1 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,000 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinsky, 2 00:00:22,079 --> 00:00:25,760 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:29,719 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST. 4 00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:34,399 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts as well. Today I'm 5 00:00:34,479 --> 00:00:39,000 joined by Alec Torres. He is co author of the new book Persecuted from 6 00:00:39,039 --> 00:00:44,799 Within, How the Saints Endured Crises in the Church. Alec is a former 7 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:51,000 speechwriter for President Trump, also for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's ghost written for Cabinet 8 00:00:51,039 --> 00:00:54,960 secretaries, of bassadors, national media personalities, and business leaders. He's also 9 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:58,799 the co founder of Alligraph, a strategic writing, comms and design firm, 10 00:00:59,079 --> 00:01:03,119 and Alec lives with his wife, children and dogs in Texas. Alec, 11 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:06,319 thanks for joining the show. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. 12 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:08,959 Yeah. Of course you mentioned actually before we started the tape Rooin in 13 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:14,760 here that you know, you're a longtime ghost writer. Such an interesting field 14 00:01:14,799 --> 00:01:17,760 of work, and you know a lot of people actually don't know how interesting 15 00:01:17,799 --> 00:01:21,840 it is, of course, because the ghost writers aren't the ones talk in 16 00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:25,079 the media. A lot. Could you give us just a little bit of 17 00:01:25,519 --> 00:01:30,599 your background background on your career. No we mentioned President Trump and Speaker McCarthy. 18 00:01:32,359 --> 00:01:34,680 How'd you end up where you are? Alec Yeah, no, happy 19 00:01:34,719 --> 00:01:38,239 to share. It's it's uh, it is a weird career, but but 20 00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:44,680 it's a wonderful one. It's it's not one that anybody really expects to get 21 00:01:44,719 --> 00:01:47,280 into. I guess most people think, if you're going to start writing things, 22 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:49,560 why don't you just write under your own name? Uh? But but 23 00:01:49,599 --> 00:01:56,000 in many ways, it just felt led into it. I graduated from Yale 24 00:01:56,280 --> 00:02:00,480 back, you know, about a decade ago now, and just just kind 25 00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:04,200 of stumbled into a writing job. I was working for National Review at the 26 00:02:04,239 --> 00:02:07,799 time, and then from there got a call one day somebody said, hey, 27 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:09,560 would you ever be interested in being a speechwriter? Well, heck, 28 00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:12,759 why not? That seems fun. Can you at least get me out of 29 00:02:12,759 --> 00:02:15,560 New York. I didn't really like it there, so they moved me off 30 00:02:15,599 --> 00:02:19,759 to DC. I started working for Kevin McCarthy then, and you know, 31 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,599 one thing led to another, works for the President. So I certainly didn't 32 00:02:23,639 --> 00:02:25,319 plan it, but my goodness, it puts you, It puts you right 33 00:02:25,319 --> 00:02:30,080 in the middle of some some pretty amazing things. And the benefit for me 34 00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:32,000 too is I get to write about absolutely everything, anything under the sun, 35 00:02:32,039 --> 00:02:35,599 anything that my boss has wrote on, or anybody that hires me wants to 36 00:02:35,599 --> 00:02:38,080 write on. As long as I agree with it and I'm game, I 37 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:44,840 get to dive right in. Keeps it interesting? That absolutely sounds like it 38 00:02:44,919 --> 00:02:47,360 keeps it interesting. Tell us about the new book, of course, and 39 00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:53,639 your co author on this, what sort of brought this book into being? 40 00:02:53,759 --> 00:02:57,199 What did you want to do with this book? Yeah, thank you? 41 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:04,479 Persecuted from within? Was it kind of started as just a flash, an 42 00:03:04,599 --> 00:03:07,520 insight or something, and I'd call it led by the Holy Spirit. But 43 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:13,639 I was sitting there and I was looking I'm a Catholic, and I was 44 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:15,639 looking at the church, and I was looking at scandals within the church, 45 00:03:16,639 --> 00:03:20,719 and I mean, this applies all over the place too. It can be 46 00:03:21,159 --> 00:03:24,240 scandals with than the Protestant Church to a lesser degree, scandals with government, 47 00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:28,159 things like that. And I wanted to know, how should a Christian respond? 48 00:03:28,759 --> 00:03:32,439 How am I obligated to respond when those in power do things that I 49 00:03:32,479 --> 00:03:38,039 think are terrible or that I disagree with, or they cause controversy, whatever 50 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:40,960 it may be. And I wanted to act in the best way that I 51 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:45,639 could. I wanted to act as a good Christian should. And I realized 52 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:49,400 I really didn't actually have the answer to that. You know, a priest, 53 00:03:49,479 --> 00:03:51,840 or a bishop or even the Pope says something that I don't really like, 54 00:03:52,360 --> 00:03:55,000 what do I do? So I thought, Okay, let me what 55 00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:59,639 if I asked the people who do know what to do, who have shown 56 00:03:59,639 --> 00:04:02,919 that they need what to do. So I looked at great Christians, incredible 57 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:09,800 