Brian Holdsworth

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com If you don’t know, Pope Francis visited my northern neck of the woods in response to outcry over the Church’s involvement in what was known as the “Indian Residential Schools” program that was operated by the Federal Government of Canada. I’m not going to revisit that topic in any detail because I’ve spent quite a bit of time on it in past videos which I’ll try to remember to link in the description. So, for the sake of my reaction to the Pope’s visit to my hometown, I’d like to start by offering a massive concession to the popular narrative here. Let’s say that the worst accusations about the Church’s involvement in residential schools are accurate. If so, I’d like to explore if calls for the Pope to come and apologize were sincere and justified and was his submission to those calls helpful? As I listened to representatives of the Truth and Reconciliation commission and indigenous communities, I heard, more than a few times, that the reason it was felt necessary for the Pope to come is because this wasn’t merely the failure of a few, but rather a crime by the whole Church and that since he is the head of that Church, he must repent for the crimes of that Church. But the Church isn’t just an institution. In reality, it’s all the people who confess the creed of Catholicism. It includes lay people like me, religious people, clergy, bishops, and obviously the Pope. It’s a whole global community of people who confess a particular creed.   You could destroy all the legal agreements that affiliate us with an institution and we would still be the Catholic Church. That is what is essential to our identity. So to say that the whole Church is guilty of the crimes that took place in Residential Schools would require us to identify some common thread that all Catholics share in order to accuse the entire Church of collective guilt. And what binds us all together in that shared identity is, again, our creed and our culture. So if you’re going to accuse all Catholics of something good or bad, it must be something that you can trace to the common thread of the creed we all profess. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com The apparent obligation to “trust science” has possibly never been more imposing than it is now. It’s gone from a slogan used in debate to having our fundamental rights granted or withheld for the people who choose to adhere to it or question it. But when people say “trust the science” how are we supposed to make sense o that? Because, science means knowledge that we possess through our intellectual faculty and because we possess it and because it is within the grasp of our intellectual potential, there should be few if any unknowns about it as distinct from faith which is laden with mystery – which can often make us uncomfortable. But in the modern age, science and technology have become so specialized and sophisticated, that the average lay person like you and me, have to admit, that when we speak of scientific knowledge, we aren’t talking about a knowledge that we personally possess – it isn’t our own knowledge. If it were our own knowledge, we wouldn’t have to trust it, the way we do with faith. We simply access it and live according to it. When someone says “trust the science”, they’re saying, “trust my knowledge which is superior to yours.” Trust me because I’m an authority and, therefore, your skepticism, your concerns, questions, and criticisms, are inappropriate and invalid. The great hope of science is that it would liberate us from our limitations, especially, those imposed on us by the laws of the natural world. We often resent those limitations, and so we sought to develop knowledge and technology that would help us to transform the world around us according to our own desires and expectations. Karl Marx once wrote that “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” In otherwords, we used to use science to understand the nature of things and then conform ourselves to those laws, but according to Marx it is nature that should genuflect to us through science and technology. Yea, what could go wrong? And what did we get for this expectation. We went from being subject to the laws of nature, to the great conquest of nature by science such that now a select few scientists can wield a knowledge and a technology that is so sophisticated that most of us don’t understand it. The conquest of nature by science is actually the conquest of scientists over the world that includes their fellow man. We went from being subjects of the natural world, to being subjects to those in lab coats. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com How well you respond to the reality of suffering is a matter of courage or fortitude. But if we perceive or even believe that our suffering is inconsequential or meaningless, then a reason to have courage can be elusive and we are left with our suffering intact as well as the undesirable addition of disillusionment and despair. In Catholicism, there’s this notion that you can offer your suffering to God, united in the suffering of Christ, for some good intention – like the salvation of loved ones. And when you do this, two things are promised, one is that God will actually use that suffering for some good, and two, you will be fortified against the worst aspects of your suffering. And if you can believe something like that, then when you offer up your suffering in the service of some greater good, suddenly, your suffering takes on a noble purpose and if you’re anything like me, you will be far more willing to suffer some adversity if you know that it will benefit someone else who needs it. And that becomes an unrivaled source of encouragement, from which we derive that needed courage and fortitude. We are suddenly motivated to embrace suffering rather than resist it because it acquires meaning and purpose. And resisting it is a futile thing, because we all experience it whether we embrace it or not. