Avoiding Babylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A bright cloud, a trembling heart, and a voice that still calls us by name: the Second Sunday of Lent leads us up Tabor to glimpse what grace intends to complete. We read the traditional Mass texts and sit with the Transfiguration, then follow the thread back into ordinary life where sanctification looks like chastity, fairness, and fidelity when no one applauds. The light isn't a detour from the cross; it's the courage to carry it.We unpack why Moses and Elijah speak with Jesus about the Passion, and what that means for our own desire to build tents around fleeting consolations. The Father's command—“Listen to him”—reframes our Lenten work: prayer to anchor our identity, fasting to train desire, and almsgiving to heal our neighbor's wounds. We talk about how sin disfigures, how grace refigures, and why God sometimes withdraws felt support so love can grow sturdy. “Jesus alone” becomes a practical rule for dry seasons, disappointments, and the quiet heroism of keeping our promises.If you've wondered how to hold on to hope when comfort lifts, or how to turn daily frustrations into fuel for holiness, this conversation gives you a clear path. Expect real talk on suffering, a sober word about purgatory, and a tender reminder that Tabor's glory is not lost in the valley—it goes hidden within you. Join us, pray with the readings, and step into a Lent that actually changes your heart. If this speaks to you, subscribe, share with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review so more people find their way to the light.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A hard headline at dawn and a holy invitation at hand: we step into Ember Saturday with fasting, prayer, and a clear-eyed look at how grace meets a restless world. We keep the focus tight—covenant fidelity in Deuteronomy, the lived texture of Christian charity in First Thessalonians, and the mountain light of Matthew's Transfiguration—then move into a grounded guide on confession that trades clichés for clarity.We talk about why frequent confession should never become just a routine, how absolution is Christ acting in the soul, and why naming motives behind venial patterns exposes the roots of anger, pride, and acedia. You'll hear practical steps for a better examen, what to share when you're not confessing mortal sin, and when to book an appointment so those in crisis aren't left waiting. Along the way, we hold together two anchors of Lent: intimacy with God through honest repentance and solidarity with others through fasting and intercession.The thread tying it all together is simple and demanding: hear him. The Father's command on the mountain becomes the plan for the week—listen to Christ in Scripture, in conscience, and in the quiet of the confessional. Let the Precious Blood wash the past and brace the future. Make space for family, keep Ember Saturday with abstinence, and pray for peace, priests, and vocations while the world trembles. If you're ready for a Lent that actually reshapes your habits and steadies your heart, this conversation will give you both vision and tools.If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so others can find the show. What one practice will you keep today to ground your heart in Christ?Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Ready for a reset that goes deeper than giving up dessert? We take Ember Friday as a clarifying lens on Lent: why the season spans 46 calendar days, how abstinence and fasting work today, and why these practices still matter for real conversion. Then we open Ezekiel 18 and John 5 to trace a through line from personal responsibility to healing grace, where God's mercy moves first and then asks us to walk in it with resolve.We walk through Ezekiel's stark promise and warning—turn and live, turn away and lose what you had—not to spark argument, but to recover urgency. At the pool of Bethesda we meet a man frozen for thirty-eight years until Jesus cuts through the inertia with a question and a command. That moment becomes a template: receive the gift, carry it forward, and “sin no more.” From there we turn practical with the daily examination of conscience, not as a guilt checklist but as a skillful search for motives and the dominant fault—pride, sloth, or self-love—that powers many small falls. We show how to fight roots with opposite virtues, how to teach the examen to kids in simple steps, and how small, steady course corrections build perseverance.Along the way we unpack the differences between the traditional and new liturgical calendars, why Ember Days focus prayer on priests and vocations, and the U.S. history behind partial abstinence on Ember Saturday. The thread that binds it all: grace is a gift meant to be walked with. If you've been looking for a concrete way to align desire, habit, and hope, this episode offers a map you can start using tonight.If this helped you see Lent with fresh eyes, follow the show, share it with a friend who could use a nudge, and leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway. Your notes help others rise and walk too.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!What if the one obstacle to holiness isn't scandalous sin but quiet hesitation—the elegant excuses that slip between intention and action? We open Scripture with Ezekiel's hard clarity on personal responsibility and the Gospel scene where a marginalized mother refuses to let go until mercy answers. Those readings set a challenge: justice must be lived, and faith must persist, even when it's uncomfortable.From there, we dive into Divine Intimacy's piercing take on imperfections. These aren't headline-grabbing failures; they are the habitual refusals of “the better act” that charity quietly suggests. We talk candidly about how self-love disguises itself as prudence, how good reasons can become polished delays, and why a life of minimums keeps the soul heavy. Temperament enters the picture too: some of us process before we move, which creates a tiny window where excuses multiply. Rather than shame that wiring, we train it—just like learning fast, safe responses in emergencies.You'll hear practical, field-tested ways to make generosity easier and overthinking harder. We share simple pre-commitments that reduce friction—like keeping a set amount of cash for almsgiving, deciding in advance when not to give, and otherwise choosing the more charitable assumption. These small designs of the will help us act before hesitation talks us out of love. Along the way, the Canaanite woman's grit inspires our own: stay, ask, trust.If you're ready to use Lent as a training block for the will, this conversation offers a clear path forward—Scripture for vision, spiritual tradition for diagnosis, and concrete habits for change. Listen, reflect, and then try one pre-commitment this week. If it helps, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who overthinks generosity, and leave a short review to tell us what habit you're testing next.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Ant and Rob react to your reactions from the last video. Is this pointless? Probably. Will it still be peak content? Absolutely.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A cloud on Sinai, bread in the desert, and three days in the heart of the earth: today's journey moves from spectacle to substance, asking what truly builds a life aflame with God. We read Exodus as Moses steps into the cloud for forty days, follow Elijah from exhaustion to angelic strength on the road to Horeb, and listen to Jesus refuse showy signs while pointing to Jonah and to the deeper family formed by doing the Father's will. These texts sketch a path through fatigue and doubt toward fidelity, where zeal is not noise but a steady yes.From there, we open Divine Intimacy and face a hard kindness: venial sin does not kill love, but it cools it. We explore how deliberate small faults chip away at fervor, how habitual concessions breed spiritual lethargy, and why the saints insist on sorrow even for slight offenses. At the same time, we draw hope from the distinction between frailty and willfulness. Stumbles borne of weakness, met with quick contrition and humility, can become doorways to deeper trust, a lived discovery that without Christ we can do nothing.We end with the Lenten Ember Days, those seasonal waypoints that knit prayer, fasting, and intercession to the rhythm of the year. You'll hear practical ways to abstain and simplify meals, offer reparation, and pray for priests and vocations, not as box‑checking but as a way to refill the “swept house” with grace. If you've felt your zeal thinning, this conversation offers a clear, concrete plan: hate even small sins because you love greatly, confess promptly, repair generously, and let simple practices warm the heart. If it helps, share this with a friend on the road and leave a quick review—then tell us what Ember practice you're embracing this week.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A century speaks when you can hear it. Rob opens his family archive to share a carefully restored 2002 interview with his grandparents—two voices that carry Minnesota farm grit, German cadence, and the quiet strength of a marriage begun at sixteen. What starts as a personal memorial becomes a living piece of oral history: Depression-era setbacks, threshing crews and one-room schoolhouses, a boy who learned English after first grade, and a medic shipped through Texas deserts to India on Christmas Eve.You'll hear how work stitched life together—textile mills turning rags into wipers, long shifts at Armor's, and the steady math that bought and paid off two homes. The war years come alive through field hospitals, penicillin lessons learned the hard way, and a Himalayan rest camp where cool air and careful roads offered relief. Then the light shifts to St. Paul: a wedding day with tough fried hens and a missing lipstick, two rooms with a shared bath when housing was scarce, and the hand-painted nativity set that became the heart of every Christmas. Faith isn't abstract here; it's a crib built by hand, a pew filled every Sunday, vows taken seriously, and affection practiced more openly with the next generation.We move through the tenderness and the hard parts—sectarian jabs in a mill yard, the discipline that shaped character, a grandson's death that still breaks the voice, and the fierce pride that spills over when grandkids serve Mass, finish college, or skate under winter moonlight. There are cabins and cocoa suppers, moon-bright sled hills, and the crunch of horse hooves on snow drifting across memory. There's even a strange echo of history when our granddaughter works in India decades after her grandpa served there, set against the grounded skies of 9/11.If you've ever wished you could bottle a voice before it's gone, this is your nudge. Press play, meet our family, and think about the stories you want to save. If this moved you, subscribe, share it with someone you love, and leave a review with the one memory you'd record first.