Christians from the past twenty centuries of the church, and decided to look at 58 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:15,000 their lives when they were persecuted by members of the church itself, by a 59 00:04:15,039 --> 00:04:17,920 hierarchy within the church. So I had that idea, and I brought it 60 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,959 up to a friend of mine, Josh Charles. He's the co author of 61 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:27,240 the book. He's another White House speech writer, and he loved it too. 62 00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:30,439 So we decided to run with it and thank God for his help because 63 00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:34,000 I'd written history before, but I never got into biographies like this, and 64 00:04:34,199 --> 00:04:36,519 it was a heck of a lot of work. I have to say, 65 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:46,399 it sounds incredibly almost Sissifian. Also, just to go into people's to dip 66 00:04:46,439 --> 00:04:49,680 into people's lives and with all of the actually, I imagine this might even 67 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:54,560 be a bigger challenge than an asset. Obviously, it's a huge asset to 68 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:59,560 have access to the libraries around the world via the Internet now, but that 69 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:05,160 has also make things so difficult when you're trying to kind of pin down specifics 70 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:09,560 about people's lives, about different moments in time, what is that like. 71 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:14,879 In a strange way, our training as speech writers really helped us out a 72 00:05:14,920 --> 00:05:18,240 lot, because you know, you find I would get these prompts so you 73 00:05:18,279 --> 00:05:21,199 know, whatever, whatever it really is, you know, the presidents to 74 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:25,040 speak on X issue. It could be healthcare, could be better, and 75 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:27,439 it could be whatever it is. And you look at it and you say, 76 00:05:27,480 --> 00:05:30,399 I have a thousand works, you know, call it one thousand, 77 00:05:30,399 --> 00:05:32,959 called fifteen hundred, called three thousand, whatever it is. There's no possible 78 00:05:33,040 --> 00:05:38,319 way you are going to do full justice to a subject in that small amount 79 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:41,680 of words, especially when you count things like you have to acknowledge where you 80 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:45,879 are, recognize certain dignitaries and people. There's a lot of factors that go 81 00:05:45,959 --> 00:05:49,519 in play. So that selective choice of what to focus on and what not 82 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:55,000 to is an odd skill, but it's a vital skill in this day and 83 00:05:55,519 --> 00:05:59,959 when we are just bombarded with information. To take an example from the book, 84 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:02,399 one of the great saints we look at is Padre Pio. He's a 85 00:06:02,439 --> 00:06:08,439 person that a lot of people know about, Catholic or not, and his 86 00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:12,879 life is astounding. There's a million one things you can write on. People 87 00:06:12,920 --> 00:06:15,800 really know him for a lot of miraculous things that happened in his life. 88 00:06:15,639 --> 00:06:19,439 But we set a lot of those miracles off to the side and decided to 89 00:06:19,439 --> 00:06:24,639 focus on another aspect because we start writing on that and gosh, there's been 90 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:27,959 biographies, multi volume biographies written on the guy. We're never going to cover 91 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:30,800 it. So it was a judgment call. We had to make pretty much 92 00:06:31,079 --> 00:06:36,680 every page of the book no I can imagine. Do you have This might 93 00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:40,720 be a weird question, but do you have a favorite of the people that 94 00:06:40,759 --> 00:06:44,800 you wrote about in the book? Is there anything that just resonates or connects 95 00:06:44,839 --> 00:06:50,120 with you or maybe was especially compelling to you for any reason. That is 96 00:06:50,199 --> 00:06:55,879 a hard question I asked to did mostly because I don't want to say, 97 00:06:55,879 --> 00:06:58,240 oh, I love Paul. There are some that were more fun to work 98 00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:03,680 with than others. I do admit but it kind of depends on what subject 99 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:09,160 I'm dealing with that certain saints shine out. Just to give an example, 100 00:07:09,279 --> 00:07:12,360 I can't exactly say he's my favorite, but there is one we covered, 101 00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:17,639 Saint Thomas Moore, and he lived under Henry the Eighth when the Anglican Church 102 00:07:17,759 --> 00:07:24,800 was breaking away from the Catholic Church, and really what he did his time 103 00:07:24,879 --> 00:07:28,639 echoes our own in so many ways. Because his king wanted to be able 104 00:07:28,639 --> 00:07:31,360 to divorce his wife and remarry for the sake of having male children. I 105 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:35,040 mean, this is a massive schism. It's a very big subject in history. 