How A Gay Jew Rewrote Core Catholic Doctrine in the 1960s (This is CRAZY)

Is Vatican II the result of a “gay Jew infiltrating the Catholic Church”? Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the shocking story of Gregory Baum — a matrilineal Jew, former Catholic priest, and openly gay man who authored the first draft of Nostra Aetate, one of the most controversial documents of the Second Vatican Council.In this episode, they explore:• Baum’s background, conversion, active homosexuality while writing key Church documents, and later life• The content and lasting impact of Nostra Aetate on Catholic teaching regarding Jews, other religions, and interfaith dialogue• Why many traditional Catholics view Vatican II with deep suspicion• The broader implications for Church authority, doctrine, and demographicsA wild, uncomfortable, and thought-provoking discussion on faith, identity, institutional capture, and theology. What do you think — infiltration, urban monoculture influence, or something else?Watch until the end for Malcolm & Simone’s unfiltered reactions.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. If you clicked on this video and are wondering, is this a clickbait title? It is so much crazier than you think, right? So I saw a title going through on a Redeem Zoomer video. We’ve had him on the show. I think he’s a great content creator, but he’s a pretty small C conservative content creator.Doesn’t really lean into c- clickbait. Generally tries to dig into the meat and bones of religious history, Christian history, and theology. And it was the, the gay Jew who infiltrated Catholicism or the Vatican or something like that. Anyway, I read this and I was like, “Wh- this isn’t normal Redeem Zoomer content,” right?It mu- it can’t possibly be true, Malcolm. I start listening to the video. I get to the end of it and I’m like, “Oh, my God, I have to know more.” So I need to clarify a few things about this particular individual and the influence they have had on Catholicism. [00:01:00] First of all is this somebody who was just, like, same sex attracted or, you know, not, not actually sleeping with men?Or maybe they, long after writing the documents that became important parts of Vatican II Nostra A- aetera m- they, they maybe long after had gay sex or started doing gay activism or something like that. They were, while they were a priest, during the time period they wrote these documents, having active gay sex with men Yeah andSimone Collins (2): then it’s like- Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold, hold on.You, how can you be a Catholic priest and a, I mean, I guess you could be a ma- a matrilineal Jew And that’s the other, right, so here’sMalcolm Collins: another thing. I was like, maybe they’re just ethnically Jewish or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, they’re probably not actually aSimone Collins (2): Jew. They’re just matrilineally, ooh, matrilineally Jewish, and that’s it, right?Yeah, so- And then that would be-Malcolm Collins: He is, by the way, matrilineally [00:02:00] Jewish. His, one of the things he fought hardest to normalize within the Vatican and Catholicism as a policy is that it is immoral to attempt to proselytize to and convert Jews to Christianity. Does that sound a lot like somebody who actually deconverted from Judaism?That makes no sense if you actually believe Christian principles, right? Like, you would... I’m, I’m saying this, I’m trying to be, like, as... I have, I have tackled this particular conundrum every way I can in my head, and the only way, because then, like, wouldn’t he convert back to Judaism?But the only way I can get it to make sense when I piece together his various writings, and then it does make sense, is he thinks that, that the [00:03:00] Jews are still under the first covenant. And that as such, you can have a b- believe that the Jewish worldview is both 100% correct and accurate, and the Christian worldview is simultaneously 100% correct and accurate. Because the first covenant stands and you have the second covenant. And so he basically, I mean, if this is true, it means that he 100% believed in, even if he was telling the truth about being a Catholic, Catholicism and Judaism.Or a form of Catholicism that’s heavily different from other forms of Catholicism, because now we’re gonna get to, what did he write? So he wrote Nostra Aetate. This is an official declaration of the Second Vatican Council. It was overwhelmingly approved with a final vote of 2,021 in favor and only 88 against, and it was promulgated or officially issued by Pope Paul VI on October [00:04:00] 28th, 1965.What that means in terms of Catholic doctrine is that’s not the same thing as a papal bull, right? Like, it doesn’t mean that it directly came from God. But what it does mean, according to the catechism of the Catholic Church, or, like, their official documents about what all Catholics have to do, is Catholics, quote-unquote, “owe it religious assent or a sincere submission of intellect and will.”See CCC 892 to 893. It is not optional. And I will read through that, the, like, official Catholic doctrine on these types of policies. But what it said and what it introduced to Catholicism as a concept is that other religions, including religions outside of the Abrahamic tree, like Hinduism and Buddhism, have a ray of divine truth to them.And it’s even written ... It can be interpreted, like now, [00:05:00] after I went over this document, I understand now why so many of our Catholic friends hate Vatican II. ‘Cause I’m reading this and I’m like, “Whoazers.” Like, this is pretty wild. And it, it goes through and sort of praises things about other major religions and sort of creates commandments, essentially, for Catholics around getting along with them rather than necessarily trying to convert them.That’s crazy. Veryconvenient if a Jew had entered the, the, the Catholic Church. Okay. By the way, other final crazy thing is he also deconverted- Oh ... fromSimone Collins (2): Catholicism. So he, like, came in, vandalized church policy, and then- Vandalized churchMalcolm Collins: policy in a very d- and note, when I say he wrote the Nostra E- Eleata this document- It’s not like he co-wrote it or something like that.He wrote the entirety, as far as church history and anyone is aware- Okay ... of the first [00:06:00] draft of this document. How- Yes, it was heavily edited after its first draft and before it entered the sort of church law and stuff like that. And actually, it seemed to have gotten even worse in future edits. In his original writing of it, it was really just focused on Jews and Christians getting along and Judaism being partially true.Okay. And all of the, like, Hinduism and Buddhism stuff was added by other people afterwards. Oh, wow. So, like the his, his group of buddies- It was the ‘60s. It was the time. Yeah but the reason he left was also crazy. So within the church and during his time in the church, he was a well-known LGBT activist.Oh. And he left the church, and we’ll go into that because as he said the, the, the, the church’s stance on gays. Which is odd because one he... If- he was a priest. He’s not, in C- Catholic terms at least, it’s, that, that doesn’t [00:07:00] just mean you can’t sleep with women. You can’t sleep with anyone as a Catholic priest.Yeah. Right? Like- Yeah ... their stance on gays had nothing to do with the fact that he couldn’t sleep with men. Yeah, it’s, it’s aboutSimone Collins (2): celibacy. It’s not about selective celibacy.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, although he was doing that anyway. Well. He ends up, by the way, long-term dating another Catholic priest who is gay or former Catholic priest who is gay.Simone Collins (2): Oh, I just, no, I just want the yaoi manga version of this. After leaving- It sounds fantastic.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Y- you know how G- oh, you wanna get even more manga? Do you know who he’s married to today?Simone Collins (2): Neil deGrasse Tyson.Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. Who? What? An ex-Catholic nun.Simone Collins (2): God, you said that and my, my computer just, like, demonically shut off. It, it was like- ... it wasn’t used to process that. No, it wasMalcolm Collins: anex-Catholic nun who he’s married to now. Oh my. Well,Simone Collins (2): a veryMalcolm Collins: mannishSimone Collins (2): nun perhaps.Malcolm Collins: No, no. They don’t have any [00:08:00] sexual relationship. I think it’s so that he can more easily have both a long-term pr- relationship, which is something he’s always wanted, and practice casual sex with gay men in, in potentially large numbers.So okay. I’ve set the scene, I think. This is absolutely crazy. I now understand why, like, all of the sane Catholics who, like, are, are our friends are all like, “Yeah, I’m not, like, a big fan of Vatican II. That... Some w- some fishy stuff went on with that,” right? And l- let’s, let’s just go into this, okay?