person. Right?
The spiritual. And so what these monasteries accomplished is just we don't know how we think the world is bad now, but imagine had this not occurred. Right? So I didn't mean to talk for so long in Perattoir, but, do you wanna say anything about that or just say how we how we even the church helps people?
Imperator : I think you said it perfectly. It's there there are many reasons or there's many ways that that that the monastic system improved or or built Western civilization. So as I've already mentioned before, like preserving knowledge from the ancient texts. So, that that's the first one. The second one would be even the development of law and governance.
When we think of how the many of the legal precepts that underpin modern democratic systems have their root in canon law. And that's another element that people don't necessarily realize. We have things like social welfare. So the church found in hospitals and orphanages and schools. And as you said, the integral human person developing all the elements of the human person in, caring for the marginalized orphanages, schools, all of these things were essentially developments of the Catholic church.
They were offshoots of the monastic system. So when the the the primitive orphanages were just monasteries where parents who couldn't have children would just leave them at the monasteries. Okay? Whether or not that's a good thing is, you know, your own opinion. Obviously, the ideal is for parents to raise their children, but the option was there that if they needed to, there was always an avenue for them to be able to take care of their children if they couldn't themselves.
The the monastic system also helped develop art and culture. So a lot of these ancient manuscripts that you see where they would copy text, the way they would, design the covers of tomes that they were rewriting. This is where we see, like, the first elements of calligraphy and and art in architecture and sorry, art in in literature. So they had a had a significant impact on that. They developed a schooling system.
So a lot of the modern the university system that we have is an offshoot of monasticism. So most priests would go to would experience their formation within the monastery or in a in a institution adjacent to the monastery or adjacent to the church. And that's why the church has always been involved in promoting education literacy. So the establishment of universities in medieval Europe was largely driven by ecclesiastical authorities who sought to educate the clergy and the laypeople. So you would see a lot of these, some I can't remember where it is.
It might be in Bologna in Italy, One of the best law schools. It's actually, my memory might be failing me, but I'm pretty sure it began as a ecclesiastical headquarters for canon law and then it expanded into just law in general. And if you wanted to be in politics or in law within the Middle Ages or even in up until, I guess you could say, the modern age, it was expected that you went to Bologna to complete this course. I might be incorrect of where that is. I'm just pretty sure it's in Northern Italy.
I I remember as I jumped into the space, I think it was, Philosophy of Leisure. She was saying how the church has, you know, these telescopes. And the church was really the pioneer in the sciences and if if it wasn't pioneering the sciences itself, it was the patron of the sciences. So many of the early scientists were themselves clergy members or worked under the patronage of ecclesiastical figures or institutions and made a lot of these scientific discoveries. These are things that people don't consider because there's this misconception that, faith and reason or the faith and science or the church and science have constantly been at odds.
Again, this is a modern pre, misconception that dominates in the political landscape or the cultural landscape. Now everyone thinks that the church is backwards organization, as trying to make us believe in these quote unquote dark ages when in reality, the church built a civilization that gave people the right to even question the church's authority. So they these are just a few things that developed out of the the ecclesiastical and monastic tradition that aren't actually technically attached to the Catholic church. So no one's gonna sit there and say, oh, wow. Did you know that the church actually helped build the heavy plow?
No one thinks about that. We we just tend to think about, oh, the church, you know, helps the poor, which it absolutely does. A lot of the hospitals were founded by the Knights Hospitaller, which was a group of a monastic order that was developed to help wounded pilgrims. And then that they essentially essentially started building, spaces where they could take care of large groups of pilgrims, which then became the Hospitallers, which then just became hospitals. Again, people don't like to talk about that because by acknowledging that the church helped build all these things that we enjoy, you have to then admit, wow, the church is a good thing.
What a great organization. But then that then attacks or contradicts this notion that the church is bad and we have to destroy the church. But how do we destroy the church if it's been responsible for all the good things in our world? Well, there's a dichotomy there. How about we just slander the church and pretend they did nothing and that everything was horrible in the church and the world just, you know, emerged on this beautiful into this beautiful celestial utopia that we live in now because of the alignment.