106 00:07:38,519 --> 00:07:40,959 But he was an advisor to the king, Saint Thomas Moore, so 107 00:07:41,199 --> 00:07:44,439 he had to figure out how in the world do I show loyalty to my 108 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:47,360 king, to my ruler, give him good advice, but also not violate 109 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:54,360 my principles and the teachings Christian teachings about marriage. Well, gosh, how 110 00:07:54,399 --> 00:07:59,199 do we not violate our principles and uphold Christian teachings about marriage nowadays, especially 111 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:03,800 in the political sphere as it is so looking at his life and having negotiated 112 00:08:03,879 --> 00:08:09,199 those competing loyalties was fascinating. He's the patron saint of lawyers, and I 113 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:11,399 think politicians or something like that. So working in politics, I had I 114 00:08:11,439 --> 00:08:15,680 had reason to look at him a lot. But he's one of the many 115 00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:18,560 that really stood out to me in the book. Yeah, no, that 116 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,360 makes sense. Is there one who you think? I mean, probably the 117 00:08:22,639 --> 00:08:26,439 obvious answer here is all of them, because you wrote the book about all 118 00:08:26,439 --> 00:08:30,680 of them. But is there anyone that you think has a sort of arc 119 00:08:30,879 --> 00:08:37,879 that is particularly applicable to Catholics and sort of twenty twenty three America. Ooh 120 00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:43,639 that I'm the moment you said that, I'm seeing like bits and pieces of 121 00:08:43,679 --> 00:08:52,799 each of their stories, you know, popping into place, and it's maybe 122 00:08:52,279 --> 00:08:58,000 the most important one to look at here is actually Saint Paul. He's kind 123 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:03,639 of he's a somewhat of a surprise addition to this because you think persecuted by 124 00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:05,679 the Church himself. Everyone knows Paul was persecuted by all sorts of folks. 125 00:09:05,919 --> 00:09:13,279 They don't readily think of him being persecuted by the Church. But there's this 126 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:18,720 kind of there's a story and acts where he was. He went to Jerusalem, 127 00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:24,759 reported to the chief priest there and or rather the chief leaders in the 128 00:09:24,799 --> 00:09:28,600 church, including James the Greater who was the Bishop of Jerusalem at that time, 129 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:33,360 and they essentially told him, hey, you know, we love you, 130 00:09:33,480 --> 00:09:35,919 we love what you're doing, but there are some people who are a 131 00:09:35,919 --> 00:09:39,679 little worried that you're not following Jewish law as much. And at the time 132 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:43,120 that was still an open question. How much do you follow the Jewish law 133 00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:46,080 and ceremonial practices, how much do you not? So they told him, 134 00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:54,240 Okay, go to the temple and purify yourself and we should all be good. 135 00:09:54,279 --> 00:09:56,000 You'll convince them that you're good. You're still following Jewish law. YadA, 136 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:58,679 YadA, YadA. Not to get too bogged down in the details, 137 00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:03,440 but long story short, he did that knowingly, knowing that this would expose 138 00:10:03,519 --> 00:10:07,639 him to some pretty bad pushback. I mean, this is after he had 139 00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:13,000 been thrown out of cities and stoned and shipwrecked, all these terrible things that 140 00:10:13,080 --> 00:10:16,200 already happened to him. So what happens, well, you know, is 141 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:20,000 the Jewish opponents in the cities find him and they try to kill him right 142 00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:22,440 then and there. The only reason he was saved was because the Romans got 143 00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:26,320 involved. So that's sort of one part of the story. Why is that 144 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:33,120 important to today? Well, he showed what it's like to follow leaders that 145 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:37,480 tell you to do things that may even put you at risk or that seems 146 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:41,120 stupid, but he recognized that there wasn't a moral, principled reason why he 147 00:10:41,159 --> 00:10:46,240 should not submit in that circumstance, why he had an obligation to follow them. 148 00:10:48,039 --> 00:10:50,840 And on the flip side, there was another story of when he contradicted 149 00:10:50,879 --> 00:10:54,759 Saint Peter, who was the chief of the Apostles, to his face, 150 00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:58,919 and it's because Saint Peter was contradicting the moral laws of the Church. He 151 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:03,320 was contradicting the true teachings of Church about salvation. It wasn't the moral laws 152 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:07,399 actually was salvation. It's I'm happy to get into the story. There's a 153 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:09,840 reason we had to write a book about it because so many of these details 154 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:16,480 deserved being oh okay, well, well, essentially what happened was is Peter 155 00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:24,440 he also kind of succumbed the pressure from this the Jewish wing of the church 156 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:28,559 at this time, and he said he decided he wasn't going to eat with 157 00:11:28,759 --> 00:11:33,080 non Jewish Christians anymore because that wasn't allowed. Jews were not supposed to eat 158 00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:37,480 with gentiles. Obviously, it was just insulting to the gentiles who had converted. 159 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:43,799 But also it implied that that Peter, the chief of the Apostles, 160 00:11:43,919 --> 00:11:48,200 really did believe that you had to follow the Jewish ceremonial law to be saved. 