‘Cause it gets... , so he knew he was attracted to men in his teenage years but remained celibate during his time as a priest. Ordained in the 1950s, left the priesthood in 1974. A- and note his conversion into Catholicism is also pretty fishy. So we’ll get into that as well. In his 2016 autobiography, The Oil Has Not Run Dry, he publicly came out. He described falling in love with men [00:09:00] emotionally in his younger years. The joy mixed with pain because it couldn’t be reciprocated due to his vows. His first gay experience was at the age of 40 around 1963. This was around the age that he wrote this document which he described as exciting but ultimately disappointing because he wanted a committed partner.After leaving the priesthood, he married Shirley Flynn, a former nun, in 1978. They lived together platonically until her death in 2007. He described continuing to explore his sexuality in other, quote-unquote, “non-conformist ways.” In 8- 1986 after moving to Montreal, he fell in love with a former priest, a male partner, and remained committed to that relationship.Now, this is also pretty interesting because that’s a huge age gap relationship thereSimone Collins (2): on the bright side, I mean, we’ve got gay romance, we got the costumes, we got the age gap. This is just perfect manga [00:10:00] fodder for some kind of priest yaoi series.So- Yeah, this is- AtMalcolm Collins: least there’s that ... this is one of the things where if you come to the conclusion that I do in this and, and you’re watching this, that he just never stopped being Jewish I’m not getting the Jewishness in any of this, though. I... Where is, whereSimone Collins (2): is the Jew coming in? We haven’t, we haven’t gotten to that yet.Okay. Because I, I’m not... None of this feels like someone who’s very Jewish. It just, it just feels like someone who’s kind of trolling the church,Malcolm Collins: having fun. But if you, if you... No, suppose you are an actual Jew, right? Now- Okay ... keep in mind, Jews aren’t supposed to be gay either, so, like, he’s not good at being a Jew in thatSimone Collins (2): respect.Well, like, again, to my point. Now, this doesn’t sound like a Jew. This sounds like m- maybe someone a little bit ur- ur- early urban monoculture or someone very 1960s-ish, just like, “Free love. Everything is real. God comes in many forms.” That kind of person. [00:11:00] There’s nothing particularly Jewish about that.That has to do with a loss of culture, a loss of tradition. Mm-hmmMalcolm Collins: No, but imagine you’re, you’re Jewish, right? Even a bad Jew. I, I, I still think even as a bad Jew, even with that level of sin- God, Jew ... this is one of those, like, sneak stat things where I often joke that, that Jews are just specced into, like, way too high a sneak stat.They, they, it’s not just they come off as sneaky, it’s the fact that, that Mossad has been able to pull off these insane things like getting terrorists to pay them for pagers to blow- I love that,Simone Collins (2): yeah. And most recently there’s been this big scare with Mossad being a little bit too socially connected with a lot of high-ranking Trump officials, and they’re sending all this intel back on what internally the US government is talking about vis-a-vis the Iran war.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but imagine the civilization level sneak stat that is to sneak your way into- Into everything ... the core council which decides [00:12:00] what is religiously true for Catholics.Simone Collins (2): Okay, okay. So he’s, he’s Mossad-ing the Catholic Church is what you’re trying to say. InfectingMalcolm Collins: it with documentation that says you’re not allowed to go against the Jews.That’s not even, like... That’s not even, like... I’m just like, “Simone Collins (2): Damn.” Really? Isn’t that just, isn’t that what he wrote more just, like, let’s try to be more cooperative and kind vis-a-vis other religions? Or is it- no,Malcolm Collins: it basically affirms Judaism is, is partially true and worshiping the same god. Well, it is the sa- I mean, they, they share the Old Testament.Yeah, but m- most Catholics before Vatican II did not think Jews were worshiping the same god. That is... E- even the concept of that is really a post-Vatican II concept. Well, Jews worshipSimone Collins (2): the God of the Old Testament andMalcolm Collins: Christians worship the God of the Old Testament. I know that makes sense to you as a techno-puritan because we believe the same thing.Okay. I am just saying that most Christians don’t believe that. [00:13:00] They do believe- I guess someone’sSimone Collins (2): gonna explain this to me in the comments, so yeah. Okay. Fine. I’ll take, I’ll take your word for it and then go to the comments.Speaker: So I decided to look more into this to see how popes after it was out related to it, and it looks like they’ve just built on it since then. , You have Pope Paul VI, who was the one who, Put the whatever on it, the, the, the seal on it. Then you’ve got Pope John Paul II, who frequently referenced and built upon it. Examples include addresses at an anniversary, specifically his 20th address in 1985, his 1986 visit to the Rome Synagogue, and multiple statements on Jewish-Christian relations.Um, then you have , Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote a letter for the 40th anniversary in 2005, praising it for opening a new era. So he explicitly praised it in relation with Jews and overcoming prejudices. As both cardinal and pope, he affirmed its role while noting some limitations, e.g.[00:14:00] it focuses positively on religion, but should address the sick and distorted forms of those religions. Okay, whatever. , Pope Francis marked the 50th anniversary, 2015, in a general audience, calling the message, quote unquote, “always timely,” and quoting sections on Judaism and Islam, and emphasized practical dialogue, friendship, and cooperation in the document.Then we have Pope Leo XIV, who recently gave an address to a general audience for the 60th anniversary, highlighting its ongoing urgency for Jewish-Catholic relationships. So, , what I’ll note here is, yes, none of these are like papal bulls or anything like that, but for half a century at this point, well over half a century at this point, , every single pope has reaffirmed and built on this document., This inception was deep and thoroughMalcolm Collins: It looks like the age gap might’ve been around, like, 25 years for one of his relationships. Ooh.Simone Collins: Well, I mean, you know, they’re very common these [00:15:00] days, so.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So we’ll start with his sexuality stuff, then we’ll get into the Jew stuff.But that is, that is fas- ... And it makes me understand more why we see so many of the Catholics who do not think the church is, is, as it exists right now, is something that they can follow.Mm.And they’ve gone for other versions or sort of past iterations of what the church taught. And it’s always fascinating to me that they don’t consider themselves schismatic.Although, what’s really funny is a lot of the, like, most famous schismatics, like Martin Luther, also didn’t want to consider themselves a schismatic.Speaker 22: Other individuals who didn’t consider themselves schismatic were John Calvin andHenry VIII and John Wycliffe. I personally don’t understand this. You know, now that Protestantism is large, maybe it’s just twisted my brain on this issue,Malcolm Collins: So, like, th- that’s just a common thing that happens to people, where you have this sort of trans-schismatic take, where it’s like, “I don’t define myself as schismatic, and I’m just looking at the guy in a wig.”And I’m like, “But [00:16:00] you’re, you’re clearly just a guy in a wig,” right? Like, you’re ignoring the church’s teachings, right? You know, that seems ... But anyway, to continue here. And, and I think that at the end of the day, whether or not you’re schismatic or not does actually come from whether or not you define yourself as schismatic.I actually buy into the, the trend thing of schism- schismatism, because you at the end of the day get to decide, you know, what your heart thinks, right? So even if I as an outsider would be like, “This looks schismatic to me,” they as, those insiders wouldn’t, right? So to continue there. He knew he was attracted to men in his teenage years but remained celibate during that time as a priest, and he used priesthood to sort of, this was part of what seemed to motivate him to