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A city trembles at Jesus entering Jerusalem, money changers scatter, and prayer reclaims the Temple—then Isaiah reminds us that God's word never returns empty. That collision of images frames a hard truth we often dodge: we grieve material losses faster than we grieve the loss of grace. We walk through Isaiah 55 and Matthew 21 before opening Divine Intimacy to explore how charity unites us to God while sin unravels that union, not as theory but as lived reality that shapes how we react, choose, and love.We talk candidly about why our instincts are upside down—why a totaled car or a hospital scare can feel bigger than mortal sin—and how to retrain the heart. Monthly confession even without grave sin, a nightly examen that names patterns and near occasions, and a daily act of contrition begin the reset. From there, charity becomes fire: it purifies faster and deeper than fear, and it makes our sacrifices mysteriously fruitful for others. The saints understood this solidarity; their burning love helped convert souls because love destroys sin more effectively than punishment alone.Formation spreads outward. Parents can build a home that hates sin more than loss by tying small fasts to real intercession and by teaching kids that reconciliation restores friendship with God. With Ember Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday upon us, we offer simple, concrete steps: abstain from meat, add a fast you can keep, and pray for priests, seminarians, and future vocations. Along the way there's a quick behind-the-scenes note about fixing the mic and asking you to flag audio issues—because details matter when the goal is clearer prayer and deeper attention to the Word that always bears fruit.If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs a nudge back to confession, and leave a review telling us one practice that helps you love God more and hate sin better.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Judgment that looks like mercy, a Shepherd who refuses to lose a single sheep, and the honest truth about what happens to our good habits after Easter—this conversation brings Scripture and daily life into the same room. We open with Ezekiel 34's promise that God Himself will seek, gather, and feed His people, then let Matthew 25 confront us with a standard that is both simple and searching: feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned. If love is real, it takes a shape; if faith is alive, it meets a face.We talk candidly about conversion as a daily reorientation rather than a one-time burst of zeal. Drawing on classic spiritual wisdom, we explore why aiming high matters—“no limits” not in noise or burnout, but in a steady refusal to settle. Sanctity grows where grace meets generous cooperation. That looks like motives purified by prayer, small promises kept on dull days, and a weekly work of mercy that grounds piety in service. The judgment scene stops being a threat and becomes a map for a life that recognizes Christ in the least.Then we address the cycle many of us know too well: Lent focuses us, Easter delights us, and within weeks we drift. The goal is not to maintain Lenten intensity forever, but to keep conversion continuous and real.If you're longing for a Lent that doesn't evaporate when the alleluias return, this one's for you. Listen, take a note or two, and choose one habit to carry into the bright weeks ahead. If it helps, share this with a friend and make your rule together. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what's the one practice you'll keep after Easter?Support the showCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The desert exposes what we truly love. We open Lent's first Sunday by sitting with Saint Paul's urgency—now is the day of salvation—and then step beside Jesus as he refuses the devil's plausible shortcuts: bread without trust, spectacle without obedience, power without worship. Each scene becomes a mirror for our lives, where comfort, image, and control tug at the heart. Instead of rules alone, we explore how confidence in the Father reframes fasting, how humility undercuts pride's hunger to be seen, and how true worship breaks the spell of more.From there, we draw on Divine Intimacy to map the great combat against the triple concupiscence of flesh, pride, and avarice. Temptations are not signs of failure but invitations to rely on actual grace, given right at the edge of our limits. We talk frankly about how to answer in real time: short prayers that steady the will, simple acts of penance that teach the body to wait, and a habit of trust that keeps us from negotiating with shadows. The goal is not stoic toughness; it is attachment to God that makes lesser loves lose their grip.We also share a personal journey of leaving the sacraments, tasting what the world promises, and returning through the sobering call of fatherhood. That honesty shapes how we speak to a generation raised on noise and nihilism. Beauty—cathedrals, chant, the traditional liturgy—cuts through cynicism, not as aesthetic escape but as a sign of the real. Yet beauty must be paired with truth about the Church's wounds, or seekers feel betrayed. We hold both: the spotless Bride and our imperfect pilgrimage. The way forward is dependence, not self-sufficiency—letting God reorder desire so Lent becomes training in freedom.If this conversation helps you face your own desert with courage, share it with a friend, subscribe for the full Lent series, and leave a review to tell us what practice keeps you grounded right now.Support the showCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Want a Lent that actually changes you? We walk through Isaiah's fierce call to mercy and the Gospel scene of Jesus striding over the waves, then pivot to the quiet battlefield where most of us either grow or stall: the daily opportunities for mortification we didn't plan. Instead of chasing dramatic sacrifices, we look at the humbler path of accepting illness, fatigue, awkward conversations, and inconvenient liturgies as God's hand at work. That shift—from designing penance to receiving providence—turns theory into transformation.We share personal ground-level moments that test the will: reaching for painkillers versus offering up a headache, driving long miles for Mass, and showing up to a family funeral that may feel messy yet demands love. Along the way, we wrestle with motives. Are we guarding real goods with prudence, or slipping into avoidance dressed up as discernment? The spiritual classic Divine Intimacy helps us name the deeper work: mortifying pride, surrendering opinions, and refusing the subtle self-importance that can hollow out religious practice. When the storm rises, Christ's words—take heart; it is I; do not be afraid—reframe hardship as a meeting place with Him, not a detour.By the end, you'll have a practical lens for your Lenten resolutions: keep your chosen practices, but learn to notice and accept the penances God already laid in your path today. Try a simple nightly examen to spot where you dodged the cross and where you carried it with grace. If you're longing for a Lent that waters dry ground rather than adds spiritual clutter, this conversation offers clarity, courage, and a next step you can take before the day ends.If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone who could use a steadier Lent, and leave a short review to help others find the show.Support the showCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The Three Amigos reunite tonight as Nick Cavazos joins us as we all discuss our own struggles staying faithful Catholics during this crisis in the Church.Support the showCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Struggling with what fasting is really for? We open Isaiah 58 and Matthew 5–6 and discover a sharper vision: fasting that loosens chains, almsgiving that hides from applause, and love that dares to bless enemies. It's not about spiritual theatrics; it's about training the heart to choose God over self—and letting that choice spill into justice for our neighbors.We walk through the day's readings, then sit with Divine Intimacy on the Cross as the ultimate proof of love. From there, we explore how small, intentional sacrifices—skipping meat on Friday, turning down a treat, biting back a sharp word—become daily “I love yous” to God when offered with charity. The saints show the way: Teresa Margaret's steady mortification and Thérèse's “scattering flowers” reveal that sincerity beats severity. A tiny sacrifice done with burning love can outweigh a grand penance done for show.Along the way, we tackle a common question from non-Catholic friends: Why give up chocolate? We frame it in the language of everyday love—we already surrender comforts for the people we cherish. Lent simply extends that logic toward God. Tie abstinence to mercy by redirecting saved time and resources to the poor. Keep your giving quiet, your heart honest, and your gaze on the Crucified, who transforms hidden acts into deep change.If this reflection helps your Lent, share it with someone who needs encouragement, subscribe for daily readings, and leave a review so others can find us. What small sacrifice will you offer today—and for whom?Support the showCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Start with a simple truth: remembering death can make your life burn brighter. We open Day Two of Lent by reading the daily Mass texts—Hezekiah's plea in Isaiah 38 and the Centurion's daring humility in Matthew 8—and let their honesty shape how we face fear, illness, and the limits we'd rather ignore. Those passages become the doorway into Divine Intimacy's memento mori: not a fixation on endings, but a clear-eyed way to live ready, lamp lit, heart unlocked to grace.From there, we lean into the hard question many believers carry: how do you love God's will when it hurts, and how do you prepare your family for a faith that will be tested? Drawing on John of the Cross, we explore the startling idea of “dying of love,” where a lifetime of small surrenders ripens into a final yes. Francis de Sales' image of becoming breadworthy through tribulation gives us language for real pain without losing hope. We talk frankly about anxiety as a spouse and parent, the ache that comes from wounds inside the Church, and why fidelity matters even when trust is strained.This conversation stays practical. We