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com I recently read an account from someone who recalled, in an almost boastful way, how when a friend came to them, in distress with a problem, instead of offering some ideas that would have helped the person in distress, they restrained themselves from speaking in favour of merely listening. And he was encouraged in this approach by the belief that this is what a good Catholic should do – to restrain ourselves from sharing our thoughts while someone else tells us about their problems. Instead, we are to be a listening people and a listening Church. And this is a theme that seems to be something of a slogan in the Church today. We hear about the synodal way and about our commitment to listening instead at the expense of speaking. But in the example of my friend, what if the person that was appealing to them was looking for help or a solution to their problem? Yes, it’s a fine thing to listen but listening is a futile thing unless it is paired with understanding. And why bother understanding a problem if it isn’t to try to seek a solution? For example, what would you think of a medical doctor who, every time someone came to them with a medical problem, they didn’t offer a reply, they just listened to you tell them your problem and then they billed you and sent you on your way? What if they knew what the antidote to your problem was, but instead of giving it to you, they were compelled by this same kind of sentiment - that it is better to listen then it is to offer your own thoughts on a given problem? Well, I would think that such a doctor is showing contempt for their patients. To know how to help someone as a result of a knowledge that you possess, and then to refuse to help them cannot be the result of some moral good. It would have to be the result of, at best, a good intention that is actually harmful, or just a hatred and contempt for those who you would allow to suffer unnecessarily. Now that’s well and good when we’re talking about practitioners of physical healthcare, but what about those who are practitioners of spiritual healthcare? Well if the Church is anything, it must be that, right? The Church is a curator of a divine revelation that tells us who God is, who we are in relation to him, and how God has proposed a way for us to live in communion with him who is our source of life and happiness. God has revealed this to humanity and then charged a group of people with ensuring that that very message gets proclaimed for the benefit of humanity and is preserved from distortion. But he also added a warning which is that many people would hate the Church for being that messenger. That is the Church’s mission, to proclaim that message as a messenger and to be unafraid of the consequences. One thing Jesus did not say is to go out and listen to the perspectives of other people, other groups, other cultures, and see what you can learn from them so that your message will be less abrasive to them. No, he said, go and proclaim it and be prepared for the animosity and hostility of the world when you do. He said, go and be disagreeable to the world with the understanding that for those people of good will who will benefit from the message, it is worth upsetting and being hated by the rest who do not accept the message. But today we find ourselves in a Church with significant pockets that are persuaded by an opposing “wisdom”. One that says, we need to listen to others in order to be more agreeable to them and we should refrain from speaking or proselytizing. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com If societal norms are such that it’s normal or even expected that some, especially young attractive woman, should embrace their sexuality by dressing in revealing clothing, then that ends up restricting the freedom of those who wish not to be participating in that expression of sexuality. We probably agree that strangers shouldn’t be looking at other strangers, for the most part, and since I am one of the people who agrees with that, I do my best not to look and make assessments of other people’s bodies when I’m out in public, but I’m finding that increasingly difficult to do, through no choice of my own. Because if everyone, or at least a significant portion of people are dressed in a revealing way, especially now that it’s summer time again, when I go to a public event in which there are crowds of people, I find myself averting my eyes everywhere I look only to discover that unless I want to be staring at the ground, there isn’t much point in going out to crowded placed. In other words, my #freedom to simply be in public and enjoy the thing I went to go enjoy, like a concert, a day at the beach, or the rodeo, is now an exercise in finding the slivers of geography where my eyes can rest without seeing body parts that I didn’t ask to see. We talk about freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of mobility as intrinsic rights, but what about the freedom to be able to open your eyes and not have someone else’s attempt at making a provocative statement about their body imposed on my field of vision. Because that’s what it is, by the way, and that’s what makes this whole mentality so incoherent. To insist on pushing the boundaries of revealing clothing is to do something provocative and to act provocatively is, by definition, to try to create attention for yourself. But then to insist that people aren’t allowed to give that attention is to insist on a contradiction. #modestclothing #modestout #chastity Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com If you follow my channel, you might know that my family attends the traditional Latin mass on Sundays – which isn’t something I point out to try to position myself as some elite Catholic, but simply to share some of what that experience has been like for me and how it has formed me these past few years since I started attending it. But every now and then, our family, either by necessity, or even to try to balance out our perspective, we will attend the novus ordo or the common liturgy of the Roman rite of the Church. And that’s what we did a few weeks ago. Now that liturgy is one I attended for years and years and when you become acclimatized to something, it can be very difficult to notice things. Everything just seems normal, familiar, and comfortable. But comfort can breed complacency where we should be on the alert. On this occasion, something startled me that wouldn’t have years ago when that environment was my comfort zone. It was during the presentation of the gifts when lay people from the congregation bring up the “gifts” of bread and wine which will then be consecrated in the mass and it’s almost always a family carrying things up together. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com For whatever difficulties arise for the Christian in accounting of the Problem of Evil, I think there is an even larger difficulty for a materialist atheist. Because materialism is the belief that the physical properties of the universe are all that exist. There is no invisible, transcendent dimension of reality – only what can be observed physically. But if you hold this view, and you want to arrive at some rational explanation for the kinds of evil I discuss in the video, you have to account for those events by appealing to exclusively material causes. But as soon as you do make an explanation like that, if one is available, notice what you’ve forfeited. What you cannot say after having observed such phenomena is, “That was evil or that was wrong.” Because as soon as you admit that, what you’re saying is, “Something that happened, and is therefore real and part of reality, should not have happened.” In effect, you’re saying, “I disapprove of those events which are part of the fabric of reality and, therefore, I disapprove of reality.” To say that is to insist that reality and the events that constitute it should have been another way. Something else should have happened; specifically, that guy shouldn’t have brutally murdered an innocent life. And he shouldn’t have gloated about it afterwards as if he did something enviable with complete indifference to goodwill or the lives that he has now traumatized. But if all there is is material reality, how can you lay claim to knowledge of an alternate reality, which doesn’t exist, and which you believe should exist – some invisible better world that you would have approved of? Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com A church that merely affirms people in who they are, how they behave, and what they know, is a church that has admitted to itself and anyone watching, that it doesn't need to exist. If we believe that the Church should exist, then it can only be because it has something to offer the world that it doesn't already have. That necessitates a counter-cultural Church - one that stands firm in opposition to the incoherent and prevailing fashions of the day. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/zPlSeZY546Q By homeschooling, homesteading, and retreating away from the "fleshpots of Egypt", are Catholics abandoning their responsibility to be witnesses in the world? #benedictoption Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca With the fragility of systems we have long placed our trust in becoming apparent, many are taking an interest in becoming self-sufficient. Brandon Sheard, the #Meatsmith, brings a wealth of knowledge about how #homesteading, butchery, #husbandry, and living in accord with the divine order and the natural law. Topics: 00:00 - Brian's Intro 03:36 - Introduction to Brandon 08:08 - Brandon's Conversion to Catholicism 39:07 - Why should we homestead? 55:22 - Homesteading with a F/T Job 1:00:49 - Social Isolation, Distance to Church 1:24:52 - Animal rights/souls Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Archbishop Cordeleone of San Francisco recently announced that he was refusing to allow Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Holy Communion in his Archdiocese and the usual suspects, as well as the mainstream media, have been objecting to this decision by the Archbishop. In this video, I respond to some of those objections and offer some thoughts on the significance of what it means to receive God in this way. Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com A few viewers and commenters have asked me to share more details about my #prayer life, and especially, my family’s prayer life and I know our family has benefited immensely from being exposed to what other families we admire do, so I thought I’d share our modest routine in the hopes that it will encourage you as you build up your own. #liturgyofthehours #familyprayer #catholicprayer Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com #Equity means #equality of outcomes. It means that when the measure of everyone’s participation in society is taken, we should all end up with the same benefit, regardless of input, cost, or the value that we contribute. And if anyone ends up with some greater benefit, then an unassailable absolute authority should step in and correct that disparity by force. So, nobody should get more money, better grades, better looking dates, or anything else that might cause envy in their neighbor. ... And if we take a more abstract look at what equity