Guest 1 : Wasn't it, was it Petrarch that originally kind of coined it as the dark ages? But I remember a story and I think it was due to the plague that the precursor to the hospital, was that certain of these monasteries And by the way, if you haven't ever done a tour of monastery ruins, in any country where, you know, those 37,000 monasteries were, I highly recommend it. I mean, just the stories and what that monastery specifically was engaged in is, is fascinating. But I understood that not only did they take in orphans from the plague, but they also nursed, people that had the plague when no one else would touch them. No one else would go near them.
And so, you know, it it they really were kind of it not just the not just, you know, books and art and, you know, ideas that they were the safekeepers of, but they they saved humanity to some degree because they were so involved in taking care of people during the plague as well.
Imperator : Exactly. Because being being a monk or being a consecrated religious or being a priest, you're essentially giving yourself to Christ. If there's the Black Death going through or the bubonic plague going through Europe, everyone's hiding out in their little cities. And again, if anyone's ever read things like Romeo and Juliet, the backdrop of that play is that in Mantua, Northern Italy, there's a plague that's wiping out people. There's or even in, like, as as you were saying in Petrarch and a lot of these Renaissance texts, they're all written in light of or in, in reference to the plague that has just happened.
That's where we start to see the disintegration of faith because, you know, if god is good, why did this happen, etcetera. That's a topic for another day. But, again, you start seeing very much similar to the ancient world where, young men and women were being thrown into the coliseum to be eaten by lions. And their bravery and their commitment to their faith, all it did was just fortify the strength of everyone else and the faith of everyone else who was watching them. Because they said, well, this person is impressive.
I can't believe they're willing to just put their body on the line, put their life on the line for their faith. And that's a very beautiful and impressive and, evangelical thing to do. What we start seeing is during the Black Death, everyone just runs into their castles and, you know, a lot of Europe starts to fall apart because, obviously, the infrastructure and the population is absolutely obliterated by the amount of deaths that happened. But you see these monks and these friars and these these priests that will willingly venture out into plague stricken areas to minister to people. And, again, at a time when, you know, faith can tend to be, floundering, I guess, you start to see this rejuvenation of the Catholic faith because they people can see and people will know that priests are risking their life every single day to save people.
And, again, this is another thing that hasn't really dealt with.
Guest 1 : Weren't they taking the place of Christians that were being, you know, thrown into lions' dens? They were offering up themselves, to replace these, you know, especially the women and children, that were put in. And it was it was just I mean, everything that I've read, and I haven't read the book that Catholic frequency, mentioned, but that's at the top of my list now. But everything that I've read is just so inspiring, and it you know, we obviously know that that our job here is to glorify God and is to evangelize and to, you know, help people be ultimately saved. But in the meantime, just to see all these works of faith and to be glorifying God's creation in lots of ways by studying science and by, you know, helping with illness and, you know, all of these these things that, as, you know, the topic says, built western civilization.
It it just really inspires you to do the same during our lifetime, you know, whether it's AI or whether, you know, it's politics or whether it's it's helping the needy, that there is a place for us all to do our bit, to glorify all of God's creation and, you know, everything that is is being discovered and innovative and also to, be caretakers of everything that's come before us.
Catholic FQ : Susan, did you have a question?
Guest 2 : It wasn't so much a question as I was gonna point out. Even in slightly more modern times, we saw how the church, if you will, helped save, you know, humanity or save pockets of civilization. I know here in Memphis, during the yellow fever epidemic in the early nineteen hundreds, the city was so decimated by people leaving because of the, epidemic, and the deaths that we lost our charter. We were no longer a city, but you saw the Catholic priests and the Catholic nuns who would were staying in town and ministering to the yellow fever victims and the people who couldn't leave. And it's through their work and work of others as well that Memphis was able to, survive in enough of a community that it could grow back after the, epidemic was over.
In fact, Saint Mary's Catholic Church downtown where I, got married, there's a drawing up in the attic where one of the priests lived who had, was ministering to the yellow fever victim epidemics, and he eventually died. But there's this drawing of a crucifix in charcoal on the wall, from that time. And it's, you know, it's just amazing how much the church has done for the Western world. And if you look also at the more recent times when the church has not been as, I guess, I don't wanna say forceful, but, you know, where they haven't been quite as being quite as quite as primary in the source of social, you know, so, social caring, that's when you start to see so much of our society kinda start to break down. You see everybody having to rely on the government to take care of the poor, the government for, the, needy, health, you know, for the people needing severe, you know, health.