161 00:11:48,679 --> 00:11:52,679 That's that's not a small matter. I mean that that tells all these 162 00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:54,360 gentiles. I'm sorry, like Jesus may have died, but you know, 163 00:11:54,440 --> 00:12:01,080 maybe not for you, that this could have really put peoples at stake at 164 00:12:01,159 --> 00:12:05,879 risk. So Peter, in that circumstance, he says in Galatians, he 165 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:09,200 confronted Peter to his face. He contradicted him to his face, and he 166 00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:13,679 asked him direct questions like do you really believe what your actions seem to be 167 00:12:13,720 --> 00:12:20,799 saying here. So for a person who willingly submitted himselves to James and put 168 00:12:20,879 --> 00:12:24,559 himself at grave risk that he ended up being almost killed by a mob and 169 00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:28,759 then thrown into prison by the Romans to then turn around and contradict a leader 170 00:12:28,799 --> 00:12:35,279 in that circumstance, I really think his life shows the complications that we face 171 00:12:35,279 --> 00:12:39,840 as Christians of how to live a life of obedience to the truth, of 172 00:12:39,399 --> 00:12:43,440 supporting our leaders as God calls us to and praying for them and loving them 173 00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:48,799 as God calls us to, but also not being silent when it actually is 174 00:12:48,879 --> 00:12:52,120 very important and we have to stand for the truth. It's a complicated, 175 00:12:52,120 --> 00:13:01,240 crudential question that his life really exemplified him. Ya. This is Sarah from 176 00:13:01,279 --> 00:13:05,960 the Sarah Carter Show. 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One of them is 193 00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:41,200 a saint, Saint Bruno. He lived in the eleventh century, and he 194 00:14:41,279 --> 00:14:45,440 lived in a time when well, well, let's just say, if people 195 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:48,960 are worried about scandals within the Catholic Church today, this time would have given 196 00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:54,120 people a run for their money. There was gross sexual im morality within the 197 00:14:54,240 --> 00:15:00,279 church, priests and bishops and even popes living with their mistresses. It was 198 00:15:00,279 --> 00:15:05,159 so bad later historians called it the pornocracy. It was a gross time. 199 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:09,120 And on top of that, civil disorder all over the place. I mean 200 00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:16,639 there were kings competing over lands, or kings competing with ecclesial authority. Emperors 201 00:15:16,639 --> 00:15:22,879 were involved. Rome was invaded by different armies and then thrown off by other 202 00:15:24,039 --> 00:15:26,960 armies. The pope was running into exile and coming back. I mean that 203 00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:31,039 our times are unique in many ways. There are a lot of things we 204 00:15:31,039 --> 00:15:33,360 should be concerned about. But gosh, if you were going to lose faith 205 00:15:33,399 --> 00:15:37,159 in an institution, that period of time may have been in because it looked 206 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:41,600 bad. And Saint Bruno comes on the stage, and he was very clear 207 00:15:41,639 --> 00:15:46,679 about the issues of day, about the moral issues, but also about the 208 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:52,039 relationship between the Church and the state, which was still being very much negotiated 209 00:15:52,080 --> 00:16:00,480 at that time. The reason I find his story so fascinating is because in 210 00:16:00,519 --> 00:16:06,159 many ways he was asked to put at risk and to sacrifice what so many 211 00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:08,559 of us are in our lives. I mean, we write about saints who 212 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:12,840 were who were excommunicated, or who were martyred, or who were killed or 213 00:16:12,879 --> 00:16:17,320 something like that, and that could happen, you know, never say never. 214 00:16:17,399 --> 00:16:19,080 I really hope it doesn't. But for most of us, we're asked 215 00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:23,559 for something a lot less. We're just asked to sacrifice, maybe our reputation 216 00:16:23,799 --> 00:16:29,720 or maybe a promotion, maybe a friendship, you know, standing for the 217 00:16:29,799 --> 00:16:33,840 truth and standing for Christian doctrine. Nowadays it has costs, but they aren't 218 00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:40,159 as they aren't as high of costs as so many have faced in the past. 219 00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:45,519 So with Saint Bruno, he saw the relationship between church and state, 220 00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:52,159 and essentially an emperor was demanding the right to appoint and to control church leaders 221 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:57,840 within his jurisdiction, which which isn't allowed. That's something that simply can't be 222 00:16:57,919 --> 00:17:03,279 done under duress. He literally captured the Pope, put him in prison and 223 00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:06,039 said I'm not going to release you until you sign on and let me do 224 00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:11,400 this. And the Pope signed on. So Saint Bruno called him on it. 225 00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:14,160 He had previously been a high advisor to the pope, had a ton 226 00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:17,119 of power and authority, and he said the Pope was wrong, you can't 227 00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:19,640 do this. So boom, all of his power, all of his authority, 228 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,400 all of his high rank, everything like that got pushed off to the 229 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:26,000 side, and you know, he kind of ended up on the outskirts. 