purports to do, we can see that it incoherent. Part of the reason we are so receptive to the concept of equity, is because we think it means equality, and most people agree with some approximation of the phrase, all men and women are equal. Well, if equity is meant to be a manifestation of equality, think about what your admitting the moment you insist that some higher authority has to correct natural inequality. You’re admitting that equality is not natural – that equality between human beings is not naturally occurring and, therefore, we are not actually equal. ... But there’s an ingredient to this conversation that we’ve been neglecting so far and that is the role of mercy and love. Because, while justice may be the foundational virtue of natural ethics, love is the highest of the theological virtues. And love and mercy implore us to forgive the failings of others and to show concern and care for those who struggle to access the goods that many of us take for granted. And this is, of course, throughout the teachings of Jesus. We are called to care for the less fortunate. But love is an act of the will. Love that is coerced cannot be called love. If someone marries you with a gun to their head, can it ever be said that they married for love? What’s the difference between physical intimacy that is freely given compared to intimacy that is forced? Quite a bit, actually. Love, by definition, must be a free gift. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com So last week, I was sitting down to do the readings of the day with my family, and there was a snippet from Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4 where it says that in the early #Church, there were no needy among them because people would sell their possessions, give it to the Apostles, and it would be distributed to each according to their need. And as soon as I read that, I thought, oh great, we’re going to be hearing from the #Communist Christians on Twitter this week because Karl #Marx coined a particular communist mantra which sounds an awful lot like the phrasing in the book of acts. He said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". And sure enough, a saw a self-satisfied tweet talking about how all the capitalist Christians must be trembling to justify their disdain for communism after reading that. Now, I’m not an expert on #Communism, I’m not even an expert on Christianity, but I know enough about both to know that for whatever similarities you might be able to find at a high level, when you look at the fundamentals of each, there are irreconcilable differences – the kind that cause all the celebrities to get divorced, so you have to know that they are serious. Even the fact that some Christians call themselves Communist Christians, underlines the point. If they are the same thing, then you shouldn’t have to qualify your Christianity. If Christianity simply taught communism as part of its social teaching, then simply describing yourself as a Christian would suffice in capturing that whole vision. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Sponsor: https://www.thesaintmaker.com/ Hilaire Belloc who was a friend and intellectual accomplice of GK Chesterton once famously, or perhaps infamously, wrote that Europe is the faith and the faith is Europe – which would have been controversial enough in his own day but would be an extremely provocative thing to say or write today, or make the title of a YouTube video. The objections, at least the sane ones, would be something like, the faith is universal, and therefore cannot be reduced to any nationality or ethnicity. And if that’s what Belloc meant, that would be a valid criticism, but what if he was talking about culture instead of ethnicity – because those things aren’t synonymous? When Jesus spoke of nations in the gospels, as in, “Go and make disciples of all nations,” his use of the word nation would be close to what we mean by ethnicity. In fact the Koine Greek word that is translated as nations, is actually ethne which where we get, ethnic from. The Israelites, were a nation that God had raised up in a covenant with Moses, but in the incarnation of Jesus, God was establishing a new covenant with every nation, that is a universal covenant that isn’t limited to any one nation or ethnicity. So, on the face of it, it would appear as though Belloc had missed an essential point of the gospel. And whenever anyone, like myself, tries to defend traditional cultural elements of the Latin rite of the Church as intrinsic to our Catholic culture, like chant, polyphony, traditional sacred art, and gothic architecture, many people will push back with the same objection that this is trying to reduce the faith from something universal to something national and ethnically limited to Europe. But this kind of reply fails to make the distinction between ethnicity and culture. It is based on the belief that multiculturalism is a good thing and since European culture is only one of many valid cultures which deserve inclusion within what we think of as Catholic culture, it doesn’t deserve the kind of prominence it enjoyed in the past. When people say that traditional fixtures of the Catholic faith, which orthodox and traditional Catholics, like myself, try to promote, are too Eurocentric, they are harboring a belief that the universality of Catholic culture is due to its own cultural emptiness which it fills with whatever culture it happens to encounter through the proclamation of the Gospel. For example, if the faith comes to a new land with a pre-existing culture, it doesn’t impose any culture of its own. It’s this mistaken notion that what becomes Catholic culture, precedes the Catholic creed so that when the creed encounters a culture, it simply adopts the good things of