Catholic FQ : I think the I think the government likes it that way. I think the government wants to be God. Yeah.
Guest 2 : Yeah. But it it just shows how we got so far with the church modeling that, you know, that ministry and providing that ministry, the world and civilization got so far with the church handling that. And you look at in this relatively short amount of times that at least here in America, the government has taken over that, spot of primacy for caring for the poor and the needy, and where are we now? So that just goes to show how much the church did for our world.
Catholic FQ : Yeah. Because when the church is helping people again, it's that that notion of helping the entire person, whereas the government might just be looking to help one aspect of the person. And even think about like a church, like if you were a priest at some church and you wanted to start a soup kitchen, you know, a hundred years ago, you just did it and you fed people. Today, you're gonna have the health department coming in and they're, you know, the city. There's a lot of they've they've made so much red tape And, as the government's tried to, again, I think it's purposeful, just as these things are purposeful to sort of paint the church, this whole thing of the dark ages.
You know, archbishop Fulton Sheen famously said, there's not a hundred people in The United States who hate the church, but there's millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic church to be. Its perception and the media really has been, you know, our enemy frankly. Would you Imperator, would you use that strong of a term? The media is an enemy of the church?
Imperator : Absolutely. And I think what you said is absolutely correct in regards to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who I don't understand how he's gonna say it yet, but that's I don't know. The there is a systematic sort of agenda which is very clear against the Catholic church, and you see it every single day. The I see it on x every single day where you'd have people who will pick up every single thing that Pope Francis says if they take it into a negative way and they'll, you know, be blasted all over every single account. Look what he said, oh my gosh, I can't believe it.
And then ignoring the 17 other things they did which were very good. And we just pretend those don't happen because that doesn't fit the narrative because apparently Pope Francis has to be this, you know, left leaning, you know, communist or something like that. So whatever fits that narrative, we're just gonna keep pumping that out. That's something that's very prevalent at least even on x, even amongst Catholic circles. So you even starting to see that sort of mentality feed into, the Catholic Church where it's become very polarized.
It's become very, yeah, it's very very polarizing and there is clear agendas on different sides where facts and, you know, hate to use the term, like misinformation and things like that, these are very much even part of the church today. So it's something that's not new. It's existed since the beginning of time and, we start to see, as I've said before, this transition into criticizing the church really came about with the, with these pre enlightenment or enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire who start to really use this whole concept of freedom of speech to which the Catholic church essentially developed because it's it's a it's linked to the the the concept of individual rights because you're mainly the image of likeness of God therefore you have inalienable rights which include, you know, the right to private property, the right to, the right to life and all these things which also includes the right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Well then people use that freedom of expression to then attack the church and then when they lose their rights they say why are you violating my rights? Well the church is the one who is the proponent of those rights.
So if you wanna remove the church, you don't actually have any rights. All that remains is the will to power. So these are things that people don't understand anymore because even if you don't accept Christianity, you are the beneficiary of Western Christian civilization. And I'm not sitting here denigrating, the Eastern churches because I know, like you said, we're gonna have a space about the Eastern churches. When I say the Catholic church built was built Western civilization, I'm not someone even though I myself am European, I don't sit there and say, oh, Europeans did everything.
You know, one thing that's really, I guess, unfortunate is that you have these incredible Christian communities that are in places like Lebanon and Syria and even Turkey and Egypt and North Africa and all these places that have completely been overshadowed because of history. Because when you look at places like, you know, just due to history, put religion out of it, when you see empires like like the, the Ottoman Empire take over places like Lebanon, it just completely crushed their culture because they were seen as renegades and as rebellious and because they were Christians and want to submit, they just crushed their culture and they made them change their names and they made them change their religion and they had to go learn, you know, Arabic in schools and things like that. So the when when I say that the Catholic church or Western civilization is synonymous with the Catholic church, it's just because the West enjoyed like, fifteen hundred years of uninterrupted Christianity and that's why it thrived. It's not because and I and I'm sorry to say this. I know people are gonna get upset.