230 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:30,359 He died, not in the center of things. It was a risk he 231 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:36,119 was willing to take. And I always mentioned this in interviews with Catholic authors, 232 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:41,680 but as a Lutheran, I'm not super familiar with all of the different 233 00:17:41,839 --> 00:17:48,079 contours of your faith. But the book really is addressing this major question that 234 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:53,400 anybody in an organized denomination thinks about, which is when to obey when to 235 00:17:53,440 --> 00:18:00,960 disobey in authority? And your book addresses that through these stories. What should 236 00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:04,599 people be thinking about? And I know this question weighs heavily on a lot 237 00:18:04,599 --> 00:18:11,480 of Catholics minds these days. What is that? How should what is that 238 00:18:11,599 --> 00:18:15,480 question? What is the way to think about that question? You know? 239 00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:21,839 And how do some of these examples help people think about that question? It's 240 00:18:21,880 --> 00:18:26,279 it is probably the question at the core of the book. And I know 241 00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:30,240 I just spouted a lot of church history and and a lot of things that 242 00:18:30,279 --> 00:18:33,079 maybe Protestants wouldn't care as much about. I still think that the principles within 243 00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:40,799 the story are very good, and there's there's many examples that that have that 244 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:45,960 draw out truths that are really applicable to all Christians. The reason I say 245 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:51,599 that is because it's it's not just that Catholics have to obey the Church. 246 00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:52,680 And that's why I'm writing about this. No, no, no, it 247 00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:56,960 starts with Jesus. Are the first chapter of our book is about Jesus, 248 00:18:57,039 --> 00:19:04,440 and he's pretty darn clear that any faithful Christian has to obey authority. You 249 00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:11,640 know, he Christ himself, put put himself under the authority of ponscious Pilot. 250 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:15,359 And ponscious Pilot wasn't a church leader, he wasn't a Jewish, he, 251 00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:19,000 you know, wasn't a follower of Christ by any stretch of the imagination. 252 00:19:19,559 --> 00:19:25,680 He was created by God. And yet Jesus put himself under his jurisdiction 253 00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:29,599 and allowed conscious Pilot to sentence him the debt. There's a great mystery there 254 00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:33,680 about how to negotiate that. And doesn't matter the denomination that you're in, 255 00:19:33,720 --> 00:19:38,039 we are going to face it. If you're a Catholic and you have you 256 00:19:38,079 --> 00:19:41,559 know, the Pope says something or does something you disagree with, you're going 257 00:19:41,599 --> 00:19:44,400 to face it. Well, if you're a Protestant, even a in a 258 00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:49,640 very decentralized church, and say your pastor, I don't know the siphon's way, 259 00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:52,599 church money, or has an affair or whatever it is, you're going 260 00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:57,119 to have to decide how do you do you throw off that church? Do 261 00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:00,680 you leave that church because of that? Do you stick around? How do 262 00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:07,400 you negotiate with that? That question of obedience isn't a Catholic thing. It's 263 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:10,200 it's it's at the core of what it means to be a Christian. When 264 00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:15,200 to obey the authorities that God put on earth and when do we have a 265 00:20:15,319 --> 00:20:22,559 higher obedience to what God demands. Now you also have a part where you're 266 00:20:22,839 --> 00:20:30,079 helping non Catholics talk about this sort of secular culture that everyone that it's it's 267 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,759 hard not to be consumed by because we kind of all exist in it. 268 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:36,960 And again, another thing that I bring up a lot with Catholic authors, 269 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:40,359 and maybe the listeners know exactly where I'm going with this, but it's just 270 00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:47,920 the sort of renaissance of things like the Latin mass, the growing interest among 271 00:20:48,279 --> 00:20:57,319 even maybe especially younger conservative leaning people to follow Orthodox Catholicism after years of hearing 272 00:20:57,359 --> 00:21:03,920 over and over again that you know, the more orthodox the church seemed to 273 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,359 people, the less success it would have at recruiting young people and you know, 274 00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:11,440 people alike, young, old, whatever it is. It seems as 275 00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:15,240 though that's panning out to be the opposite. But with that context in mind, 276 00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:22,319 how can non Catholics talk or how can Catholics talk to non Catholics about 277 00:21:22,319 --> 00:21:30,400 this culture? The I think you see the same trend lines through especially in 278 00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:34,400 the Catholics, but also but outside of it as well. I'm a convert 279 00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:40,880 myself. I'm actually married to a non Catholic and you know, she's evangelical, 280 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:44,240 and there's this weird it's almost like the horseshoe theory. There's all those 281 