that culture as its own. But the problem with this idea is that it’s based on a superficial and incoherent understanding of what culture is. It thinks of culture as being the mere accidents of ethnicity, like language, food, and dress. When in fact, culture is, as I’ve argued countless times on my channel, embodied religion or embodied cult. Culture is the manifestation of a cult of worship. It doesn’t precede religion; it proceeds from religion. So, to say that the Church should embrace multiculturalism, is in a way, saying that the Church should embrace multi-cultism or multi-religion – which of course, we can’t mean without sacrificing our own distinct religion in the process. And it should come as no surprise to us that to whatever degree we’ve adopted this kind of cultural relativism into the life of the Church, our creed has suffered relentless attempts to vandalize its doctrines from within the Church. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com It’s not enough to have a creed. We have a creed. We are right about ultimate truth, about how we should live our lives, about who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going. Our creed tells us that, but people aren’t merely rational. People aren’t drawn to mere assertions of the truth without some window dressing – and, in fact, they’ll happily embrace well-dressed falsehoods. Nobody is going to buy into a #creed when the people who profess it, don’t act like it’s the kind of thing worthy of its own distinct culture. Culture is the music, the art, the literature, the rituals, the #worship, and the way of life that is proceeds from that creed. Culture is the embodiment of creed, or more accurately, the embodiment of religion and a creed cannot survive if culture does not bloom out from its roots. The culture of the Church bloomed for 2000 years, until we decided, in the interest of not being too assertive, or perhaps because we took it for granted, that we could discard it. In our struggle or diplomatic dialogue, however you see it, we sacrificed the thing that motivated us, that renewed us, that made us attractive, that made us an alternative. We did something that countless martyrs died trying to prevent. Take for example, during the Protestant Revolution, how revolutionaries were seized with that old, embittered spirit of iconoclasm. They stormed sanctuaries of churches and monasteries, smashing stained glass windows and destroyed all the sacred art they could find. But in the immediate aftermath of the Second #Vatican Council, it wasn’t some previously unknown adversary who vandalized our sacred spaces. We did it ourselves. We were seized by that same spirit, but with the added ingredient of what Pope Benedict XVI might have referred to as a pathological self-hatred. We literally brought jackhammers and other instruments of destruction into our own sacred spaces and set to the unfinished work of the revolutionaries. We abandoned the expressions of our faith that had aroused the affections of countless generations for the creed we professed, and perhaps, even, the respect from those who didn’t profess it. And it didn’t stop with ornaments, altars, paintings, and statues, we abandoned our language, our songs, our architecture, our ancient rituals, even our calendar of feasts, as if all the other concessions weren’t enough. In place of the #culture we self-sabotaged, we either contented ourselves with the nihilistic emptiness of the aftermath, or we tried to synthesize elements of other cultures into the residue of our own. We were convinced that this would make us more attractive to non-Christians in our evangelistic efforts. All we have to do to attract them to a creed they don’t want, is offer them a culture they already have, but much less sophisticated because we don’t have the resources of, say, Hollywood, and much less authentic because it isn’t actually born out of our own creed. We’re just play acting at someone else’s. And as we should have expected, there was no wave of converts. Instead, there was a mass exodus which continues to this day. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Yesterday was Good Friday as of the time I’m making this video, and so the experience of venerating the cross is still fresh in my mind and as I’ve been thinking about it, I was reminded of the fact that for anyone who does not believe what the Church teaches about the cross and the mystery of God’s atoning sacrifice for us, that must appear, no doubt, to be a morbid fascination on our part. As a convert to the Church, I’ve had family and friends express their distress at that symbol. I can hear them saying, even if you believe that Jesus died and rose again and that somehow affects you if you believe that, why focus your attention on such a ghastly symbol? Why not direct it towards the nice things Jesus said and did, like healing sick people? So why do Christians, and especially Catholics consider the cross to be such a profound symbol of what we hold to be of most significant importance when we contemplate our relationship with God? Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Anyone who has been a follower of Jesus and a member of his Church for long enough will eventually encounter the accusation that, “You Christians need to be more like Jesus. He was just a really chill guy who told people to love each other and avoid being judgmental.” Which is another way of saying that the Jesus that is represented by the Church isn’t anything like the original. The original was mild-mannered, unfailingly kind, and maybe even a bit sentimental. But at some point, the Church obscured the real Jesus behind rigid dogmatism, exclusivity, and excessive legalism. Now, Jesus did say and do a lot to promote the concerns of the excluded, the poor, and the forgotten. He promoted love and acceptance for all, even that most unlikely class of all, the rich and powerful. But he also taught a lot of other things, by word and example, that if someone were to read the gospels, completely objectively, for the first time, they wouldn’t come away with a sense that he was a chill dude who was exclusively concerned with how much everyone just got along. They would likely be confused and mystified by the portrayal of Jesus that they found there. Someone who spoke with unprecedented authority, as if on behalf of all concerned parties in the world. They would encounter someone who can speak and act so delicately and merciful in once instance and with the full weight of blind pitiless justice in another. When I first became convinced that God was real and that Jesus was a possible ingredient in his interactions with humanity who, alone, he imbued with a rational soul (that we know of), I decided to read the gospels for myself without any existing tradition to inform that reading. And the first thing I noticed about them was an apparent lack of utility. With the gospels, there are two explanations that you can arrive at when you encounter them. One is that the people telling this story, that is the early followers of Jesus, are sincere and truly believe what they claim about their experience of knowing and following him. The other is that they were lying and inventing this story. You could also claim, if you were inclined, that they all experienced mass simultaneous hallucinations and psychosis, but there really isn’t any precedent for such an explanation. So, if we’re honest, let’s stick with the first two alternatives. #easter #triduum #HistoricalJesus Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com The Catholic intellectual tradition is one that celebrates both faith and reason as valid sources of knowledge, which means that when those things are working together, the human person is optimized to be what they are as a rational soul. This means that the last thing a Catholic should be willing to do is abandon either their faith or their reason, one for the other, or altogether. And there seems to be a lot about the environmentalism and climate activism movements that do require us to embrace some suspiciously incoherent ideas or at least, solutions that don’t benefit from embracing the full spectrum of what human thought can offer, both scientific as well as ethical and metaphysical. One example that really hits me sideways is this idea that we must “save the planet.” This is language that is inherent in every environmental campaign as well as green legislation policies – we gotta save the planet. Now, the problem with this line of thinking is that the planet doesn’t need to be saved. A slightly warmer global temperature is hardly the destruction of the world. Apart from us, it really doesn’t mean anything to save the planet for its own sake. The planet has existed in all manner of conditions that we would consider far “worse” than what might happen due to climate change. Apart from us and our needs, there’s nothing you could say about the planet or certain environments that makes value judgements about them. For example, the artic tundra featuring temperatures below -60C and hardly any visible signs of life, is a perfectly valid environment – there’s nothing intrinsically good or bad about it. The slope of an active volcano, with lava flowing down the side, is a perfectly valid environment. The surface of the moon or another planet like Mars or Jupiter, these are perfectly valid environments. The only way you can begin to say that one environment is preferable or better than the other, is if you are judging it based on how hospitable it is to human life. So, any attempt to say that a certain vision or constitution of the planet earth is better than another, is to say that one is more conducive to providing for human life than another. Any attempt to try to discuss saving or improving the planet without accounting for human need as the primary consideration is completely nonsensical. It’s smuggling in all kinds of desires and variables without admitting that they are intrinsic to it – it takes too much for granted. Therefore, any attempt at preserving the environment must be informed by the fundamental question of what will best promote human flourishing. And sometimes that might mean cutting a forest down or mining coal. It might even mean a warmer climate – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Some of the things Jesus said about himself are clearly metaphors (I am the vine, I am the light of the world, etc.), but when he says, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to be me will never be hungry or thirsty (in John 6), why do Catholics (and the unanimous belief of all Christians for the first 1500 years of the Church) take him literally? Why not treat this like another metaphor among many? Well, because there's something very different about how he builds and elaborates on his teaching in John 6 compared to the others. #john6 #eucharist #aplogetics Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music performed by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Sponsor: https://realestateforlife.org/ I often see comments from people who have just found my channel that is some approximation of, "How can you defend the Catholic Church?" And the implied, or sometimes explicit, accusation that accompanies this question often betrays a misunderstanding of what "The Catholic Church" is. So, in this video, I offer some insights into how to make distinctions between the institution, its members, and the Church as it truly is by pointing out that we tend to make these distinctions in other areas of life and community (such as the