Some people do because one other thing that I find very strange on x is like this rise of neo paganism, which I find is the most ridiculous and absurd thing I've ever seen in my life, is they would say, oh, you know, the West is the best because there's like racial components to it and no, no, no, no. It has nothing to do with race and biology. It has everything to do with virtue. The reason why the Western the Western civilization thrived is because we enjoyed and we were the beneficiaries of fifteen hundred years of Christianity. And because of that, we dominated the world.
That's why. It has nothing to do with anything else.
Catholic FQ : Yeah. There's a writer, David Perel, and he says that that Christianity's influence is so all consuming. It's why we're desensitized to the influence of Christianity in Western thought, not because it's irrelevant, but because it's just all consuming. Even if you think of things like the coordinates of time and space, right, the east and the west has to do with the geography of where Jesus was born. Right?
The calendar, BC, AD, all of these things. He he also wrote a, an essay about everybody needs to read the bible. You know, I think our elites today, probably most of them, who think they're very smart and, you know, better than other people, they've never read the bible. You know, this is the best selling book of all time, the book that's influenced the world the most. And there are people, a lot of people, who've never read it, have no interest in it.
Again, they think it's this dusty old book about this, you know, bad institution. They see no no benefit to it. It really is astounding.
Imperator : And that's that's entirely the problem. So I I'm even guilty of this myself. The first time I read the bible front to back was probably I was probably 25 years old. And again, yeah, that it's very hard to criticize something if you've never read it yourself. Again, most people just work off the misconceptions that they have about the bible, about Christianity because, you know, their their year their grade school teacher just told them, oh, the Catholic church was, during the inquisition killed 9,000,000 people.
And then most people just go through their whole life just thinking that, oh, my teacher told me this and that that, I guess, you could say, like, that core memory just embeds itself into their mind. And they just think that the Catholic church has always been this oppressive institution that just wants to ruin everyone's life because they've never challenged that. They the the capacity for critical thinking has just been bred out of people. All they're capable of is just repeating, facts that they've just been taught. And and that's not to say that, you know, and, you know, feel free to correct me if you disagree, but I'm not saying that the Catholic Church is this well, the church itself is the bride of Christ, therefore she is perfect.
But the people in the Catholic Church, yes, they have been corrupt. There have been very corrupt bishops and popes and magistrates and things like that. That goes without saying. Everyone understands that. But it doesn't take away from the unbelievably overwhelming good that the church has done.
So, most people would say, oh, well what about the inquisition or what about this and that? And firstly, those things are heavily misrepresented. But, yeah, there might be some things in the church like when you look at Martin Luther and and the Protestant Reformation or the Protestant Revolt as you rightly said. Martin Luther originally, when he wrote some of his 95 theses, if I were to read them today, I'll be like, yeah, man. Like, I agree with some of your points.
And that they were they were just points. Like, you would have bishops and cardinals who are in, like, in Germany and all these who are basically living like kings And they're living in these pre these lordly manners and were yeah. There were some of them at at a small but, significant enough amount who were selling indulgences and were doing things like that. And but this is a small minority. These people were doing these things.
So to just say, no, this never happened. That's propaganda. No. No. It did happen.
But the response, in my opinion, was completely excessive. So once that, he's concerned for, you know, having some reform and removing some of the, excesses of the church. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
We do need that every now and then, every few generations when things start to become a little bit, you know, a little bit corrupt, a little bit decadent. We do need to reform. But his thing was, oh, yeah. Let's just split off and start our own church. Like, no.
No. No. That's why you're wrong. The reforming part was correct. The revolution part is incorrect.
The the, like, virtue was in the mean. So I think one thing that we need to understand is you have to be as as Catholics or as Christians, I don't know everyone who's in this space if you're Catholic or not, but as Christians you have to be or even just people in general, you have to have this capacity for critical thinking. When someone does say something that you think is, you know, whether it's Pope Francis or whether it's about, you know, the Crusades or whether it's about the colonization of the new world or you can't just take the first thing that you hear and just say oh that's what I was told. You actually have to research it yourself and read into it because if you're not, you are just a you're just a sponge that's just absorbing information that may or may not even be true. So that's where a lot of the problems come from is because people aren't capable of critical thought because they've never even looked into alternate positions.