00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:47,359 sorts of things that are very that there's big disagreement on. But between low 282 00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:49,960 church Protestants and sort of Latin Mass attending Catholics, like I am, all 283 00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,119 of a sudden, you look and you're like, wait a second, We're 284 00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:59,319 we have different theologies, we're approaching things from extremely different perspectives, but both 285 00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:03,640 signs are saying and I want something solid to stand on, and that's what 286 00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:10,960 the Catholic that's what the sort of orthodox Catholic movement is turning on. I 287 00:22:11,079 --> 00:22:15,240 need to have something that isn't going to change on me, that that has 288 00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:18,599 been the case, has always been the case, and will always be the 289 00:22:18,599 --> 00:22:22,000 case. And how the times are shifting and the tides are always churning, 290 00:22:22,039 --> 00:22:26,759 and how we negotiate that in the secular environment gets harder and harder. But 291 00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:30,079 you know, the Bible verse I was reading this morning was about a loop 292 00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:34,880 sticks. I want to say about building your house upon the rock of Christ's 293 00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:38,519 word is teaching his life. That's where you got to build it, and 294 00:22:38,759 --> 00:22:45,079 everything else is just kind of extra. I know. You also address the 295 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:48,279 question of what people might get wrong. And I want to ask if there 296 00:22:48,279 --> 00:22:52,720 are examples or lessons from all of the stories that you did deep dives into 297 00:22:52,759 --> 00:22:56,240 and spent so long thinking about and putting, you know, pen to paper 298 00:22:56,279 --> 00:23:00,599 to tell these stories. Are there lessons for uh, you know, how 299 00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:07,559 how to respond and how not to respond as Christians in a broken culture. 300 00:23:08,079 --> 00:23:14,160 One of the hard lessons I really learned from this was that if you go 301 00:23:14,319 --> 00:23:18,440 back from Jesus to Saint Paul, to the very early Church and the three 302 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:22,920 hundreds with Saint Athanasius, Middle Ages like Saint Bruno, you know, all 303 00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:26,319 the way to today with Padre Pio and Fulton Sheen. The the hard, 304 00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:34,079 hard lesson I learned was that Christians that the rule is to obey, and 305 00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:41,759 it's not just church leaders oftentimes it's even civil leaders. This gets very, 306 00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,079 very messy nowadays. It's a hard thing to deal with and I can find 307 00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:49,440 I speak for myself in this, there's there's this tendency to want to buifur 308 00:23:49,519 --> 00:23:55,559 kate our lives and to respond one way as a Christian and one way as 309 00:23:55,559 --> 00:23:59,440 a conservative. You know, I see Biden doing something terrible, or I 310 00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,160 see the the church or the culture, or I say politics or culture doing 311 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,519 this and that, and I want to I want to just start running people 312 00:24:06,519 --> 00:24:08,880 through the mud and driving them out of town. And then I go to 313 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,400 church and I and I try to be all pious and say, you know, 314 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:15,200 oh, of course I pray for my leaders, and you know, 315 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:21,519 I submit to proper authority in this and that. The number of times I 316 00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:29,960 saw saints and great Christians submit to bad leadership, not morally bad, not 317 00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:33,160 not those who teach air that will guide people towards sin, but just things 318 00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:37,759 that were stupid, that were really imprudent, or that you know, in 319 00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:41,759 our in our modern parliamce would be lead our country in the wrong direction. 320 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:45,440 The number of times that they did that, trusting that God was still guiding 321 00:24:45,519 --> 00:24:51,200 things, and then they didn't need to engage in slander or in gossip, 322 00:24:51,759 --> 00:24:56,119 or in ad homine attacks or anything like that. It showed a trust and 323 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,400 a depth of faith that I know I need to emulate in my own life 324 00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:04,799 much much more. Now, Can you talk to us actually about the specific 325 00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:10,440 example of Padre Pio. I think that's a story obviously that many many Catholics 326 00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,599 are very familiar with, but also just from the perspective of people interested in 327 00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:19,720 history, so fascinating tell us about Padre Pio alec This actually leads perfectly together 328 00:25:19,759 --> 00:25:25,519 because Pandre Pio is one of these great examples of obedience in the face of 329 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:32,759 I mean crimes against him really, that are, if you put yourself in 330 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,960 hissues, you'd wonder how you could do it. So Padre Pio was this 331 00:25:37,039 --> 00:25:41,680 capuchin friar in twentieth century. He lived in a very small town, kind 