suggest anchoring Lent with the Sorrowful Mysteries, walking the Stations of the Cross, and reading Scripture so often that its cadence steadies you. We won't shield our kids or converts from the truth; we'll form them to expect trials and to meet them with courage rooted in sacrament, prayer, and community. If you're seeking a Lent that is more than good intentions—one that shapes how you love, suffer, and lead at home—this is for you.If this resonated, share it with someone who needs courage today, subscribe for the full Lent series, and leave a review with the one practice that grounds your heart right now. Let's walk these forty days together.Support the showGoFundMe for Catholic couple in need: https://gofund.me/314382e0dCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!Want the best potato chips in the world? Head over to fatthins.com and use code AB10 for 10% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Ashes signal a beginning, not an ending. We open Lent by choosing a clear path: daily readings from Divine Intimacy and a simple, sturdy way to pray that draws us into God's love without performance. The Teresian method becomes our map—presence, reading, meditation, colloquy—so prayer shifts from theory to encounter. Instead of grand gestures, we aim for honest conversation with the One who already loves us, letting doctrine nourish devotion and guide the heart.From the very start, the message is sharp: remember you are dust. That truth doesn't crush; it clarifies. We talk about mortality as a gift that resets priorities, nudging us to detach from what fades and choose what lasts—charity, fidelity, and a steady pursuit of holiness. Then we turn to penance with the nuance it deserves. Fasting and abstinence matter, but only as signs of a deeper conversion. Rend hearts, not garments. Keep sacrifices hidden, mortify self-love first, and let humility give your practices weight. We break down the basics—Ash Wednesday and Good Friday fasting, Friday abstinence in Lent—and gently challenge you to go beyond the bare minimum if health allows. Detachment reveals desire; desire finds God.Along the way, we stay practical and pastoral. Keep Sundays free from fasting. If a fuller abstinence helps, keep it. Pair fasting with daily, focused prayer; use the colloquy to turn belief into love. Revisit the Cross through the Stations. If you need inspiration, the saints are close at hand—Teresa, Thérèse, John of the Cross—teaching us to build intimacy on solid ground. Our goal isn't a tougher checklist but a truer heart, one that moves from ashes to Easter with purpose.Want to journey with us? Subscribe for daily releases on YouTube and audio, share this with a friend who needs a Lenten reset, and leave a review with your own practice this season. Let's seek what endures together.Support the showGoFundMe for Catholic couple in need: https://gofund.me/314382e0dCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!Want the best potato chips in the world? Head over to fatthins.com and use code AB10 for 10% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Looking for a Lent that actually forms you, not just a box to check? We sit down with Fr. Amato—pastor of a single parish spread across three churches—for a frank, hopeful look at priestly life, spiritual fatherhood, and the kind of habits that turn belief into muscle. He doesn't sell shortcuts. He shares the daily grind: preaching every Mass like it's the first, earning trust in new assignments, and crafting penances that fit the person, not the template.We dive into a classic but timely distinction: marriage as a natural good elevated by grace versus priesthood as a supernatural vocation. Far from downgrading marriage, that clarity helps men choose with eyes open, accepting the crosses built into any faithful life. Discernment here is concrete—twenty minutes of silent prayer, the Divine Office, honest attention to what stirs when you picture hearing confessions or leading a home. If peace grows, walk toward it. If fear shouts, ask which loves you must mourn to make room for a greater one.Along the way, we get practical about Lent. Forget vague sacrifices. Identify one vice to mortify and one virtue to build. Fast for a person you love to anchor effort in charity. Write a simple rule of life and let the rule keep you when zeal fades. We also confront the drip catechesis of culture—shows that mock fathers, language that profanes, and feeds that numb. The remedy isn't panic; it's formation. Make your home a place of reverence and better stories. Shut off the noise, open the Gospels, and reclaim attention.The surprise thread tying it all together is stability. Young men are showing up, hungry for challenge, and conversions are deep because they are chosen. Parish life flourishes when we stop doomscrolling and build what's in front of us: family, friends, and the church down the street. That's where grace grips, and where Lent becomes less about restriction and more about freedom. If you're ready to trade performative penance for practices that change you, press play—and then tell us the one habit you're owning for the next 40 days. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs the challenge, and leave a review to help others find the show.Support the showGoFundMe for Catholic couple in need: https://gofund.me/314382e0dCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!Want the best potato chips in the world? Head over to fatthins.com and use code AB10 for 10% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Rob and Ant watch and discuss the controversial clips of Carrie Prejean Boller coming out of the Religious Liberty Commission regarding Zionism and antisemitism. Support the showGoFundMe for Catholic couple in need: https://gofund.me/314382e0dCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!Want the best potato chips in the world? Head over to fatthins.com and use code AB10 for 10% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Ant and Rob discuss the effects that social media, in general, and podcasts, in particular, have had on marriages and families. We further discuss the Elijah Schaffer & Sarah Stock fallout as well as take a critical look at the marriage advice from John Delony.Support the showGoFundMe for Catholic couple in need: https://gofund.me/314382e0dCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!Want the best potato chips in the world? Head over to fatthins.com and use code AB10 for 10% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Michael Hichborn joins us to discuss recent big news stories such as the Epstein files and announcement of upcoming SSPX consecrations.Support the showGoFundMe for Catholic couple in need: https://gofund.me/314382e0dCheck out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!Want the best potato chips in the world? Head over to fatthins.com and use code AB10 for 10% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Anthony Abbate and Joel Webbon discuss contentious issues in our day, focusing on how Christianity and Catholicism intersect with modern challenges. They explore these topics through the lens of religion, debating various viewpoints. The discussion also touches upon biblical interpretations relevant to contemporary society.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off!Want the best potato chips in the world? Head over to fatthins.com and use code AB10 for 10% off!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!We discuss two recent articles: one arguing that you should stay at a bad Catholic parish and fight for it, and the other arguing against that.  What will Anthony and Rob decide? Will they agree? Or not?Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Daniel O'Connor joins us to discuss the deception around aliens, UFO & UAP phenomena, AI, the day of disclosure, and how Catholics should discern the "signs and wonders" of our time within their faith. This conversation emphasizes the importance of a fervent approach to Christianity, highlighting why lukewarm Catholicism is no longer an option for the church. We explore these topics through a spiritual and theological lens, offering guidance for today's challenges.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Why are U.S. cities erupting after recent ICE enforcement actions? We unpack the timeline, the claims, and what a Catholic view of order and justice requires.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Want the truth about where the trad world stands—without the coping or the clickbait? We follow the threads from Bishop Fulton Sheen's long-delayed beatification, through Cardinal Roche's letter on the liturgy, to the uncomfortable reality that a so-called youth movement has quietly gone gray.We get honest about what younger men are actually dealing with: a wrecked dating market, credential mills, debt-squeezed housing, and a job landscape warped by visas and offshoring. Against those pressures, endless arguments about documents and labels feel like theater. Tradition doesn't need to be softer—it needs to be lived. Less quote-mining, more discipline. Less outrage, more parish life. Teach a traditional Catholic life. Live it for a century. Then evaluate the council when the smoke clears.We dive into Roche's claim that the older books were a concession never intended to grow and hold it up to Benedict's “mutual enrichment.” On the ground, where both forms coexist, reverence improves, and people discover the old rite without fleeing their parishes. That matters more than any memo. We also sit with Fulton Sheen's “ape of the Church,” why hindsight on Vatican II is tricky, and why Sheen still draws seekers who are hungry for clarity and beauty.Finally, we talk about Scott Adams and the risk of treating salvation like a hack. Baptism, repentance, confession, and real community are not optional extras. The Sunday obligation protects the habit of belonging when screens tempt us to go it alone. If beauty saves, it does so in the flesh: Mass, meals, laughter, and the steady weight of shared prayer.Join us for a candid, hopeful reset. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs this conversation, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Then tell us: what should a real trad rebrand look like where you live?Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A war budget doesn't come with a press release that says “war.” It shows up as numbers that don't make sense for peace, and as a mood you can feel in the news cycle. We trace that mood back to two big ideas that shaped the post–Cold War mindset: the liberal belief that institutions can tame power, and the realist insistence that nations ultimately act for themselves. Using Francis Fukuyama's End of History and Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations as guideposts, we sketch how the old order frayed and why cultural blocs—religion, memory, language—may reshape the map more than trade agreements ever did.From there, we dig into Ukraine as a harsh teacher: drones over doctrine, trenches over glossy strategy decks, and the stubborn reality of industrial bottlenecks. Can the U.S. rebuild munitions capacity fast enough? What happens when defense contractors get pushed from buybacks to production and the state edges toward a “command economy” posture without formally declaring it? We explore how sovereignty, logistics, and frontier tech like AI become national-security terrain—and why markets shift when mission logic takes over.Europe's identity crisis threads through it all. A continent that once exported Christianity now struggles to define itself amid demographic change and civilizational tension. We consider what realism predicts for Europe, Russia, and the U.S., and how domestic fractures—censorship battles, CBDC talk, and culture-war fatigue—complicate strategy at home. Yet there's a human counterpoint here: we share details for our Italy pilgrimage, why we're keeping it small, how we'll pray together, and a moving note from a Protestant listener reconsidering Mary through biblical typology. It's geopolitics with a soul, grounded in faith, community, and the stubborn hope that meaning outlasts headlines.If this conversation challenged your assumptions or clarified the stakes, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Then tell us: which lens explains the world better right now—liberal order or realism?Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The spark was small—a tweet from Bishop Barron about synodality and doctrine—but the questions behind it are huge: What should a synod actually decide? How did “the spirit of Vatican II” turn into perpetual uncertainty? And why are everyday Catholics still getting side-eyed for kneeling at communion? We open the hood on a consistory that could reset expectations, sift Barron's argument for what it gets right and wrong, and get painfully practical about reverence, freedom, and pastoral authority.Along the way, we share a happier twist: a priest reached out and offered to accompany our Italy trip, making daily Latin Mass not only possible but likely across private chapels in Rome and beyond. That momentum matters. People don't want liturgical roulette; they want beauty, clarity, and worship that deepens faith. The pastoral playbook that treats piety as a problem is wearing thin, and that comes into sharp focus with a diocese banning portable kneelers for the elderly and Jonathan Roumie describing how he was told to stand when he tried to receive on his knees. Reverence isn't performance; it's love braving friction.We don't dodge the tough map either. Under Francis, a common foe united disparate trad corners. Under Leo, the tone is calmer, but the doctrinal direction still worries many. Could a non-territorial jurisdiction—an ordinariate-style solution with bishops from traditional communities—offer stability without schism? Maybe. Or maybe it risks a new ghetto unless leaders honor what's already law: the right to kneel, the right to receive on the tongue, and the call to worship God with proper solemnity. We're watching the consistory, reading the dubia, and building something constructive: a pilgrimage ordered to daily prayer and the Eucharist.If this conversation hits home, follow the show, share it with a friend who cares about liturgy and clarity, and leave a quick review. Your feedback helps more people find thoughtful Catholic conversations that aim higher.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A neighborhood teen walks into a midnight Latin Mass and steps straight into a world of chant, candlelight, and awe. That single moment sets the tone for a wide-ranging conversation about faith that's lived, not branded—how ordinary Catholic family life can quietly evangelize a restless culture craving stability, fatherhood, and hope.We trade UK and US vantage points and compare media narratives with street-level reality. Are things truly burning, or are we binging on spectacle? We tackle the perennial “war on Christmas,” the corporate habit of sanitizing holy days, and the rise of a substitute liturgical calendar that tries to replace the Incarnation with new rituals and new saints. The throughline is clear: without a supernatural core, culture-building becomes cosplay. Tradition isn't window dressing; it's the scaffolding that carries meaning from one generation to the next.We don't stop at headlines. Mark shares the searing loss of his daughter, the decade of ache that followed, and the surprising graces that kept him moving—community, providence, and a daughter named Mary who arrived like a gift from heaven. Katherine speaks with candor about costly choices, how personal relief often shifts pain onto children, and why love sometimes means carrying the cross instead of outsourcing it. Along the way, we reflect on fatherhood statistics, Protestant critiques of Christmas, and the difference between wielding Christianity as a tool and receiving it as life.If you've ever wondered whether small fidelities matter—family meals, icons on the wall, prayer before bed, Sunday Mass—this conversation says yes. Light still enters the darkness. Grace still heals what pride breaks. Join us, then tell a friend, subscribe, and leave a review with one takeaway you'll put into practice this week.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The night starts with chaos—copyright worries, a broken chair, and a mood hanging by a thread—and then shifts into something a lot more meaningful: a 10-day pilgrimage to Italy designed for depth, safety, and affordability. We walk through the route that blends history and holiness—Rome, Pompeii, Capri, Naples, Loreto, Lanciano, Assisi, Orvieto—and explain why we're keeping it to one bus and targeting around four thousand dollars: intimacy over hype, substance over markup, and a chance for travelers who've hesitated to finally say yes.From there, we step straight into the week's storm around TPUSA and the conservative media world. What happens when movements turn into personality cults, when symbols become props, and when emotion is the product? We unpack how factional tribes—Candace, Tucker, Fuentes, BAP—monetize outrage and keep us scrolling, while core Christian realities like sin, penance, and the interior life get sidelined. The result is a culture war that looks spiritual but rarely calls for conversion. Our push is simple: trade spectacle for repentance, and public drama for real prayer and virtue.We also tackle the pressure inside the Church: the fatigue of constant scandal, the unnatural posture of permanent suspicion toward the hierarchy, and the ache for true spiritual fatherhood. We're not calling for theatrics or caricatures of masculinity; we're asking for priests and bishops whose presence is steady, fatherly, and ordered to the salvation of souls. Finally, we confront the hot-button debates—Zionism, media narratives, and what can be questioned—arguing for honest inquiry without sensationalism and a theological lens that prioritizes human dignity, history, and clarity.If you're ready for a conversation that ditches performative outrage and aims at real renewal—plus a concrete way to encounter the sacred in Italy—hit play. And if this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Knives Out 3: A murder in a neo‑gothic church, a boxer who traded the ring for a collar, and a monsignor whose thunder hides a storm—this story had us leaning in from skepticism to surprise. What starts like a stylish whodunit unfolds into a thoughtful meditation on guilt, grace, and the strange mercy of suffering. We dig into why the narrative needed Catholicism—not just the aesthetics of stained glass and cassocks, but the hard edges of confession, penance, and redemptive love.We share where the film won us over: Father Jud's steady humility, the way ritual is presented as a living story, and a pivotal conversation that reframes doubt without smugness. Monsignor Wicks emerges as a cautionary tale of zeal unmoored from charity, while the detective's barbs slowly reveal an old wound masquerading as certainty. Along the way we spot smart details—a well-placed theological book, a deliberate use of architecture—that signal someone behind the scenes knows the difference between costume and conviction.Expect a candid take on content concerns, an honest compare to “faith” films that preach but don't persuade, and a deeper look at the film's central symbols, including an “Eve's apple” motif that turns into a stark contrast between grasping and surrender. Whether you're Catholic, curious, or just here for a sharp mystery with moral weight, this conversation aims to help you see the clues behind the clues—and maybe why repentance doesn't shrink a life but sets it free.If this resonates, follow the show, share with a friend who loves smart cinema, and leave a review with your take on the film's portrayal of faith. We read every word.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A cold open with tech chaos turned into one of our most honest conversations about how a fringe thesis became a full‑scale cultural confrontation. We chart the path from announcing The Case for Patriarchy in 2019, to fiery debates that shocked polite company, to a 90‑minute documentary that platforms loved visually but refused to touch because the ideas cut against the grain.We dig into where the argument lands: authority in the home and church, why “mutual submission” scrambles roles, and how that confusion seeps into liturgy, music, and parish life. Ephesians 5 isn't a relic; it's a blueprint. We talk about the early Church disciplining male lust, why Christian marriage is uniquely monogamous and indissoluble, and why the modern crisis now centers on courage—men saying no when it matters, and women choosing holiness aligned with a husband's headship or a consecrated vocation. The goal isn't online chest‑thumping; it's ordered love, clear duty, and beauty that elevates the soul.We also take a hard look at the red‑pill economy. Yes, it names real wounds, but too often it slides into cynicism, limited hangouts, and content that monetizes vice. We offer a different path for Zoomers and millennials drowning in black‑pill threads: build strength, cultivate virtue, join real brotherhoods, and pursue a hopeful, realistic approach to marriage. Not every past mistake is disqualifying; lead well and many women will follow. At the parish level, fix the music, preach the hard texts, and stop outsourcing leadership to committees that smother clarity.If you've felt the cultural shift around feminism and patriarchy but wanted substance, story, and stakes, this film is our best case—shot beautifully, paced to hold your attention, and blunt where it needs to be. Watch the premiere for $1.99 at 10 a.m. CST on candaceowens.com, then tell us what we got right, what we missed, and where you want us to take this next. If the conversation moves you, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can find it.