So if I want to talk about protestantism, I don't just read a bunch of catholic sources then just slam protestants and I'm not saying we should just sit here and slam protestants. But I actually would read some of the protestant critiques of Catholicism so that I know what they're saying. Or I should read the counter arguments to the Spanish colonization of The Americas so I can see what the what the ulterior sort of position is so that then I can give a reasonable and intellectual response to what someone is saying. Most people don't do that. They they just have like, this is my side, this is your side, let's just fight to the death.
If you have that, perception, there's not gonna be a lot of conversation. There's not gonna be a lot of evangelization and there's not gonna be a lot of conversion.
Guest 1 : It's such a good point. And and actually, you know, taking responsibility or saying, yes, you know, the Catholic church has done things that weren't right or that weren't good in in hindsight. And, you know, being as transparent because, you know, let's be honest, it happens in every church. Every church has humans in it, and so every church is going to have its issues. But to be different and say, yes.
That wasn't one of our shiniest moments, and this is how things are different today, really does, I think, draw people in more than say, nope. Never happened. Nope. Never happened. There's just no there's just no way bright people are going to to listen to anything you say after that.
So I love that point.
Catholic FQ : Yeah. Pope Francis is on a apostolic journey now, I think, to Luxembourg and maybe Belgium. But he actually I think it was today, he met with, I don't know, the leader of the country, and and then he went and met with victims, of the abuse scandal. So absolutely, you have to acknowledge those things. And we remember that Jesus had somebody, Judas, you know, who's doing bad things, in the actual very first church, you know, the 12 apostles and the first children of Adam and Eve, one brother killed another.
So that's just the human condition. There's always gonna be somebody doing something wrong as long as, until the end of time probably because we all have free will. And until God perfects creation again, there's always gonna be that danger.
Guest 2 : Yeah. And to build on that, if we acknowledge, yes, we had these points in our history as a church where we made mistakes, but look how the church has been able to overcome those mistakes, learn if you will from those mistakes, and continue. That's, you know, that's part of the beauty of the church, and that's part of God's plan for her that we're you know, the gates of hell will not prevail against her. Well, yeah, if we had smooth sailing and the church was visually and, you know, visually perfect for her entire history, well, that's not impressive at all. You know, that doesn't win people over who might be questioning, but by being able to show vulnerabilities and growth that speaks to humans on our own nature because we are fallen, and we have to overcome our own deficiencies and our own trials.
So wouldn't a church on Earth have to do the same?
Catholic FQ : And, Pareto, do you wanna respond to that or?
Imperator : No. It's you're right. It's but I would just make the distinction whenever bring up people bring up these sort of arguments is it's not the church itself that is in error because she is the indefective indefectable bride of Christ. It's individuals within the church. That's that's the distinction that I always make.
And, you know, you're talking about just, Pope Francis just before going to I can't remember what which country you said, and talking about the the abuse scandals and things. These these are that's horrific. That's absolutely horrific. And, unfortunately, when you look at things like this, it's not that and then people will bring up questions about prestige, celibacy, and all these things. But in reality, it's that people who are vicious and evil gravitate to positions where they have opportunities to express their evils without using the specific terms that I know we're all talking about.
So why is it that people who have those certain vices, gravitate to certain professions will have access to children, for example? It's it's because human beings are fundamentally flawed and unfortunately, some people give themselves a device. And if you are that person, you're gonna gravitate to places where you know that you can exploit that and you can exploit other people. Unfortunately, a lot of people throughout history have used religion as a veil to, to wield power against people and to exploit people. Do those people exist?
Absolutely. Should they be punished? In my opinion, even more than other people are punished because that's they're not only bringing, you know, scandal to themselves and the person and they're destroying lives, but they're also scandalizing the church and to more that is given more as required. The fact that they know more and they still commit these these acts, for example, they should face even more severe punishment. That's just my opinion.
Catholic FQ : You mentioned priestly celibacy. That reminded me, I was in Rome in May for a really a combination of I had a work trip and I built some vacation time into it. But a lot of people think, well, the church should just let the priest get married, and that's gonna solve all our problems. It's like this panacea. It's gonna solve our vocations problems.
But, somebody, a high ranking person, priest at the Pontifical Mission Society, told us. He said, actually, vocations because in the Eastern churches, priests are married. Right? It's just in the Western, the Latin church where we have celibacy. Our vocation rate is higher than the vocation rate in the universal Catholic Church where priests can marry.