332 00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:47,720 of on the eastern side, low down in the south of Italy, and 333 00:25:48,839 --> 00:25:52,240 he didn't seek out any fame or fortune or anything like that. He just 334 00:25:52,279 --> 00:25:56,200 wanted to live in his friary a life of prayer and penance. But he 335 00:25:56,319 --> 00:26:00,720 got what Catholics call the stigmata, that the wound, the visible wounds of 336 00:26:00,799 --> 00:26:07,599 Christ in his hands and on his feet. This was this is one of 337 00:26:07,599 --> 00:26:10,279 those things that we mentioned in the book because it's important for the story, 338 00:26:10,279 --> 00:26:14,599 but we don't get in, we don't dive in too deeply. Suffice to 339 00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:18,079 say that it was studied by multiple medical examiners. It was filmed, it 340 00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:22,920 was photographed, They were legitimate. They were miraculous. Nobody had There wasn't 341 00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:27,480 a worldly explanation for it. And what it did was it brought a ton 342 00:26:27,519 --> 00:26:32,920 of attention to Quadre Pou, frankly, a lot of unwanted attention. He 343 00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:36,960 wanted to wrap his hands up and kind of go on, but people noticed 344 00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:42,240 and you couldn't keep it hidden. So essentially the church authorities looked at this 345 00:26:42,319 --> 00:26:45,440 and thought at first he was a fraud. They wanted They were like, 346 00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,559 you are trying to make money, You're trying to get fame for yourself. 347 00:26:48,559 --> 00:26:52,559 I don't know what's going on here, but but this doesn't seem legitimate. 348 00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:56,240 So they put restrictions on him that he had a growing band of people around 349 00:26:56,279 --> 00:27:02,799 him that were getting overly emphatic, and they wanted to tamp down the temperature. 350 00:27:03,319 --> 00:27:07,400 So they put restrictions on him that were kind kind of just ridiculous. 351 00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:12,359 They barred him from saying massive public, They banned him from hearing confessions. 352 00:27:14,079 --> 00:27:17,599 At one point, they even ordered his superiors order that would be passed by 353 00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:19,400 people in the hall. He wasn't really allowed to talk to them. He 354 00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,559 could acknowledge them with a nod, but just walk by. I mean the 355 00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:29,000 idea that anybody has the right to do that is just shocking. But for 356 00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:33,200 Padre Pio, he had vowed obedience as a friar, and he actually submitted 357 00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:38,119 to all of this. He actually he had a friend, his name was 358 00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:44,880 Emmanuel Brunado, and he did what the political thing would be. He went 359 00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,319 to Padre Pio and said, how about this. What if I published a 360 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:56,680 book detailing all these scandals inside of Rome, you know, abuses and mistresses 361 00:27:56,039 --> 00:28:00,759 and you name it. We'll get all this out there as a way to 362 00:28:00,799 --> 00:28:07,359 blackmail them to releasing these restrictions on you. There's a caveat here that obviously, 363 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:11,079 when they're wrongdoing an air you should address that, you should fix that. 364 00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:14,880 It's not going to keep these things in the dark. But Padre Piu 365 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,400 saw it for what it was. It's one thing to sort of air dirty 366 00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,880 wanndry to address it wrong. It's another to do it to blackmail people for 367 00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:23,839 the sake of your own benefit. And he told him not to do it. 368 00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:26,839 He told him that he wasn't going to run these people's name through the 369 00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:33,200 mud for his own benefit. And he waited patiently until essentially divine intervention came 370 00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:41,599 to relieve him of these years of what he called his imprisonment. So that's 371 00:28:41,079 --> 00:28:48,000 his life is so stocking in so many ways because he was actually just in 372 00:28:48,039 --> 00:28:51,799 many respects a normal person. Yes he had the stigma, and yes he 373 00:28:51,839 --> 00:28:55,640 had all these miracles attributed to him, but he was a sinful human being 374 00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:57,240 just like all of us. He faced temptations, just like all of us. 375 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,440 Imagine yourself being having all of those restrictions put upon you and not lashing 376 00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:08,440 out at the people who are doing it. I can't imagine having that strength 377 00:29:10,119 --> 00:29:17,279 by the grace of God. Now this is a more maybe a more current 378 00:29:17,599 --> 00:29:22,440 question or a more pragmatic question. How are if the if they are, 379 00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:30,519 how are in your estimation Catholics perhaps being persecuted from within maybe all over the 380 00:29:30,559 --> 00:29:33,319 world that we sort of think of these things through an American lens. But 381 00:29:33,079 --> 00:29:37,119 is that happening? Do you see that that's happening. I think one of 382 00:29:37,119 --> 00:29:40,559 these questions probably that you think a lot about, is where to draw the 383 00:29:40,599 --> 00:29:44,400 line, where how to define sort of persecution from within? You You can 384 00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:48,640 have disagreement within, you can have you know, disagreement, or you can 385 00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:55,720 have poor leadership within. When that becomes persecution. Obviously the definition is consequential 386 00:29:55,799 --> 00:30:00,039 and has much gravity. What does that look like today? To the extent 387 00:30:00,079 --> 00:30:04,480 that it does Alec, it's very much the case today. I don't think 388 00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,839 I would have felt as strongly about it had it not been happening today. 