become a priest, the ability to live a celibate lifestyle and, and not be drawn to this. In his 2016 autobiography, The Oil Has Not Run Dry, so keep in mind this stuff about who he’s sleeping with and when he’s sleeping with them is not coming from outside hostile sources.This is from his own mouth. Talk about this. Oh, sorry, we just ... Wait, wait, did we just go through [00:17:00] this? Yeah, we went through his first sexual experience and stuff like that. He described wanting to explore se- his, his sexuality in non-conformist ways. So anyway, th- this is where it gets interesting, right?So, remember I mentioned wh- when his sexual experience was, right? So, that would’ve happened when he was 40 years old, okay? Oh. So the document by the pope, right? With officially promulgated, that means this is when the pope, you know, basically affirmed this document, when he was 42 years old.He apparently wrote the first draft of the document when he was 38 years old, and would have been working on the inter-drafting process during this time when he was having se- gay, gay sex.Right? Mm.So to get some quotes from him “Looking back, I begin to realize my vow of celibacy had not been a meaningful religious commitment, but simply a promise to bracket my homosexuality, to refuse to [00:18:00] explore its meaning and power.”He decided to leave the priesthood since, quote, “Since I no longer agreed with the church’s official sexual ethics and was exploring my sexuality in non-conformist ways.” Oh, no. A- again, wait, you left the church to explore your sexuality in non-conformist ways? My brother, straight men don’t get to do that either.Like, the level of this guy’s commitment to the church, not high. You know? That isSimone Collins (2): a little... Yeah. Ugh.Malcolm Collins: And this is actually something really weird about Catholicism that I’m beginning to notice. And I notice this from his writings on Catholicism, the way he re- relates to Catholic theology, is a lot of people who are at, like, controlling levels within the Catholic Church and Catholic religious orders are significantly less religiously faithful than I’d say, like, the average lay Catholic that I know.Mm. And that’s been very, very surprising to [00:19:00] me. And I- Well,Simone Collins (2): there’s also such this... It is a little something that I struggle with with the c- the Catholic Church is the lifestyle, the day, just the day-to-day routine of someone who is in the clergy is so different from the day-to-day routine of a layperson who’s really deeply engaged in all the sacraments, right?‘Cause you’re looking at one life that has possibly a lot of solitude, you know, a lot of sort of communal living sort of like a university style living if you are, you know, in a group, or more isolated living, very independent. Versus, you know, a teeming family, lots of young kids running around, lots of...I mean, obviously priests work closely with their community too. It’s just, it, it worries me that... And what I like about the LDS church, for example, is that the people who are involved in policy are people who are, they came from the church. They raised families. They, they’ve done the whole thing. They’re living the LDS life, or they lived the [00:20:00] LDS life and now they’re older and senior and, and now influencing it and trying to make it sustainable and good, presumably.Yeah. But if you’re a Catholic priest, you’ve never done that. Like, you haven’t had the family. You haven’t raised the kids. You don’t know the challenges of raising a kid in the church in the modern day. Well, then whyMalcolm Collins: do you think, like, Catholics have such low fertility rates when contrasted with other groups?Simone Collins (2): I mean, it’s, it can’t help. There, there are so many factors, but yeah. I, it... So when, when you say, you know, you, you don’t see such great adherence from The clergy, well, can you be surprised when the clergy don’t really live the life of the layperson? They can’t, because they can’t be married. They can’t have kids.They can’t raise children within the church. Yeah, but is it- They instead... It’s kind of like how, something I’ve noticed, and this, like in a very different world, there’s a lot of childless women who worked as nannies or as teachers. Mm. And they’re like, “Well,” you know. And they, they sort of act like they know really well.Like, “I know how a child should be raised. I know [00:21:00] all these things.” But they, they never really have lived it, right? They’ve only been, like, paid staff who work with children under certain conditions. But they don’t know the full experience of it, and then they’re very judgmental around, like, parents and parenting and how a child should be raised, even though they don’t know what it’s like to be on the hook 24/7.And I think there might be a similar dynamic that takes place with, like, a full-time clergy who’s not allowed to engage in the sacrament of having kids and getting married because they’re viewing it from a limited perspective that makes them think like they fully understand the experience when they really can’t.Does thatMalcolm Collins: make sense? Well, it’s also one of the things that was increasingly clear to me as I studied this guy’s life is he seemed to do very little for, like, actually... Like, if you look at his writings and stuff like that they predominantly seem tied to gay activism, right? Like- Mm ... it almost seems like he was living off of Catholic tithings while spending his day and nights promoting, like, because he just had, you know, you have time to think in free time when you’re doing something like this [00:22:00] promoting gay stuff.Hmm.And that seems to be a, a big way that, like, the, the sort of gayness became more normalized within the church was specifically downstream of him. But to continue here. And, and gayness is super normalized in the Catholic Church to the extent that we’ve pointed out, there’s even an article on, like, the gayness of Catholic priests where it’s argued between 25, from surveys, 25 and 50% of gay, Catholic priests are same-sex attracted.Which isn’t a, a ding on them. I mean, we often say this is actually kind of a, an ethical way for society to deal with same-sex attraction. Absolutely. If it, if, if you know, it’s saying you can’t participate in it, you know, at least use these people like ethically sourced eunuchs so you can get people without as much nepotism to have positions of authority within your religious institutions, right?Like, but that’s also gonna make them, like, way more open to these ideas and in an environment where people are skirting around these ideas. And I think that this might be where the normalization- Mm ... especially in the heart of the [00:23:00] Catholic Church, of trying to cover up the child, the ev- everybody knows what scandal I’m talking about.I guess I’ll put a line from South Park here.Speaker 2: Why would he put anything in your butts? We don’t know. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Hmm.Hmm. Hello there, children. Chef, why would a priest want to stick up my butt? Goodbye.Speaker 7: Now I want to be clear that the Catholic institution, , was committing these SA attempts at lower rates than other large institutions like the US public school system, , by pretty significant margins. , But that doesn’t explain why they tried to cover it up, like up to the highest levels of the church, and put people in positions where they could continue to do this even after the coverup.Like, if you’re gonna do a coverup for reputation, at least keep the people away from kids afterwardsSpeaker 23: It was almost as if, or at least in terms of how they were acting, that they thought the mere fact that people were [00:24:00] upset , at them for sleeping with children was the problem. , And I think we even see how the sentiment could potentially arrive through individuals like Milo Yiannopoulos, where he originally said that this was like a sexual awakening for him, , when a, a priest, , hooked up with him as a kid., And that others may feel that way as well, and like the outside world just doesn’t understand. It’s, I don’t know, one potential perspective?Speaker 24: Like, okay, so bear with me here, but suppose you’re like Milo, and you were molested as a young person, but you felt it very affirming for whatever reason, Stockholm Syndrome, whatever, or even j- you actually did feel it affirming. It was like an important awakening for you. And then other, you see other people doing the same thing to other children, and you then, , see them being punished for it, and you would think, “Oh, well this doesn’t make sense.”Look, just, I as an outsider am trying to find any logical reason why a good [00:25:00] person would