So I always think that's an interesting
Imperator : statistic. But it's practices within the Catholic Church, that's a great point, Catholic frequency. The practices within and disciplines within the Catholic church develop differently depending on the the geography and the culture. So I think we spoke about this on our previous space, but if anyone here has ever been to an Eastern mass or an Eastern liturgy, they'll know that when you go to receive communion, for example, if you go to a Melkite or a Maronite mass, they don't kneel. They stand and they bow.
Whereas if you go to a Latin church, they kneel. So then the question is, who's right and who's wrong? Well, the answer is both are correct because within the eastern culture, you bow to a king or an emperor. But in the western tradition, you kneel to an emperor. So it's saying that both acts reinforce the belief that Christ is king and that Christ is, you know, all of those those actions align to that belief that Christ is king, but it's it's expressed differently in different cultures.
That is why, for example, the Filioque way develops, I guess you could say, in the West, is because the West is dealing with Arians. And they're dealing with like Visigoths, who are Arians, and they believe that Jesus is like us, is like a a demigod, very similar to like to Heracles or Apollo. He's like the son of a god, but he's not really god. And that's why things like the Filioque had developed is because or expressed I should say, is to reinforce this belief that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are one and equal and substantially the same God. But that that emphasis doesn't develop in the East because they're not dealing with Aryans.
They're dealing with Islam and and iconoclasm. So that's why in response, the Greeks built these beautiful basilicas and churches that have so many icons. Why doesn't that develop in the West? Well, that's because the the cultural forces that are pushing each side of the church are different, therefore it develops differently. So even things like priestly celibacy where you have places where, you know, Ottomans, for example, have gone into a whole village and killed Christians, for example.
There are no men left to to join the priestly orders. So there are provisions made where individual men who have had their families and who have had, who have reached a mature age and have proven themselves as virtuous men, yes, they can join the priesthood and essentially, like, live like the apostles and live a celibate life, even though that they're married and they have children and dedicate themselves to the church in a way to both promote family, the Christian population, Christian family, Christian community, and make more priests. That problem was never evident in the Western church because there was no invading force that decimated civilization and sorry. Decimated, like, western civilization. So there was no need to allow priests to get married.
And again, in response to that, there was also a because the the basis of Roman power were in the Western Empire, I guess you could say, there was always this tendency towards nepotism in the Western world. So that's why there was a even stronger emphasis that priests and bishops and popes and all these people cannot have families because there was always the tendency to then create this nepotistic networks where people start start promoting like their nephews, and we we sort of saw that in in some places in the middle ages.
Catholic FQ : It wouldn't even be practical today. Imagine if you're a priest and you're married and your your family's living at the rectory and another priest two hundred miles away dies and the bishop's gotta send you tomorrow, you've got all kind of problems that other church might not have a big enough rectory. Your child might be in school here. So it really is, you know, priests are like they're in the service, and, there'd be a lot of problems if they tried to change that discipline in the West. I I put a link in the comments, and I posted one of the essays from David Perel, the writer that I mentioned.
There's there's two great essays, the book you need to read, which is about the bible, and the other one is Why You're Christian. When he wrote the one, why you're Christian, he actually was not Christian, which I found fascinating. Later he did, convert. I believe he's Protestant. He's not Catholic.
But, anyway, Susan.
Guest 2 : I just wanted to point out, if I'm not mistaken, in the Eastern church, yes, you have married priests. But if they, are feel called or led to move up in the ecclesiastical ranks, they cannot move into a bishopric or higher that is reserved strictly for unmarried priests. And then, also, I know, from talking to, some some priests on the Eastern in the Eastern side, not only do they go through a discernment and a formation, but their wives because they have to be married before they become a priest if they're going to marry. But their wives also have to go through a bit of a discernment to make sure that they have the right prism to be that supportive person for a priest. And because there's there is like you were pointing out, they could need to move at a moment's notice.
There is so much extra pressure put on that priest's wife, just because of the fact that her husband is that is a priest and is responsible for more than just their household, but an entire parish.
Catholic FQ : Absolutely. This is our third space together in Parator, and I believe it was in our first one where we had someone come in that was a member of the eastern one of the eastern churches. Maybe it was Maronite. And I think I don't know if you said it or he said it, but everybody if you have the opportunity, if you've never been to one of one of the because there's I think there's 23 eastern churches in full communion with Rome. They mentioned pope Francis in the mass, in union with the pope.