education system). Next, I spend some time discussing the many prejudices that I brought to my understanding of the Catholic Church which have slowly unraveled as I have devoted time to learning about the Church's history. Events like the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the supposed persecutions of scientists, aren't nearly what I was taught they were, if not outright fabrications relying on outdated historical narratives composed by Protestants or other rivals of the Catholic Church. Relevant videos: In defense of the Crusades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiqkUcWLlC0 The Galileo Affair Doesn't Bother Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk_NbaXm6Lw Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music written generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com I want to talk about this Will Smith slapping incident at the Oscars, not because it’s low hanging fruit and easy fodder for media commentary, but because there are several things about it that struck me as an opportunity to discuss topics that are really important to me and the themes I discuss on this channel. One is that it’s not very often that people lose their composure in such a dramatic way in a time and place in which certain measures of etiquette are expected. This is especially true for professional actors. But it seems like, more and more, lately, we can’t keep up the act whether we’re professionals or not. It suggests to me that a lot of people are at their breaking point which is a scary thing. It seems like we’re living in a tinder box that is ready to explode which brings me to a critical question: What can we do dial this situation back? I wonder if we’re at a point where conflict is inevitable, like the charges have been set and the explosion has to happen, or if there’s a way to untangle the nots and disassemble the fuses. So on the one hand I sympathize with people like Will Smith, but also the revelatory nature of it all is significant in my mind. As a Catholic Christian, my thinking is always drawn to a sacramental interpretation of things I experience or witness. It’s this notion that the world we experience is very much enchanted. #willsmith #chrisrock #oscars Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Sponsor: https://www.thesaintmaker.com/ promo code: BRIANHOLDSWORTH for 10% off. Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Music generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com If you press someone for a coherent definition on what #love is, it usually follows a thread something like this: they’ll start by insisting that love is a feeling - it’s an intense attraction towards someone or something. But there’s an array of problems and inconsistencies with this definition. The first is that, we don’t control our feelings or our moods. Today I might be in the mood to get up early, exercise, and be productive, but tomorrow, I may not feel like that. My feelings on the matter are inconsistent and therefore, incoherent. What I ought to do should be based one my reason. And, we insist that love is a noble and even virtuous thing. But how can something so noble, be the by-product of something we have no control over? How can we say that we admire someone for the extent of their love and be critical of someone who lacks love for their neighbor, when, if it’s only a feeling of intense attraction, neither can be held accountable for their surplus or deficit of this feeling? If we’re going to insist on admiring or criticizing people for the amount of love that they exhibit, then we have to admit that there is a dimension of choice involved in what it means to love or not love. Because it is the choices and actions of others that we admire, not their mood swings. The second problem with this definition, is that it leads to absurdities when applied in real life. For example, what do you call someone who has intense feelings of attraction to someone else who doesn’t reciprocate those feelings. Umm… a stalker. It’s not an admirable thing when someone relentlessly expresses such intense feelings of infatuation when they aren’t mutual. Or on an even darker level, what about an adult who has intense feelings of physical attraction for children. I don’t know if society is actually this far gone yet, but I’d like to think that most of us wouldn’t call that love. So, you might want to amend your definition to something like, intense feelings of attraction that are welcomed and reciprocated. But, we can still run into trouble here because what if a minor reciprocates intense feelings to an adult – like a student and a teacher. Is that love? And don’t we all know someone who has been swept up in a very intense romance with someone that was also quite abusive? Relationships like that can hardly be described as a consequence of love, at least not the kind of love that is worthy of admiration. The only definition that I’ve ever heard that I find satisfying in that it can be applied to all the various instances that we might, seriously, describe as love, just so happens to be the Catholic definition. According to it, love is willing the good of another. #loveislove #catholicpride Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca Sponsor: https://realestateforlife.org/ Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com This is my conversation with Fr. Dcn. Andrew Bennett. We discuss the spiritual and metaphysical dimension of the conflict that has erupted that is often overlooked, or deliberately ignored. We also discuss the historical roots of the spiritual identities of Russia and Ukraine and why the East/West rivalry has endured from the days of the Roman Empire all the way to the modern era. Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/