do this, and maybe Catholics can chime in and explain why they think that the church may have been covering this up in the way that they were covering it up, where it allowed the people who were doing it to keep doing itSpeaker 16: This year, we’re taking the boys on a weekend boat trip to discuss Jesus’ role as the navigator of our lives. That sounds pretty fun.Speaker 17: A Catholic boat trip?Speaker 18: The Catholic boat’s gonna be heading on out today. The Catholic boat, get some hot Christian action that’ll take you-Malcolm Collins: but uhThe, the, it’s always really perplexed me, like why did they not, why, why were they trying to protect these priests, right? When, when they were like moving around the priests that they knew were the issues instead of dealing with them. Like it- I, I always thought like there must be some form of normalization that [00:26:00] I’m not aware of.Then I read this guy’s writings in daily life and I’m like, “Oh, if there are a bunch of priests like this guy, that explains it.” There, there’s basically a What do you call it? A gay cult that has infiltrated the upper rings of the Catholic Church, the Vatican, right? Like,Speaker 4: No, to keep their mouths shut. Right. Yep. Right. And so... W- wait a minute. What? Yes, but we’ve got to find out why these children are suddenly finding it necessary to report that they’re being molested. Stop the problem at its source. YesMalcolm Collins: what, that’s, that’s what. Yeah, everyone he’s married to and having sex with after he left was a former priest.Mm.Simone Collins (2): It doesn’t look great that that happened, yeah.Malcolm Collins: Okay.Simone Collins (2): And- Or, or it just means that when people realize they can’t adhere to the values and rules of the church, they leave, which could be a sign that those who remain are being pretty good. I don’t, I’m, I don’t know, just maybe, maybe. Right? That could be...Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, and note here, this episode, people might be like, “Malcolm, like, this seems [00:27:00] like an area where you could really dunk on Catholicism. Like, why aren’t you taking the shots here, bro? Like, we all know you want to.” And this is one of those, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Like, this is too bad even for me. Like, I’m like, I feel bad about this.I would like, learning this history, it wasn’t like... It was almost like a curse to knowledge for me because like, oh. Like, this is, this is not fun to know happened to your religion, right? Like, this is, this is too much of a, this is like, you know, you don’t like the other team, but then you see them do so bad in a particular game that they just get completely owned.Mm ... and they’re, they’re walking off the field and you’re just like, “I’m, I’m, I’m sorry that happened to you guys. That was painful to watch.” Which is what learning the story of this guy has been in terms of, like, my thoughts on the Vatican.Mm.But to continue here a- and note here, I’m not saying this ‘cause I’m anti-Jewish or anti-gay.Like, everybody if this guy was secretly a Jew, right, [00:28:00] like, dang. Right? Like I’m, I’m just sort of, like we all should be advocating for our own group. This is, this is where, you know, when somebody sees a Jew say something like, “Well, you know, I support Israel over the United States.” And people are like, “Oh, can you believe they...”I’m like, I mean, they’re Jewish. Y- yeah, like I support America over any other country, but I’m, I’m an American, right? You know? That’s like the core of my identity, my genetic history, my cultural history. And if I lived in, for example, Britain, I would never move to supporting Britain over America just ‘cause I had a job there.Speaker 6: I should clarify, this is very different from supporting your own in a way that creates negative externalities, like the Jews did where the ADL ended up supporting, , in trying to de-platform that content creator who rightfully was calling out Orthodox Jewish communities for running welfare fraud, or Chabad did in getting that guy who killed a bunch of people off, or the Mormon sort of [00:29:00] cabal did around the bricks and minifigs.Yeah, , that’s, that creates problems. But in terms of just being pro-Mormon if you’re Mormon, , and you know, saying, “Oh, I’ll hire a Mormon over a non-Mormon,” like f- of course. Of course. Why would, why would we not want... That’s presumably what we all wantI mean, in this respect, sometimes we’ll have like Jewish fans or Catholic fans who will be like, “Oh, well, I’d support America over Israel,” or, “I’d support America over the Vatican.” And I’m like, It doesn’t... I mean, I support America because I’m an American , , and my religious and cultural history is American.If your plan is to eventually become fully American, that will eventu- I mean, intergenerationally lead to a break from your past identity. It’s not a flex to not care about protecting your people. , Your people are different from our people, and if you deny that, [00:30:00] you can. America does integrate people, but full integration, eventually means some form of true and permanent separation from whatever your original group is., And I think that we’re actually seeing that within portions of the American Catholic population and their relation with the Vatican right now. , It’s just w- when is this fully accepted? And, and as well as with the American, portions of the American Jewish populationLike the Jew who tells me, as some Jews have, that they would support American interests over the interests of Jews more broadly, I don’t hear that and think, “Oh, that’s super cool.” Or the, the Catholic who’s like, “I would support American interests over the Vatican interests.” I don’t hear, hear that and I’m like, “Oh, oh, oh yeah, you’re so cool.”Like any more than like if I moved to another country, even if, even if I spent 50 or 60 years there, I wouldn’t support that country over America. And some people can move to America and become fully American. Like I think Leaflet’s a good example of [00:31:00] this. But, you know, I don’t expect that from everyone.It’s just that when it’s clear that a person isn’t moving here for that reason, there’s probably another place where they would be better suitedMalcolm Collins: You know, that’s, it, the, the guy was playing on Team Jew, you know? His, his goal was it, you know, in- inje- inject Catholic doctrine with protect the Jews, right? And, and he achieved that. So to continue here. He also thought gays had, like, a special position in, in God’s design even when he was religious.So here’s another quote from him. “I have asked myself, is there a special meaning in the homosexual condition? God creates the great majority of humans heterosexual and only a small minority homosexual. Is there a special task associated with the condition of this latter?” By the way, there is. It’s, it’s self-control.But that doesn’t occur to him. An, an additional opportunity to [00:32:00] exercise self-control and an additional challenge. “Since they are an oppressed minority, aware of the hypocrisy of society and the damage done by the dominant culture, I have suggested that gays and lesbians are intended to extend solidarity to all marginalized groups and demand greater justice.Because homosexuals are largely invisible in society, their prophetic vocation will have a cultural impact and support the struggle for human emancipation.” So, like, keep in mind that this is what this guy thought his spiritual mission to do with, like, the tithings that were supporting him. So, Simone, before I go furtherSimone Collins (2): I’m just so flat.Like, this is so Maybe this doesn’t have more people talking about it because it’s so hard to process that it actually could happen, I guess. Like, it just... Like, if you were to see a flying saucer land right in front of you, or, like, you were to [00:33:00] drive by one in a parking lot, you’d be like, “Well, I definitely didn’t see that,” ‘cause that would, that could never happen.And so- Yeah, no, IMalcolm Collins: actually f- y- people know me. Like, come on, this is Malcolm. He’s gonna have an anti-Catholic conspiracy rant. Like, that- Yeah, but I- ... that could work. That, that should go like butter for me.” But it’s just, like, too blatant, right? Like, it’s like you spend your whole life on alien- Yeah, like how couldSimone Collins (2): this...My brain can’t process it. It doesn’t make sense.Malcolm Collins: I mean, it’s, it’s like you spend your whole life on alien conspiracies, and then aliens land in your front yard with a flying saucer. They come out, and Elvis is hanging out with them, and he starts doing, like, an Elvis dance in front of you. And you’re like- Yeah, and you’re like, “Simone Collins (2): I, I don’t know what to do with this.”Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you’re just like, “What? What? What?” That’s, that’s not even, like, an interesting... Like, gay Jew infiltrates the Vatican and infects them with weird ideology that inverts their prior religious principles? What? No, [00:34:00] no, Malcolm. Bad Malcolm. Th- th- d- Oh, my God. But we’re gonna pull on this thread, okay? And this is also why for me and, and, a- and I’ve always said, like, this is why I really personally, when people always wonder, “Well, what’s your source of authority,” right?Ever having a source of authority that, like, is living and not dead for me is always really difficult, because it can always just decide to disagree with you, right? Mm. Like, this isn’t just something that Catholics face. Like, suppose I’m a true believing Mormon and I truly believe everything I believe, right?Like, and, and just like- Mm ... tomorrow the church can come out and say, “Your beliefs are officially wrong now. Update them or you’re no longer a correct Mormon.” I’d just be like, “But I really believed all of that,” right? Like, “You taught me all of that, and then I really believed it. And now all of a sudden black skin wasn’t a punishment?”Right? Like, what, what do you mean? Right? Like, that, that [00:35:00] was- Oh, God ... that was the, the war, right? They were the people who sat out the war in heaven between Jesus and Satan, right? We, th- we, we, we, we’ve alwa- I, that, that’s not, like, tangential to my worldview. That’s a core part of my reality, right? But to continue here.And then so I f- I, I think that the way that a lot of American Catholics have gotten around this is they sort of I think branched with, well, what the Vatican is doing largely around the second council, and now they practice something that’s, like, a- a- adjacent and may, may one day recapture the Church.But, like, the You know. And, and if you look at current demographics, you know, th- they might... The question is, is how far does the church go before they recapture it, right? Mm. Okay. That’s another quote’s from him, ‘cause I wanna, I wanna get in his mind here, okay? “The definition of human nature tends to reflect the self-understanding of the cultural elite.”S- So here what he’s talking about is whether or not I think [00:36:00] gayness is normal, right? And he’s trying to- Okay ... and because he believes that, like, white straight males are the cultural elite with, like, their heteronormative ideas he’s trying to argue that, like, gayness isn’t, quote-unquote, “unnatural.”Because I w- I was trying to understand his, like, theology on this, ‘cause, like, the Bible’s pretty clear on gayness, right? And, and so therefore calling gay love unnatural is a cultural statement, is what he’s trying to argue here. Not an absolute moral one. He challenged the traditional natural law that homosexuality is inherently disordered.So let’s, let’s go into, to what, what he, what I think he means by this. Basically when he reads in the parts of the Bible where gayness is seen as negative, he would say, “Well, that was just those cultures at that time.” And that’s where he got, you know, that’s, that’s where he’s like, “So I don’t need to follow what, what, you know, those cultures did because our church’s theology and [00:37:00] motivation has evolved since then.”And what’s interesting is you can sort of tell under what does he think that it evolved into, it evolved into the goals of the urban monoculture. This sort of, you know, endless helping of the society’s, quote-unquote, “oppressed classes,” which, which doesn’t necessarily map onto real oppressed people, as we’ve talked about in the press.It’s, it’s more like an urban monocultural distinction of, like, ethnically superior groups in their mind. But let’s go into the quote on what he said about Catholics and Jews, because you might think I am overstating him saying, “You’re the Catholic, you shouldn’t try to convert Jews.” He said, “After Auschwitz, the Christian churches no longer wanted to convert the Jews.While they may not be sure of the theological grounds that dispense them from that mission, the churches have become aware that asking Jews to become Christian , is a spiritual way of blotting out their existence, and thus only reinforces the effects of the Holocaust.”Simone Collins (2): Hold on.[00:38:00] What? Hmm. Th- that, that, like, undermines- All of Jesus’Malcolm Collins: teachings? All of Jesus’ stuff, yeah.Simone Collins (2): Okay, okay. I’m not... This is like, this is, again, this is why I can’t process this. Like, how did he get this through? Like, this, it boggles the mind. Okay, well, keep going. Maybe it will start makingMalcolm Collins: sense. No, that part wasn’t in the official document, but that was something that he said in an official capacity.Okay. We’ll get to the stuff in the document in abit. Okay.Let’s talk about his conversion. So when did he convert to Catholicism? Okay. Formerly, you know, living in a, a Jewish household. He had one parent who wasn’t Jewish, though, his dad. Oh, okay. He converted at the age of 23 That is very suspicious age to convert.Simone Collins (2): Why? I mean, isn’t that... You’re, you’re almost fully myelinated. Like, you could argue that’s your time of [00:39:00] intellectual maturity. It’s the time to really reevaluate- No, it is true- ... some of your mental religion ... most peopleMalcolm Collins: convert, if they are gonna convert to a different religion, between the age of 13 and 23.But this is also an age where if I was a Jew and sitting down and thinking like, “How could I have the most positive impact with my life for my whiter people?” Like, what’s the moonshot of moonshots, right? Like, if I could incept a group with converting Jews as equivalent to the Holocaust, and you should from a religious standpoint get along with Jews it would be the, the Vatican, right?That, that’s, that’s the, I mean, I, I think of religious orders on Earth, it might be the largest single religious order. Because, you know, with like Islam, there’s not like, even, even if you could, there’s so many different factions. So even if you could somehow . inception.Speaker 26: We create and perceive our world simultaneously, and our mind does this so well that we don’t even know it’s happening. That allows us to get [00:40:00] right in the middle of that process. How? By taking over the creating part. Now, this is where I need you.Malcolm Collins: In- incep- do an inception on like a, one of the Muslim faiths, you still wouldn’t affect as many people. So just be like, “Oh, at 23 I converted.” And he said he converted after a friend gave him a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions.That’s a weird reason to convert. Like when people generally convert, it’s either because they’re on a mission, like actively s- seeking what they think is true. Or you know, something profound happens to them, or they see something that they think can only be described as miraculous. Like for us, or for me, the thing that really made me so fanatical in my belief was when, like literally happening through this podcast and on this podcast, is me going back to stories of the Bible that everyone in my childhood had told me they said one thing, and then I read them and they say something that is one, both completely [00:41:00] different and completely implausible that people at that period in Biblical history could have known.D- see our Adam and Eve episode or our Genesis Confirms the Bible episode, or any, like just more broadly, I’ve been broadly shocked by how little... And so that had me sort of be like, “Okay it is miraculous to me that I could grow up next to these stories and not realize h- how sort of- correlatory they were to reality as I understood it, right?You know, how much sense they made, the things that I thought felt unethical, like the Adam and Eve story, actually weren’t when I reread them. And that, for me, was very... That, that’s like the way a normal person converts. I read St. Augustine’s Confessions and I converted. That sounds like the type of poetic nonsense that a Catholic would buy, but I don’t really buy it myself.But anyway what was his early work? So what were some of the first things that he started writing as soon as he got, like, officially into the Catholic [00:42:00] Church as a full-time, like, staffer, right? In 1961, he published The Jews and the Gospel, later reissued Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic. He emphasized God’s covenant with the Jewish people as valid and irrevocable, drawing from Romans 11:29, “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”The church is, quote-unquote, “incomplete without Israel” and Judaism continues as a source of divine grace, he believed. Okay, so first let’s do a, a broad g- overview of, of Nostra Aetate and then we’ll go into the various points in it. So broadly speaking, it promotes a more positive view of non-Christian religions, e.g.,positive remarks on Hinduism, Buddhism, esteem for Muslims, stating they adore the one God. Strongly condemns antisemitism and rejects charging, quote-unquote, “all the Jews with responsibility for Christ’s passion.” Affirms God’s ongoing special relationship with the Jewish people, quote, “God holds the Jews most dear...”