And it sparked an idea because, actually, the closest church to me is a Maronite church. It's one mile from where I live, and so I said, I'm gonna go try that. So, yeah, when I went, I was surprised. There were no kneelers, and there were there were things that were different. But it was so beautiful.
Everybody receives communion on the tongue, and, you might find this interesting in imperative, but I've been kinda just going to that church every week. I think I've gone four out of the last five weeks. I really love it. It's a very beautiful liturgy. And so, yeah, I think if everybody has an opportunity just to experience it just one time, I'm not saying switch, but it's it's just fascinating.
We think sometimes we think the whole world is just like our parish. Right? And it's so the church is so big and so incredible. Well, we're coming close to the end of our time, so I want to, give Imperator a chance maybe to give some final comments. But before I do, just some reminders.
Coming up at seven, 07:30 tonight in about thirty minutes, we're going to be doing the Chaplet of Saint Michael with our friends Terry and Nick. One hour from now, I'm hosting the rosary for Pray the Rosary. That's a a space that gets over 200 people a night praying the rosary, so please come to that if you can. And then at right after that, we're doing Catholic trivia, a fun way to start the weekend. Susan's gonna be one of our contestants tonight.
But, just to sort of wrap everything up in puritorial, love I love our conversations. And what would you, just wanna kinda wrap up what we've been talking about today?
Imperator : As to why, I hope we do this again. We we definitely I know I say this every time, but we have to make this a regular thing, like, at least, you know, once a month where we do a space together. Because even just the people that you bring in, the guests that you have, the co speakers, they're all fantastic. So I love this. I love I love the networking.
It's great. So thank you as well for your great work because you bring you make all this happen, and you're awesome. And And I can listen to you talk all day because you just have the you have the best voice. What I would say is, I think that I I know in these spaces we we tend to go off on little tangents which I love because that's part of the the nature of the conversation is we don't script these things, we just say, hey, what do you wanna talk about? And we just say, okay, let's just do this.
And I love that. I I think that just the last thing that I wanna say is for a lot of these things that, you know, I would encourage you all to to read and to study. And I'm not saying you will have to become academics and and spend your whole life, you know, in a library reading these topics. But what I would say is don't allow anyone to disparage the church and allow it to be unchallenged. And I mean that in the most charitable way possible because society has this, this tendency to just blame all the eels of the wall of the church, to blame religion for everything, and that as long as soon as we get rid of religion, the world will become a a better place.
And that is categorically false. The greatest atrocities that have occurred in in world history have have occurred under atheistic regimes, that are devoid of religion. What's happening in the world today is very much an expression of this anti religious, sort of mindset. The the the church and and the media was has spent the last, you know, hundred years just denigrating the church and and and criticizing the priesthood for its, you know, for scandals. And coincidentally, only for everyone to realize in the last three years that Hollywood and all these places are actually the greatest scandals on Earth.
So it's quite, you know, it's quite, it's horrendous, but it's quite ironic that the people who criticize the church the most are themselves the greatest perpetrators of these evils in society. I think that what we need to do as a church is we need to also be very proud of our history and proud of our contributions and learn what they are and defend the faith. Because as society continues to we've already passed the point of stagnation, sorry, let let me rephrase. The only progress we've made in the last two hundred years as a civilization is due to the the inertia created by Christianity. And it's been surviving off the momentum that Christianity has created over the last fifteen hundred years.
In my personal opinion, that's starting to stagnate, starting to stop, and eventually it will just stop it completely and collapse. Because the the edifice that we've built our civilization on is based on Christianity. And once you remove that foundation like any structure, the edifice will collapse. And we're starting to see those, you know, those fracturing are starting to happen now if I'm gonna use that analogy. So what I would say is we need to rediscover our past, we need to be proud of our past, we need to be proud of our accomplishments, not let people denigrate the church.
And I know people have a very, very strong tendency on places like X to, and I personally don't do this, I'm not judging people who do this or whatever, but you start to say like, oh, in order to promote Catholicism, I need to just like slam Orthodox people and I need to just slam Protestants and let's just criticize them. No, no, no. The way that you evangelize is you show the beauty of our church, you show the beauty of our tradition and that will capture people. No one's gonna convert to Catholicism because you wrote a 15 post just slamming all the orthodox patriarchs. Like, for example, I I just think that's very counterintuitive and that's not you you look like to to be, you know, to use more of a colloquial term.