389 00:30:07,839 --> 00:30:12,559 You know, I have no problem with academics. They're great, and sometimes 390 00:30:12,599 --> 00:30:18,200 it's very worth exploring questions that aren't salient to today. But you know, 391 00:30:18,319 --> 00:30:23,559 Josh and I wrote this book knowing it really was relevant in the American lens. 392 00:30:23,559 --> 00:30:29,880 We can see it when you know pro life priests are are defract or 393 00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:37,319 are censored, and then priests who are extremely friendly with the gay movement are 394 00:30:37,319 --> 00:30:41,960 elevated. There's a bishop in Tyler, Texas, Bishop Strickland. People may 395 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:45,480 know about him. He gave us a wonderful endorsement of our book. The 396 00:30:45,519 --> 00:30:48,599 details are still swirling out there. We don't know all the information, but 397 00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:53,799 he is being investigated by Rome and may be forced out of his position. 398 00:30:55,559 --> 00:31:00,599 But then we see other bishops who, let's just say there, they're not 399 00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:07,279 exactly pillars of Orthodoxy, and they're elevated to the highest stature, sometimes even 400 00:31:07,319 --> 00:31:12,599 to cardinals. We saw this with the now cardinal who's from San Diego in 401 00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:18,519 California, and globally in the church, there's, I guess, to put 402 00:31:18,519 --> 00:31:25,160 a finer point on it, there is discussions right now about contradicting fundamental teachings 403 00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,920 in the church, whether it's blessing same sex unions, or allowing women priests, 404 00:31:29,759 --> 00:31:36,799 priestesses, or you know, any number of really hot but moral issues 405 00:31:36,799 --> 00:31:41,960 in the West, and by the looks of it, the hierarchy, the 406 00:31:41,079 --> 00:31:47,240 senior leadership at a bare minimum, seems to be pushing this very very aggressively, 407 00:31:47,279 --> 00:31:51,039 while those who are against it are either completely silent or if they do, 408 00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:55,039 talk out or sideline. And this isn't even to mention I'm a Latin 409 00:31:55,039 --> 00:32:00,480 Mass attending. This isn't even to mention restrictions on the Latin Mass. It's 410 00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:07,920 a unique thing for Catholics because we recognize that just because all of these things, 411 00:32:07,079 --> 00:32:09,279 If you look at this from a worldly perspective, you'd say, why 412 00:32:09,319 --> 00:32:12,559 in the world would you stay in an organization like this. I mean, 413 00:32:12,559 --> 00:32:15,799 if you're a conservative, orthodox, traditional Catholic, it seems like everything is 414 00:32:15,839 --> 00:32:20,359 a rate against you, all your leaders are a raided against you. Why 415 00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:24,480 do you stay? And that that I mean that is one of the reasons 416 00:32:24,519 --> 00:32:30,000 why we wrote a book. We wanted people to know that if they are 417 00:32:30,039 --> 00:32:32,839 putting, if they want their leaders to be perfect, and if they need 418 00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:37,880 their leaders to be perfect in order to keep their Christian faith, their Catholic 419 00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:42,680 faith, then their faith is in Man and it's not God. So these 420 00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:50,640 political issues are extremely salient nowadays and weighing upon people. They weigh upon anybody 421 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,680 who recognizes that they have an obligation to authority above their own and have to 422 00:32:54,720 --> 00:33:02,640 deal with it like that is one full place to leave this conversation about a 423 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:07,559 book with a fantastic cover. The art on the cover of your book is 424 00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,839 beautiful. Again. The book is called Persecuted from Within How the Saints endured 425 00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:15,079 crises in the church Alec. Where can people go pick up a copy? 426 00:33:15,319 --> 00:33:21,200 I recommend most people go to Sofia Institute Press. They're a publisher. I 427 00:33:21,839 --> 00:33:27,960 have a bit of an antipathy towards big tech companies, so I usually prefer 428 00:33:28,039 --> 00:33:30,559 that Sadly, these issues aren't going anywhere, so if you don't get it 429 00:33:30,599 --> 00:33:36,440 into days shipping, you'll be okay. But that being said, can't find 430 00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:38,480 them or don't know where that is on Amazon, and it's at Barnes and 431 00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,960 Noble. You know, if you're throw in the title, you should be 432 00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,480 able to find it. Wonderful well. Alec Torra's co author of the book 433 00:33:46,519 --> 00:33:51,039 Persecuted from Within How the Saints Endured Crises in the Church. Thank you so 434 00:33:51,119 --> 00:33:53,799 much for joining us today. Really appreciate you having me. You've been listening 435 00:33:53,839 --> 00:33:58,599 to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinski, culture editor 436 00:33:58,599 --> 00:34:00,759 here at the Federalist. We will be back soon with more. Until then, 437 00:34:01,079 --> 00:34:04,599 the lovers of freedom and anxious for the Frame