. So yeah [00:43:00] To keep going here, let’s get into specific authority.And so first I wanna go into, like, how much a- a- authority does this have for Catholics, okay? It’s considered an authoritative teaching of the church. Catholics are expected to accept it with r- religious assent, the same level as most consular or papal teachings that are not defined as infallible dogma.So, and if this isn’t infallible, but that doesn’t mean that Catholics aren’t supposed to accept it. We’ll get to the official teaching on that. It is not a dogmatic definition. Like some statements on Legent, Gitmen, and earlier councils it is as a pastoral and declarative document addressing the church’s relationships with non-Christian religions.Catholics owe it a, quote-unquote, “religious assent or sub- sincere submission of intellect and will.” So the part of the catechism of the Catholic church, which is, like, the official things on documents of this type, by the way it says, “Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostates teaching in communion with the successor of Pete and in particular the way- The apostles or apostates?Simone Collins (2): Sorry, I’m trying to keep up ... [00:44:00]Malcolm Collins: A- apostles. Did I say apostates? Yeah. That’s quite a Freudian tip there. The, the apostles teaching in communion with the successor of Pete, and in particular way to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing an in- definable manner, they propose in the exercise of the ordinary magisterium a teaching that leads to a better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals.To this ordinary teaching and faithful are to adhere with religious assent. So this falls into the category of, to this ordinary teaching and faithful are to adhere with religious a- assent.Mm. Which,though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it. Because Catholics are also like, “Well, it, it, it’s not exactly like you have to assent with faith,” and it’s like that’s true, but the, this is the actual teachings of the church on this.Mm-hmm. ‘Cause I wanted to double-check on this, ‘cause people are always like, “Oh, well, that’s, like, just a vague suggestion from the church,” and it’s like, it’s not a vague suggestion. That is not official Catholic [00:45:00] doctrine. That is a, this schismatic belief. But it’s okay, right? Like, it’s, a, a, you know, if, if you, if you believe that the church is wrong in this document too, then they’re just wrong in all the documents, right?So, you know, we can go back to the older councils.Speaker 21: This actually gets to me, , and I think it helps me explain to myself what’s going on better. In the same way that I get really confused when I talk to a Jew and they’re like, “Your children are Jewish,” and I’m like, “They’re like one-sixteenths Jewish.” Like, , that makes no sense to me, right? Like, I’m like, “I-- Yeah, I mean, matrilineally they’re Jewish, but they’re not...”You know, no other culture on Earth would think of them as Jewish. But a Jew will think, an Orthodox Jew at least, “No, they are 100% Jewish.” And I just can’t understand that ‘cause I’m from a different cultural perspective. , It’s the same with Catholics, where a Catholic will be like, “Well, I’m not schismatic.”And it’s like, “Well, you, you do disagree with the Magisterium on these issues.” And it’s like, “Well, I don’t identify as schismatic, therefore I’m not schismatic.” And I’m like, “Well, that’s not really...” And then I’m like, “Oh, I just need to see this from their [00:46:00] perspective.” And it’s not just their perspe-- it’s also the perspective of the people at the Vatican.They also don’t see these people as schismatic. , And it’s just that I’m never gonna be able to understand what it’s like to perceive the world in this wayMalcolm Collins: Yes. Okay. So, this is also rooted... So if you wanna go to where this comes from, it comes from Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium 25, which the CCC quotes to build this out, but the quote from that is, “This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman pontiff, even when it’s not speaking ex cathedra, that it must be shown in a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence.The judgements made by him are sincerely adhered to according to his manifest mind and will.” So again, religious submission of mind and will. Okay. So now let’s get into the stuff that was updated by this document, the new parts. Okay. Yes. Thought, Simone, before we go further.Simone Collins: Keep going. I,Simone Collins (2): I wanna, I wanna see what the updates are.Malcolm Collins: [00:47:00] Okay, great. Yeah. So this is in relation to Hinduism, Buddhism Muslims, et cetera. Okay? Okay. “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reve- reverence those ways of conduct and life, that precepts and teachings which, though different in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless offer and reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men.”Hmm.That’s crazy Um That’s, that’s completely crazy. And, and, and note here if you contrast this with previous councils, right? So we have the Council of Florence, Conte Dominio 1441, what did it say in relation to these sorts of stuff? It af- firmly believes professors and proclaims that those [00:48:00] not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, and heretics, and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels.Unless- Okay ... before the end of the same have been added to the flock. That, that seems like uncertainly a, a, a very different teaching.Simone Collins (2): Yeah.Malcolm Collins: The, at a, at a very different perspective, right? And I think a lot of Catholics still want to hold to that perspective. And so I, I can see why it’s becoming so popular, these sort of pseudo-schismatic branches.So what did the document say about various specific religions, right? ‘Cause it also, like, even went so far as to start glazing individual religions. On Hinduism it says, “Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through inexhaustible abundance of myth and through searching philosophical in- inquiry.They seek freedom from the anguish of [00:49:00] our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound mediation or flight to God with love and trust.” On Buddhism, “Again, Buddhism in its various forms realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world. It teaches in a way by which men in a devout and confident spirit may either to acquire the state of perfect liberation or attain by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination.”Simone Collins (2): No. The... I don’t know. So in the, in the Primer’s Guide to Crafting Religion, you make it pretty clear there are basically two types of religions. You can have two types of approaches to what it is required to be saved, and one is limited to atonement. You, you, you can’t save everyone, you know? Not... There are some people who are just not gonna make it, and these are kind of, in some ways, not very nice religions because they accept that you [00:50:00] can’t save everyone and some people are damned, whatever that might mean.The two core religions whichMalcolm Collins: have this perspective are the Calvinist denominations of Protestantism of which we are one-Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm ...Malcolm Collins: and theSimone Collins (2): Jews. And then there’s the other which is a more domineering religion which believes that everyone can and should be saved. And in this way the religion is a bit unpleasant because it basically would entail, if you really wanna save everyone, coercing people to convert against their will.And what this is trying to do is be neither. Like, it’s not like, “Well, no- no one, no one can be saved,” but it- Also, it’s not trying to save anyone. It’s just like, “Well, everyone’s kind of right,” which is kind of the worst thing. Like- Yeah ... I don’t care, do what you wanna do. It’s the absence of religion.It’s the antithesis of Catholicism and, and any organized religion. I, I just can’t believe they... This has to- You know what I- Like, maybe someone’s