Look, I saw a loser almost doing that, you know, like ad hominem attacks. So we need to promote truth, goodness, and beauty. We need to promote the church. We need to promote our traditions. We need to be able to defend our traditions.
We need to be conscious enough to know that when things have been done in the past by individuals within the Catholic church, we can confidently say, you know, yeah, that was wrong. And we have to make sure that never happens again. That's really important. But the most important thing is we have to insist that the foundations of our civilization are fundamentally Christian. And like I said before, we live in a society where everyone's all about their rights.
Freedom of speech, freedom of religion even, right to private property, right to self defense, right to family, right to whatever it is. All of these rights are predicated on the belief that you are made in the image and likeness of God. The Imago Dei, what the, the within the Hebrew literature on the Tanakh, it's called the Tzalem Elohim. This idea that you are made in the image of God and your rights are derived from the fact that you are you your being cooperates in the in the in divinity, I guess you could say. You you are made in his reflection, in his image.
Your rights stem from that fundamental belief. If you subtract God from that equation and just say that man is just an animal who is the culmination of millions of years of evolution from nothing, You actually have no rights. So the same people that say I have a right to x y z, you actually don't have that right because in reality, if you read people like Nietzsche who's becoming very popular now and the existential German philosopher, All that exists when you remove God from the equation is the will to power. And the will to power says the weak the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. So all it does is engenders what it creates a civilization of violence, of oppression, of corruption, of, you know, just, you know, the culture of death that we see today.
This is a culmination or or or is symptomatic of this rejection of God. So the same people who criticize religion and then advocate for their rights, they don't realize that those rights are predicated on religious principles. So if they try and destroy the edifice on which they stand, the whole building is gonna collapse on their head. So I think people need to realize these truths as well and I think modern history has even shown that for us. Modern history has revealed that many of the things that we hold dear are fundamentally Christian.
And if we allow those things to be pushed aside or when we allow atheistic regimes or irreligious regimes to take control within society, we see what happens. People will talk about the Crusades, they'll talk about the inquisitions, they'll throw out all this misinformation, not acknowledging the fact that communism has killed like a hundred million people in in just the twenty first century alone. Like the the or twentieth century alone, sorry. So these are things that we have to you have to know the responses to these things. And I'm more than happy I know we kind of, like, got caught around the, the dark ages and middle ages.
Catholic frequency, I don't know. Maybe maybe next time we get into, like, the modern age and we kind of continue this conversation through. But, yeah, thank you again for, for hosting. Thank you for organizing this. And as always, thank you for your incredible insights.
Some sometimes I just wanna interview you because I or have you as the guest speaker because I feel like in a lot of ways, you're much smarter than many of these things than I am. So I'd love to do that again, and, thank you.
Catholic FQ : Anytime. It's funny. I was, I think you know the the user architect older who posts all these beautiful architectural photos. I was actually a guest on his space this week, and I was like, I'm not usually the guest. It's like, I don't know.
I like I don't know. It's I don't know. I like this set of microphone. But, hey, I'll do any kind of space anytime you wanna do it. We're just working with our geographic and our our time difference.
I wanna encourage everybody to follow, Imperator. He posts a lot about virtue, a lot about the cardinal virtues. I put one of his posts from earlier up in the jumbotron. Give us, Imperator, thirty seconds or less. Why is virtue so important?
Imperator : Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it. If you grow in virtue, God will use your talents and use your natural abilities to to make the world a better place.
Catholic FQ : That's right. We can't wait for some politician to save us. If we want the world to be better, if if our citizenry was more virtuous, politicians are followers. They're looking for which way the parade is going. Right now, the parade is going over to degeneracy and into the abyss of darkness.
And so the politicians are out in front of that saying, okay, because they're selling your soul for power. But if the citizenry was virtuous, we wouldn't we would have the greatest politicians. So we all need to grow in virtue and influence the people around us. We can all influence, they say, a 50 people through our lifetimes. That's what we should be doing.
Imperator, thank you very much.

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