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!What happens when a culture starts bending truth to fit its desires? We follow that question across surprising terrain—Freud's hidden motives, Wagner's spell over European imagination, Bauhaus boxes that flatten the human spirit, and the concrete politics of highways and housing projects that shattered parish life. Along the way, we challenge the idea that ideas are neutral. People make theories, and those people have desires, wounds, and wagers hidden in their work.We dig into how music can catechize a nation, how architecture preaches a theology, and how postwar social engineering rebranded thick ethnic worlds into a thin “white” identity. The conversation pulls no punches on race as an ideology of management, not heritage, and on why religious belonging often explains American life better than color lines. From the “triple melting pot” to the claims of universal design, we map the choices that made cities brittle and suburbs bland—and why families paid the price.Then we pivot to power, vice, and freedom. Sexual liberation sells itself as emancipation while functioning as a lever of control, especially in a world wired for instant indulgence. The counterweight is old and bracing: you are only as free as you are free from your vices. Finally, we climb to the keystone: Logos. John's audacious claim—Logos is God—offers a language sturdy enough to speak across civilizations. If America moves into a fourth era as Protestant hegemony recedes and new blocs rise, the live question is simple and seismic: will appetite or Logos set the terms?Hear the case, question the links, and decide which story you're living. If this conversation stretches your thinking, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a review telling us what challenged you most.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Tired of surface-level hot takes during Advent? We press pause on the news cycle and dive into Scripture's living architecture—how David, Solomon, Isaiah, and John converge to reveal a Kingdom that isn't just future hope but present reality. We walk through the liturgical calendar's wisdom, the shock of John's “hour,” and the way Cana's stone jars unlock Exodus, Numbers, and a new creation pattern. Along the way we confront a popular error: the idea that Christ hasn't yet established His Kingdom. If the Gospel announces “the Kingdom is at hand,” then the Church is not a holding pattern—it's the King's reign made visible in Word, sacrament, and a Eucharistic temple.We explore Marian typology without sentimentality: Jeremiah's hidden ark, the overshadowing glory cloud, and why reverence for Mary clarifies, rather than distracts from, the Incarnation. We trace the branch from Jesse through Nazareth, the bread of the presence through David to the Eucharist, and Nathaniel's fig tree across the prophets. Typology isn't trivia; it's how Scripture trains our eyes to see Christ fulfilling every promise. And because grace aims at real life, we talk about family prayer, small rituals that carry children through hard years, and the demanding joy of fatherhood as priestly leadership—authority as sacrifice, not dominance.If you've felt disoriented by church conflicts or exhausted by constant outrage, Advent offers a better way: return to the story, receive the King, and let the calendar shape your days. Come hear how heaven “colonizes” earth through the Church, why obedience grows from grace, and how the Kingdom breaks into ordinary homes through beauty, memory, and the sacraments. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more listeners find thoughtful, faith-filled conversations that spark real devotion.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The spark was simple: a high-profile pro-life voice spoke out about pornography, and Catholic Twitter went nuclear. We don't argue over whether porn is destructive; we press into who should say what, to whom, and where. That means asking hard questions about authority, modesty, and the difference between true statements and fitting speakers. Are we applauding truth in the wrong forum, or have we forgotten that the messenger and the setting matter to souls?We unpack why so many younger Catholic men bristle at women publicly addressing men about porn. It's not approval of sin; it's a plea for order. Men need men—fathers, priests, brothers—to confront them with clarity and show a path out: confession, accountability, and practical steps that come with real spiritual fatherhood. Women, meanwhile, have urgent work guiding women away from romance-porn, vanity, and the economy of digital attention that warps the heart. Parallel lanes, different duties, shared end: holiness.Along the way, we examine the deeper currents—decades of male abdication in the home and parish, the “girlboss” aesthetic baptized as Christian influence, and a social media environment that rewards heat more than wisdom. We revisit Adam and Eve, mutual submission, and the Church's recent history, including the collapse in Catholic education and the failure of leaders to speak with a clear voice. The throughline: if we want renewal, we must restore ordered authority and the modesty of knowing our place and our audience.Listen for a candid, sometimes uncomfortable conversation that aims at healing, not scoring points. If you're a man looking for real help, or a woman seeking the right lane to build others up, you'll find practical clarity here. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Then tell us: who should speak to men about porn—and why?Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!What if Paul's fiercest argument isn't a detour but the key that ties Israel's story together? We took a five-hour deep dive into Romans 9–11 and came up for air convinced that Paul's mission to the Gentiles is how God keeps his promise to Israel—by finding the lost among the nations and rebuilding a family on the cornerstone of Christ.We start by tracing the pattern of the younger overtaking the older—Isaac, Jacob, Joseph—and how that pattern prepares Exodus, where God names Israel his firstborn and hints that the nations are the younger sibling. From the Davidic high point to the split of north and south, we follow exile, pride, and the prophets to Jonah, whose “sign” is death and rising, not fish tales. That sign lands with force when the temple falls forty years after the crucifixion. Then we connect Peter's confession and the keys to Isaiah's royal steward, showing how the church stands as the Davidic household made new in Christ.Along the way we tackle a thorny subject: Zion read carnally versus Zion fulfilled in the Messiah. We challenge the habit of projecting sacred promises onto secular power, and we warn how pride—religious or political—blinds otherwise devout people to what God is doing. Paul's hard words—“not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel”—become a lifeline when institutions shake and headlines stoke fear. Instead of checklist prophecy, we argue for humble vigilance: Scripture reads us before we read it, and fulfillment is clearest in hindsight.If you crave a canonical reading that makes Romans 9–11 come alive, that connects Genesis to Peter's keys, and that invites a humbler, braver faith, this one's for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves Bible typology, and leave a review to tell us where you agree, where you think we stretched, and what you want us to unpack next.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Power rarely moves quietly, and our tour through the English Reformation proves it. We start with a young, athletic Henry VIII whose dynastic panic collided with fragile Tudor legitimacy and recent civil war. From Wolsey's velvet control to Cromwell's hard-edged dissolution of the monasteries, the story isn't a popular uprising against Rome—it's a top-down refit of a living church under the pressure of succession, money, and law.Zooming out, Europe hums with end-times energy: printing stokes polemics, the sack of Rome shatters illusions, and theological debates double as statecraft. We revisit Mary I without the propaganda haze—her measured governance, her duty to crush rebellion, and the way her reign got rewritten by enemies. Then Elizabeth I tightens the bolts: supremacy oaths, recusancy fines, and an intelligence apparatus that turns conscience into evidence. The result is a church that keeps the silhouette of altars while changing the crown above them.Underground Catholicism adapts with nerve and nuance. Jesuit missions like Edmund Campion's draw hard lines, house chapels encode the Mass into Byrd's music, and priest holes become the country's hidden cathedrals. We unpack the Gunpowder Plot as either interception or invention and track how it cements “Catholic equals treason” in the English mind. From Laudian “beauty of holiness” to the civil war backlash, from Jacobite hopes to the Quebec Act and Wellington's push for emancipation, we follow the long arc that shaped modern Britain—and its American echo in how nations sacralize power. Subscribe, share this episode with a history-loving friend, and tell us: which Tudor moment most changed your view of the Reformation?Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A flooded basement, a dead furnace, and three kids shivering through a New York winter. We start with a human story and a fundraiser that turned into a lesson in Christian charity—how a community can change a family's life overnight. Then we pivot into one of the most charged theological conversations of the moment: Scott Hahn's interview with Gavin Ashenden and the fault lines it exposed.We unpack why Hahn refused to let the conversation stall at labels, and instead zeroed in on a deeper danger: bicovenantalism. Is it anti-Semitic to critique Zionism? Hahn says no—and shows why conflating political critique with hatred is lazy and misleading. Walking through Romans 9–11, he offers a vivid image: remaining within the Old Covenant without Christ is like living in a mansion on fire. That line reframes everything. We explore how Catholic liturgy—altar, priest, sacrifice—fulfills biblical worship, while post-70 AD rabbinic Judaism marks a real discontinuity from temple-centered Israel. Along the way, Augustine and Aquinas remind us why the preservation of the Jewish people is providential and prophetic, pointing toward a future conversion near the eschaton.The conversation broadens with clips of Benjamin Netanyahu invoking “Jews against Rome” and calling the United States the “new Rome.” We connect that to the Church Fathers on the “restrainer,” the unraveling of Christendom, and how propaganda pressures Catholics to fall silent. The challenge is clear: resist panic labels, reject hatred, speak truth, and stay rooted in doctrine. We close with a heartfelt letter from a 27-year-old father discerning Catholicism while priced out of housing and ignored by leadership. It's a sobering snapshot of the moment—and a call for the Church to engage young men with honesty and hope.If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more conversations that don't dodge the hard questions, and leave a review with your takeaways. Your voice helps others find these talks.Support the showTake advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The ground beneath Catholic life is moving: a diocese weighs merger, a flagship university faces succession questions, and a younger right is quietly mastering the mechanics of power. We open with Steubenville's crossroads and the outsized influence of charismatic figures like Scott Hahn—how donor gravity, faculty recruitment, and reputation hinge on personalities, and what happens when those anchors age out. That sparks a bigger question we can't dodge: can Catholic institutions renew themselves without a clear plan for leadership and community stability?From there we zoom out to the media and political ecosystem. Critics warn about Groypers infiltrating DC, but miss what makes the movement resilient: a culture of praxis that turns talking points into step‑by‑step action. We unpack the generational clash as older voices lean on moral alarm while younger Catholics ask for mentorship, not gatekeeping. The real divide forming isn't over liturgy; it's over whether we keep outsourcing our hopes to a spent conservative order or build policy around Catholic social teaching—curbing usury, strengthening families, and defending place over “just move.”We don't sanitize hard topics or excuse reckless behavior. We insist on charity as a boundary, reject dehumanization, and argue that serious strategy beats viral outrage. If the old guard wants relevance, it must confront the debt, housing, and wage realities that make Gen Z cynical. If the young right wants durability, it must build institutions and habits that outlast personalities. Between these paths lies a rare chance to renew Catholic witness in public life.Subscribe for future episodes, share this one with a friend who cares about the Church's future, and leave a review with your take: is the next Catholic fault line already here?Support the showWe discuss the news of Thomas Massie's recent marriage, the new DDF document on Marian titles, and more!Take advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!What if the stories we stream every night are shaping our souls more than any sermon we hear on Sunday? That's the heartbeat of this candid conversation with Mass of the Ages director Cameron O'Hearn—a filmmaker who pulled a hit film at 1.6 million views on principle, re-edited through crisis, and kept his eye fixed on devotion over dopamine.We trace the arc from the trilogy's explosive reception to the quiet wins that don't trend: a free priest-training platform walking hundreds of Novus Ordo priests (and even a few bishops) through the traditional Latin low Mass step by step. Cameron opens up about the cost behind the craft—lost footage, hard edits, and choosing integrity mid-production—and why part three refused to offer a “silver bullet” in a Church moment defined by tension and testing.Then we widen the lens. Movie Crusade was born from rediscovering Pius XI and Pius XII on cinema, and their bold claim that images form the moral personality. We unpack a simple but sharp framework—good, dangerous, harmful—for evaluating films, and revisit the power of the old Hayes Code when seven million Catholics once moved Hollywood. Expect frank takes on Silence, The Passion of the Christ, and The Chosen; how on-screen portrayals of Jesus can aid or distort prayer; and why icons' strangeness protects mystery. This isn't culture war for its own sake—it's a call to choose stories that teach us to love the good.We close with a look at Discover Tradition, a brisk, story-driven travel series exploring living Catholic customs, and a sustainable model that gets more beautiful work finished and seen. If you care about the Latin Mass, moral imagination, and giving your family better art, this conversation is a roadmap and a rallying cry. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves movies, and leave a review to help more people find the show.Support the showWe discuss the news of Thomas Massie's recent marriage, the new DDF document on Marian titles, and more!Take advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!What if the hardest part of grief isn't the loss itself, but how the living watch you handle it? We dive straight into a thorny question: is there a “right” time to remarry after a spouse dies, especially when children are still grieving and the internet is watching? We don't hand out rules; we wrestle with the difference between what's allowed, what's wise, and what's respectful when private sorrow meets public platforms.That candor opens into a bigger reflection on how people instinctively talk to their dead and what that says about prayer, memory, and the communion of saints. We explore why Marian devotion feels so natural, how a mother uniquely suffers with her children, and why many Catholics bristled at a recent Vatican document discouraging titles like Co-Redemptrix. The theology is one thing; the message it sends to the faithful is another. We try to hold both—truth and tenderness—without dumbing anything down.To ground today's heat, we turn to Genesis. Younger over older, betrayal and reunion, Judah and Joseph—those messy family stories echo through salvation history, from Adam and Christ to Eve and Mary. We connect those patterns to modern culture wars, fear-based politics, and the outrage economy. Why did a tame interview spark a wildfire? What happens when panic and censorship drive people into echo chambers? Meanwhile, real pressures—debt, housing, wages, family breakdown—grind on in the background. Our aim is clarity: honor grief without spectacle, love Mary without apology, value nation without idolatry, and keep your eyes on what actually shapes lives.If this conversation challenged you or gave you language for something you've felt, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review so others can find the show. Your take: does public grief need public rules?Support the showWe discuss the news of Thomas Massie's recent marriage, the new DDF document on Marian titles, and more!Take advantage of great Catholic red wines by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 10% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Two timelines. Dozens of videos. One uncomfortable pattern: our feeds are training us to fight. We set out to play a simple game—“Whose feed is it?”—and ended up mapping how algorithms steer attention toward outrage, race-bait clips, and culture-war content designed to keep you scrolling and seething.We start with a candid look at intra-Catholic debates and why public commentary on big moves—like media personalities joining major platforms—should be fair game. Then a body-cam video from a church stops the jokes cold: a man tries to breach a tabernacle while a lone officer hesitates. We talk through drugs vs. possession, the importance of proper procedures, and how policy-driven optics can put both citizens and officers at risk. It's not anti-police to say training and backup save lives; it's pro-reality.From there, we follow the week's algorithmic arc: EBT panic, fraud clips, and the budget math no one wants to discuss. We break down how inflation acts as a stealth tax, why debt service is swallowing policy space, and how little truly changes across administrations once you look past the branding. Meanwhile, social video continues to spotlight bad behavior because it pays—and the more people rage-share, the more these moments define whole groups. That's not good reporting; it's content engineering.To lighten the mood (a bit), we explore the strange and hilarious corners of Zoomer meme culture—white Monster energy, Agartha lore—and how even these jokes become identity markers the platforms can sort and sell. The throughline: feeds shape frames, frames shape feelings, and feelings drive choices in the real world. The fix isn't to hide; it's to raise your standards above the algorithm's incentives. Curate what you consume, interrogate what's missing, and talk openly about institutions and influencers without losing your grip on charity or truth.If you care about media literacy, Catholic commentary with a backbone, and untangling policy from performance, this one's for you. Listen, share with a friend, and tell us: what's the strangest pattern your feed has been pushing lately? Subscribe, leave a review, and send us your best (or worst) algorithm finds—we'll feature our favorites next time.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A Catholic podcast just got bought—and the tremor is bigger than one show. We open the hood on what happens when a platform promises reach and relief: fewer invoices, more producers, cleaner schedules. But where do the lines get drawn? We walk through how “creative control” often becomes control by omission—careful guest lists, avoided flashpoints, and a steady grooming of the audience to stop asking first-order questions about war, influence, and the faith's public voice.From there we zoom out. The theological backdrop matters: how Catholics understand Israel and Judaism after the council, how charity rejects collective guilt yet still permits clear speech about power, and why a Church that prioritizes spiritual works must be brave in naming realities that polite media won't touch. We examine the reflex to label uncomfortable analysis as bigotry, the role of diaspora identity in American politics, and the way postwar narratives have shaped what Catholics think they're allowed to say. None of this calls for cruelty. It calls for courage with charity—and the humility to let Scripture and Tradition set the boundaries, not sponsors.We also map the media incentives that steer conversations long before a script is written: who is invited onto stages and into studios, which conferences open doors, and why some voices never get the mic. That quiet sorting process creates a curated Catholicism—safe for brands, soothing to coalitions, but thin on the truths that actually convert hearts. If evangelization online is going to mean anything, it has to look like full-contact honesty: welcoming hard guests, testing arguments in public, and letting the hierarchy of truths lead. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who cares about Catholic media, and leave a review telling us one topic you think should never be off-limits.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The feed wants your anger, your attention, and your time. We want your freedom. This conversation pulls on three threads that are fraying daily life: algorithmic outrage that keeps us at war with each other, border and immigration policies that dissolve shared identity, and a Church culture that often speaks like a press office instead of a lighthouse. We map how these forces reinforce one another, why everything feels accelerated, and what a sane response looks like for regular people who want to raise a family, keep the faith, and serve the common good.We start with social media design—why rage travels faster than reason, how bots and incentives escalate conflict, and what that does to our minds. Then we move to culture and sovereignty, asking what it takes for a nation to remain a home rather than a marketplace of strangers. Hospitality matters, but it only works when norms, language, and numbers protect the host culture. Without those guardrails, citizens become spectators to their own dissolution, and power centralizes by default.From there, we pivot to the heart of renewal: worship and formation. When liturgy is treated as optional and doctrine as flexible, the faithful lose orientation. But when families and parishes return to practices that honor God first—prayer, sacraments, study, and service—clarity returns. That clarity doesn't erase political debate; it orders it. Borders and tradition can be defended without hatred. The stranger can be loved without surrendering the home. Truth can be spoken without trading charity for clout.If you're tired of performative outrage and want a path you can live with for decades, this is your map: choose intentional media habits, rebuild community where you stand, and put first things first. Subscribe for more grounded conversations, share this episode with a friend who needs the reset, and leave a review to help others find the show.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A fake video goes viral, a holiday explodes across timelines, and suddenly everyone's arguing about culture, borders, and the Church. We dig into how AI hoaxes and algorithmic rage bait are reshaping the conversation around faith and public life, and why the loudest narratives keep winning—even when they're empty. From the latest deepfakes attributed to church leaders to the Vatican's two-year TLM extensions, we unpack mixed signals, real consequences, and the deeper question: what holds a community together when trust is thin?We share how these online storms feed real exhaustion, then look squarely at leadership and language. When violence targets Christians, “it's just social conflict” won't do; words matter when souls and lives are at stake. We explore the line between preaching principles and prescribing policy, why unity requires honest clarity, and how ecumenism can serve truth without dissolving identity. Along the way, we examine the pipeline that turns AI slop into viral fuel, the role of click farms with no stake in the Church, and the spiritual hazard of living inside an outrage machine.Finally, we turn inward: a new generation of orthodox seminarians, old power networks, and how healthy parishes can coexist with conflicted leadership. The path forward isn't flashy: curate your inputs, guard your attention, build local trust, support clear teaching, and pray for courage. If you're tired of noise but hungry for substance, this conversation keeps the focus on first things—truth, charity, and the hard work of real unity.If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a rating with one takeaway you want more of next time. Your feedback shapes what we tackle next.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A shaky ad read and some friendly ribbing give way to a rare, candid conversion story: a Reformed pastor worn thin by 2020, family burdens, and Sunday dread begins asking God for an exit ramp he can't yet name. An old friend—now Catholic—offers a simple challenge: read the Catechism to learn the Church from the Church. So he does, pencil in hand. Circles for “yes,” rectangles for “I need more,” triangles for “no way.” Then daily Mass. Then Latin Mass. What surprises him first is the familiarity—the lectionary, the reverence, the shape of worship echoing his Lutheran childhood. What changes him next is Scripture: Hebrews 12 reframes worship as a present communion with the saints; Isaiah 22 and Matthew 16 connect the key and the office in a typology he already loves to preach.Meanwhile, life doesn't pause. His wife grieves, becomes a guardian overnight, and shoulders state paperwork while he strains to shepherd a congregation on an empty tank. One prayer breaks through the fog: Mary, be a mother to my wife while she's losing hers. Grace answers. The exit ramp appears on a Florida trip when his wife says, Maybe this is it. He resigns gently, stays through year‑end, and answers one summer's worth of honest questions—including a sermon on Mary's perpetual virginity built from the Reformers themselves. In January, they slip out of town to worship quietly. Friends notice and ask. There's no recruiting, just real answers. The Holy Spirit moves: four couples and their children, plus two reverts, begin OCIA and enter the Church. Seventeen souls. More ripples follow—his oldest starts OCIA in another city.We also talk about the temptations after conversion: platform, hot takes, “professional Catholic” life. He chooses stillness over speed, daily Mass over instant punditry, Our Lady and the saints over arguments for their own sake. He's drafting a practical guide to help Catholics “speak Protestant,” especially on typology and authority, but only with spiritual direction and doctrinal checks. If you've ever wondered how Scripture, suffering, and friendship might converge to redirect a life—and a community—this story will meet you there.If this moved you, share it with someone discerning, subscribe for more thoughtful conversations, and leave a review with the one moment that surprised you most.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A microphone squeal, a sarcastic wine ad, and then the floor drops out. We go from laughs to the fault lines running through Catholic life right now: a made-for-camera stunt at an ICE facility framed as “Eucharist denied,” diocesan letters pushing Latin Mass communities to fold into “reverent” alternatives, and families who built their lives around stable liturgy wondering where to go this Sunday. We don't dress it up—trust breaks when sacraments and headlines get blended for optics.We walk through Knoxville's announcement, the signals from Rome's DDW, and what the first week's numbers look like when a thriving TLM map gets redrawn. Behind every statistic is a home sale, a homeschool co-op, and a seven-year-old who just lost the friends he prays with. We press the claim that liturgy forms people: habits at the altar shape what your conscience tolerates on Monday. That doesn't deny validity; it insists that culture matters and that “reverent Novus Ordo” promises feel thin when the same authorities hint they'll remove kneelers if challenged.Cardinal Robert Sarah's voice serves as a compass: encourage those who actually practice the faith. We contrast that fatherly posture with an impulse to homogenize—whether in worship or in how leaders talk about identity and assimilation. The throughline is consistent: distinct forms, memories, and practices keep people rooted. Erase them and you get a bland surface where convictions evaporate. We wrestle with obedience, courage, and prudence without pretending there's a single neat answer. Endure what purifies; resist where your duty to your family demands it. And stop popesplaining people's pain—compassion is not disloyalty.Along the way we share bright threads: a young seeker finding the Latin Mass, a Protestant pastor-turned-Catholic who brought seventeen souls with him, and a reminder that different voices in the Church play different roles. If worship shapes belief, then the task is simple and hard: guard the forms that train hearts to love God, name the costs honestly, and build communities that don't fold when the memo arrives. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more displaced Catholics can find a lifeline.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "REXCAELORUM" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Warning: Some F-Bombs were dropped in this sectionStart with a careful read of the room: families are stretched thin, culture is noisy, and the heart still aches for God. We sat down and opened a fresh Church document on charity and the poor, then asked a hard question—why does the guidance we hear so often miss the pain points we face each week? Caring for the poor is essential; the Beatitudes aren't optional. But parents are also navigating social media modesty battles, identity confusion, and a five-hour Sunday just to reach the sacraments. Where is the pastoral help that speaks to those fires?We dig into the difference between moral teaching and prudential policy, especially around immigration. Compassion matters, and human dignity isn't up for debate. Yet the on-the-ground strain—parish distance, stretched budgets, cultural fragmentation—rarely earns direct acknowledgment. We argue for a both/and: real charity and a realistic defense of community life, parish stability, and the spiritual formation of children. That requires leaders who will name the demons of our moment—pornography, contempt, factionalism, and despair—along with the corporal needs we already know by heart.Along the way, we wrestle with our own tone. Social media rewards scorn, but the Gospel commands love of the person in front of us—even when we disagree. We talk about reverence for the Eucharist, when not to receive, and how to keep Sundays from souring into resentment for teens. Underneath it all is a plea for shepherds to meet spiritual hunger with supernatural hope: clear teaching, reachable sacraments, and courage that transcends politics.If this resonates—if you've felt unseen while trying to hold your family together in a loud age—press play. Then tell us what help you most need from your parish and your leaders. Subscribe, share with a friend who's on the same road, and leave a review so more families can find the conversation.