gonna chime in in the comments and be like, “Oh, this is some obscure piece of writing that’s not official in any real capacity.” I, I [00:51:00] mean, could that be? Is that what’s going on here?This was affirmed by one of the major councils and the Pope. Yeah, but is this the equivalent of, like, someone hearting something on X, you know, h- adding a heart to a post on X and not realizing- No, that’s why IMalcolm Collins: went through the other documents that, specifically the, the Ca- catechism documents and stuff like that, so you could read before we get into this exactly the way that Catholics per previous rulings that were seen as coming directly from God- Yeahare supposed to relate to teachings within this category, submittingto them.Mm. It’s, it’s not the same as having faith in, in them.Speaker 28: By the way, I put Simone’s concerns into an AI to see what the AI would say, and it says, “Simone’s skepticism is understandable as a layperson reacting to something that feels like a massive shift, but it’s not accurate. Nostra Aetate is not some obscure low authority footnote. It’s a formal declaration of the Second Vatican Council as an [00:52:00] ecumenical council, overwhelmingly approved two thousand two hundred and twenty-one to eighty-eight, and officially promulgated by Pope Paul VIcatholic teaching, as outlined in the - Catechism of the Catholic Church, , eight nine two to eight nine three, and rooted in Lumen Gentium twenty-five, requires religious assent, a sincere submission of intellect and will to teachings from the ordinary magisterium of the ecumenical council, even when they are not infallible dogmas.This is distinct from full assent of faith from infallible documents, but is still binding and not optional or dismissible as just a suggestionMalcolm Collins: So this isn’tSimone Collins (2): someone passively endorsing something without sufficiently paying attention to it or, I don’t know- Yeah ... someone just being like, “Here’s an interesting idea.Sure, we’ll publish it,” but like, you know how The Huffington Post- No, this is- ... used to be. You know, they’d be like, “Yeah, we’ll accept your blog submission,” and they wouldn’t really, like...Malcolm Collins: Yeah, this is very, very, very different than, say, [00:53:00] like, the Vatican wrote something in an official paper or something like that, right?Keep in mind th- ths had to be of, of the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, so that’s a, a Vatican council, mind you. Right. This had to be voted on by the bishops, right? Who knew? Okay, wow. Soof the vote- Yeah ... of the vote 2,221 voted for it and only 88 voted against it. So it was also overwhelmingly approved. Then it was promulgated, that’s an official issue. That means review an official issue by Pope Paul VI.I mean I, o- obviously I, I, I think that there’s a, I mean, Catholics, I, I feel like Want to say, like, and- and w- well, you know, we don’t, the real Catholics don’t take this sort of thing, and the way that those documents say you’re supposed to relate to this stuff is actually corrupted as well, and this stuff shouldn’t actually fall under that.And I think [00:54:00] the Catholics actually have a number of outs here. There’s been a number of things in recent papal elections that could be s- considered outright fraudulent. I may do a whole episode on that at some point.Simone Collins (2): Whoa, really? Ar- What do you mean outright? Can you g- what do you mean by outright fraudulent?Malcolm Collins: They did some things, the Jesuits did, in how they held... It wasn’t the pope of this pope, but it was one of the previous popes, I think. Okay. Where they pulled some shenanigans that sort of prevented people from voting. Like the, the block that was against them from being there to vote. Oh, wowYeah. It, it was w- I, I, I can’t remember the specifics. A Catholic was the one who would, because obviously they were most invested in this when he was crashing out on me about the Jesuits and, and, and blackpilling me on the Jesuits and making me sort of see Catholicism as this fight of, like, the good guys, the Opus Dei versus the Jesuits for, like, the heart of what it becomes.But this, the way I sort of see this right now, like a- as I’m looking at it from an outsider, is I historically, as a kid was of all the sci-fi franchises, and I was a big sci-fi nerd the one [00:55:00] sci-fi franchise I didn’t really like was Star Wars. I, I- Hmm ... I liked Star Trek over Star Wars.Starship Troopers obviously love. SG-1- Sure ... love. Gotta do a whole video on how they canceled the SG-1 reboot because- Oh my gosh ... it treated the military too well. Oh, no. Fans might like it. It did- it didn’t make the tribals, like, better. People might likeSimone Collins (2): the military, yeah. Wait, and by the way, Stargate did not universally portray the military well.In fact, some of the most annoying episodes were ones where they, I guess r- fairly, you know, well, not realistically, but- No, US politicians- ... give a realistic depiction of how military bureaucracy can really gunk things up sometimes.Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, that was, those, almost every one of the episodes you’re thinking of was tied to the US Senate or Congress.Yeah. And the military was the good guy. Oh, yeah,Simone Collins (2): yeah,Malcolm Collins: yeah. Okay, you’re right, you’re right. So- No, I feel like they wereSimone Collins (2): even not realistic. You know, they’re like, “What? There are some problems that the military faces.” The, the pointMalcolm Collins: here being is despite me not being a Star Wars fan- Okay ... watching Disney buy Star Wars and then start to just write, like, “We hate you” in [00:56:00] poo all over the walls of the property made me genuinely sad, right?Reading this feels a bit like watching the new Disney Star Wars where it’s like- Hmm ... yeah, I might not have been the biggest fan of that property, but like, why’d you have to do them that dirty, right? Like, and, and as a Star Wars fan, I feel it’s, it’s probably pretty similar to being, like, a Catholic today, where it’s like, well, you know- None of the real fans actually take those new ones and consider them canon, right?We’re still all about legends over here. What, what are you talking about? Yeah, we’re, we’reSimone Collins (2): in this for the long run. It’ll, it’ll come aroundMalcolm Collins: again. Yeah, we’re, we’re... Everybody knows Disney’s eventually gonna realize this didn’t work, as I’ve heard rumors that they’re thinking about doing an, and retconning it.So we’re, we’re gonna get a, a Vatican II retcon. Just like go , go backSimone Collins (2): but anyway. But they can. That’s the cool thing, is they can. They can say, “Look, that was a mistake. I don’t know what happened. It’s over now. Undo.” There’s...Malcolm Collins: Catholics ki-kind... How could you retcon [00:57:00] Vatican II? Could it be done? I guess the best way to- Delete.Delete.Simone Collins (2): Undo. We’re sorry, we were wrong. It, how, whatMalcolm Collins: the... The Catholic Church hasSimone Collins (2): made lots of weird-Speaker 29: I asked an AI how you could retcon Vatican II, , with this context, and basically what it said is full deletion is extremely unlikely. It would require admitting a major error in a council guided by the Holy Spirit, which undermines everything the church claims about itselfSimone Collins (2): The, I mean, I think the most realMalcolm Collins: way to do it was to assert that they didn’t have official power when they put it out, and that something had g- that’s, that’s... I mean, like, obviously there’s been instances in the past where there have been, like, multiple popes at the same time.And then a council came together and decided, “Okay, now we have another new pope,” that decides, you know, gets... You know, clearly you gotta have a, a, a, a chain of, what do they call that? The chain of whatever. , They got together, they decided this new pope, and then the new pope comes in and, and immediately says, “Actually, popes rule over councils.” And the council was like, “But we brought you here saying you wouldn’t do that,” right? Mm. So like, yeah. They’ve, they’ve done a bit of this in the [00:58:00] past.But I don’t think any of that was as, like, written down as Vatican II was. I don’t think that that i- it counted as the same l- category of stuff that can’t easily be retconned. But I mean, clearly it retconned something else. So like, Catholics can chime in here. So let’s go what they said about Islam.Okay? “The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems.” Th-this is what they... Is- Islam. “They adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself, merciful and all-powerful, the creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men. They take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even his inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham...”Dot, dot, dot, submitted to God. “Though they doNotMalcolm Collins: acknowledge Jesus as God,they revere him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, his virgin mother.” Dot, dot, dot. “In addition, they await the day of judgment” dot, dot, dot. “Finally, they value the moral life and worship God, especially through prayer, almsing, and fasting.”