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "REXCAELORUM" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!Forget the safe take. We go straight at the knot that ties American power, Israeli policy, media gatekeeping, and the Catholic conscience—and why so many big voices choose silence when the stakes are highest. The conversation contrasts a clean non‑intervention case with a thornier identity lens and then brings in the missing third rail: theology. That's where the ground shifts—Scripture's patterns of elder and younger brothers, covenant faithfulness and rupture, and the Church's self-understanding after Christ illuminate why this debate won't stay “just politics.”We talk candidly about incentives in conservative media, the “I don't care about Israel” cop‑out, and how American funding and weapons erase neutrality. Clips from Dave and Nick frame the battle lines; our take argues that morals don't disappear because a topic risks your job. We press on papal rhetoric and immigration, not to harden hearts, but to ask whether sweeping statements replace prudence and ignore those of us who serve immigrants and the poor up close. Compassion needs order; pastoral care needs the parish and the Eucharist, not only headlines and hashtags.There's a cultural spine here too: how post‑WWII trauma shaped public life and even Church tone; how the old TV gatekeepers collapsed; how suburbs, highways, and the melting‑pot myth atomized communities that once anchored faith and duty. If America is only ideas, no one belongs anywhere. If America is people and places, stewardship demands honesty about borders, aid, and the costs we export and import. Through it all, we call for courage without hatred—love of enemy, willingness to suffer, and the resolve to tell the whole truth even when it burns.If this conversation challenged you—or gave you language for what you've felt—share the episode, leave a review, and hit follow. Your support helps honest talk outpace strategic silence.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "REXCAELORUM" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A calendar date can feel like a footnote—until you realize it's a battle cry. October 7 isn't just ink on the liturgical page; it's the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, born from the battle of Lepanto, when a divided Europe found the courage to row into the wind. We sat down with historian and translator Ryan Grant to unpack how a six-year Dominican papacy, a “nobody” commander, and a sea full of galleys redirected history—and why the story still reads like a map for our moment.We start with Pope Pius V: a reformer forged by Trent who promulgated the Roman Missal, backed real clerical renewal with St Charles Borromeo, and refused to flatter power. Against a backdrop of French gamesmanship, Protestant pressure, and Spain's global overreach, he formed the Holy League and handed command to Don John of Austria, an illegitimate son with legitimate nerve. Ryan breaks down the fight the way it actually happened: tercios turning decks into battlefields, matchlocks hissing through smoke, Venetian galleasses doing less than legend says, and Ali Pasha betting the center at the wrong time. When El Sultana fell and the standard changed hands, morale cracked and the tide turned.But does Lepanto “matter” if the Ottomans rebuilt a fleet in six months? We tackle the revisionism head-on. Strategy and psychology shifted: no amphibious assault on Italy, no march on Rome, a Mediterranean suddenly contested. Bells rang in hostile lands, and the Church enshrined the memory as Our Lady of Victory—later Our Lady of the Rosary—cementing a devotion that would shape lay prayer for centuries. We explore the rosary's Dominican roots without forcing a neat origin story and get practical about devotion: pray on the commute, love Mary first, learn a saint well enough to ask for help often.Most of all, we take the human lesson home. Don John didn't wait for the perfect hierarchy; he went. If you're looking for permission to begin—prayer, study, service, leadership—consider this your signal. Learn the feast. Know the history. Pick up your beads and move. If this conversation gives you something to chew on, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find thoughtful, faith-filled history that speaks to right now.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "REXCAELORUM" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The cavalry isn't coming—and that's not a doomsday slogan, it's the lived reality in towns cutting police hours and cities where 911 stalls. We take that uncomfortable truth and turn it into a plan: how to build a small, Catholic mutual assistance group that actually holds under stress. No cosplay, no fantasy—just clear roles, shared skills, and a prayer life that anchors everything.We start by puncturing the lone-wolf myth and mapping the real constraints: unpredictable platform rules around firearms, DAs who change the stakes by zip code, and emergency services that prioritize institutions over families. From there we get practical. Family buy-in comes first and it's won with everyday examples—water when mains break, heat when the grid falters, first aid when minutes matter. Then we go find people where seriousness congregates: USPSA and IDPA matches, ham radio clubs, CERT and volunteer rescue, 4-H, homestead circles, and Knights of Columbus councils ready for renewal. Skills beat swagger—medics, electricians, welders, growers, and comms nerds are the backbone; rifles are the tip of a much larger spear.Leadership gets one chair. We outline a lean structure, redundancy across roles, simple comms plans, on-paper inventories, and an intel habit that shrinks the fog of war. We keep it legal and layered—cookouts before carbine days, no shortcuts, no stunts. Spiritual life isn't a bolt-on; we pray the Rosary, read, and keep Sundays, because order in the soul builds order in the street. On gear and training, we favor standardization, sustainable ammo budgets, and drills that sharpen judgment over ego. Fitness becomes logistics you wear: walking, rucking, lifting—the quiet work that lets fathers carry children upstairs when it counts.If you've wondered how to move from anxiety to action, this conversation is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with someone who should be on your team, and tell us: what skill will you bring to your group this month?Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "REXCAELORUM" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!The fights are loud; the fixes are quiet. We open with a hard look at how Catholics talk about the Pope—prudence vs. fear, why “seamless garment” rhetoric detonates in trad circles, and what we learned from mistakes under Francis. Then the conversation drops from theory to battle: a sudden wave of despair, the urge to relapse, and the shock of deliverance prayers that cut through the darkness in minutes. No theatrics. Just binding, sealing, and mercy that holds.From there, we trace the slow road back to reverence. A wife resists the Latin Mass, refuses a veil, and breaks into tears mid-liturgia; a father stops arguing and starts praying the rosary with his kids; families watch baptism in the old rite wake up something deep and ancient. We ask why anyone would restrict the one thing setting young hearts on fire—and we name motives without denying the spiritual stakes. Outrage is easy; building is harder. So we get practical: chant where you can, add vespers, catechize at home when programs fail, invite a Novus Ordo friend to High Mass and lunch for four Sundays in a row.Callers sharpen the edges. When does venting become gossip? How do you start a Catholic channel without becoming an apologist clone? What lines do you draw around invalid marriages when little eyes are watching? We offer simple rules that keep charity intact: love widely, scandal never, and let the holiness of your home do the talking. We also face Canada's euthanasia slide and what real honor for aging parents looks like when it hurts.Along the way, we detour through Augustine, Israel, and typology—not as trivia, but as ballast for the soul. If you're tired of online shots and hungry for what actually works—deliverance, confession, Latin Mass, fatherhood that keeps its vows—this is your map back to clarity.If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more honest conversations, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: what will you build this week?Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "REXCAELORUM" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A single viral moment can do what a shelf of encyclicals can't—and that's exactly what we unpack. A papal quip about the death penalty, a glossy “ice blessing” clip, and days of Twitter crossfire reopened old wounds about the “seamless garment” and whether the Church is speaking with a clear voice. We talk frankly about why many Catholics who lived through John Paul II and Benedict bristled at the language of “inadmissible,” how prudential judgments differ from absolute moral norms, and why it matters for trust in the Magisterium. No strawmen, no gotchas—just the real stakes underneath the noise.We also get honest about the rift between trads and normies. Converts often defend the papacy out of genuine gratitude for authority after Protestant fragmentation. Trads speak with urgency that can read as judgment, especially online. We explore how form shapes faith—why the quiet gravity of the Latin Mass naturally invites reverence, dress, and silence—and how Novus Ordo communities can cultivate the same without culture wars. Along the way, we ask hard questions about optics: when Catholic leaders cozy up to climate theater, do we risk laundering ideology that sidelines the unborn, the family, and subsidiarity? Stewardship of creation is good; ceding our moral voice to technocratic agendas is not.What do we do next? Steelman the other side. Drop the labels. Seek clarity from Rome that upholds the unique horror of abortion while acknowledging legitimate debate on the death penalty. Build locally—beautiful liturgy, solid catechesis, and real friendship travel further than hot takes. If authority wants trust, it must choose precision over vibes. If we want renewal, we must choose reverence over rage. Hit play, then tell us where you stand and why—we'll read and respond. And if this conversation helped you think more clearly, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people can find it.Support the showTake advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "REXCAELORUM" for 20% off at checkout!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rssRumble: https://rumble.com/c/AvoidingBabylon