[00:59:00]Hmm.Yeah. Which is interesting here. When you take our, our view or, or contrast it with our view on all of this I mean, at least we take the stance of like, well, we do say that Jews and Muslims are worshiping derivations of what appear to be the same god. Like Hindis and Buddhists are certainly not.Like I- pff, that was, that was wild.“As the sacred synod searches into the mysteries of the church, it remembers the bond,” this is about the Jews that spiritually ties the people of the new covenant to Abraham’s stock... The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom,” the Jews, “the people with whom God in his inexpressible mercy concluded the ancient covenant.”And then they cite here, “On account of their fathers, this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts he makes nor the calls he issues,” Rome [01:00:00] 11:28-29. And so this directly quotes Romans. And then further they say, “Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as this follows from the Holy Scriptures.”And then on collective guilt, this is from Nostra aetate again, “True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead presented for the death of Christ. Still, what happened in his Christ passion cannot be charged against all Jews with distinction then alive nor against the Jews of today.”Right. “It offered to cry his hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism directed against Jews at any time by anyone.”Okay. But yeah, I had no idea. That is really sad. That is, that is, I mean, a potentially near God tier play by an individual Jew. And if not that, at least a heavy infestation by the urban monoculture, ‘cause he was already living, you know, at the, the very least in the lifestyle of the urban monoculture.You know, [01:01:00] sex with men while, you know, writing this stuff down. If you see his wider philosophy, it’s very clearly more tied to the urban monoculture theology than anything that could historically could have been considered Catholic values orSimone Collins (2): theology. Yeah, not even close.Malcolm Collins: So very crazy, crazy conspiracy.And you guys- Well,Simone Collins (2): conspiracy, yeah, I guess the, the, the larger question though this doesn’t appear to be documented from what you found, who let this happen? Like, y- you’re talking about this guy going through, publishing all this stuff, but th- all these people that voted for it, all these people that added to it- Yeahto your point, right? Like- Who let thisMalcolm Collins: happen? Like, if you want to know how co- when people act like... And this is the other thing that got me, is I had this impression as an outsider that, like, when people are like, “Oh, we’ll retake control of the Vatican. We’ll retake control of church infrastructure. We’ll...”I hear that and I get this impression that, like, oh, well, maybe they’ve recently been able to get their hooks into the Vatican. [01:02:00] Maybe there’s, like, this ideological divide in the Vatican. 2,201 of the bishops approved this with only 88 against this. This is not, like, two power factions or something like that, or an infiltration of the Vatican.If this is an infiltration of the Vatican, it’s... What, what percent is that?Simone Collins (2): Yeah, I guess I don’t know how the voting structure is set up. I don’t know if this is, like, people around the world or a bunch of people concentrated in- Yeah, so-Vatican City ...Speaker 30: So, , again here I decided to ask the AI to find out who are these bishops? Are they just randos or are they actually the people who run the Catholic Church? , And it said, , the bishops who voted for Nostra Aetate as well as all Vatican II documents are the actual power structure of the Catholic Church, not randoms.They are called the council fathers, the highest level church governments in an ecumenical council. , They included all diocesan bishops, head of dioceses around the world, archbishops, cardinals, [01:03:00] Eastern Catholic patriarchs, head of major religious orders with voting rights. It was the largest gathering of Catholic bishops in history, deliberately global for the first time.Bishops came from Europe, North, South America, Africa, Asia, et cetera, and not just Vatican insiders and EuropeansThis is why Malcolm and Simone noted that in an extremely lopsided vote, only 3.8% against, it shows nearly universal buy-in from the worldwide, , episcopate at the time, not just a small clique of Vatican insidersMalcolm Collins: so 3.8% of the bishops voted against this3.8%. And that was in 1965. So, like, not recently either. Like, when I talk about this institutional capture having been in the Vatican for a very, very long time at this point, I’m not like, that isn’t me being a conspiracy theorist or something. I’m just trying to, like, lay out, like, what I’m seeing as an outsider.And so, the [01:04:00] best thing that you can do, I guess, if you wanna recapture it, is just breed. And yeah. Get involved.Simone Collins (2): I, I mean, yeah. This shows things can change, and things can also change quite violently. But this means that I think that there’s hope they can change violently in a different direction.Malcolm Collins: Are you actually... I love Simone as an outsider. Went from, like, your standard progressive whatever and now she’s like, “The Catholic Church needs a civil war. They must take out the Vatican.”Simone Collins (2): Well, this is I don’t know. It, it’s like someone trying to change t- they’re like marching into an anime convention and they’re like, “No, this is a Star Trek convention now.”Like, fine, but go to a Star Trek convention. Like, leave the anime nerds alone. This is about anime. So I don’t, I don’t... Like autistically, I don’t like the, [01:05:00] the, the diluting and confusing of the categories. I need CatholicsMalcolm Collins: to be Catholics. Yeah, like at the very least, I think if something was written by somebody who deconverted, it should be taken out of official church teachings Like that should be, that should be the thing that invalidates itSimone Collins (2): Yeah, that’s, yeah.May- I mean, I think until pretty recent history, people just didn’t deconvert, so there is not yet a cultural technology to address that, and this is exactly the point you make among many others, of course, in The Prophet is Patched Against Religion. And it wasn’t even like he deconvertedMalcolm Collins: for like a good reason.It was just like he wanted to have sex with strangers. Like that seems to be the reason he deconverted.Simone Collins (2): Again, I think there’s an argument to be made for that being then the system working as intended. That the bigger problem would be if active and especially policy-wise influential people in the Catholic clergy were like, “I wanna have gay sex and I’m gonna just stay and continue to generate policy and do, have it all.”[01:06:00] So I don’t see the deconversion as the bad sign, but I do see statements that seem to nullify pretty definitional or, or foundational concepts, at least as I as an outsider understand them about Catholicism. And that’s throwing me for a loop. But even from pretty devout Catholics, we hear about these like, well, there was this conspiracy and this particular faction was trying to mess with things, and I feel like there’s A non-trivial amount of politicking, infighting, and influence campaigns that are influencing what’s happening in Vatican City, and to a, a great extent, the most devout, active, practicing Catholics that we know have an attitude of, “Look, at the parish level, we are going to thrive.We’re going to follow kind of a pre-Vatican II version of [01:07:00] the, of the Catholic Church and pretend that this stuff didn’t happen. We are going to leverage the infrastructure of the Catholic Church and of bishops and everything else when we need it,” like if we need a, a Catholic school to be spun up. They will lean on the formal church when they need to, but for the most part, they’re just like, “Look, what we’re creating is what’s going to last.We’re the ones having kids. We’re just gonna ride this out, and eventually they’re gonna find their way back to sanity.” But I don’t know if that’s gonna happen.Malcolm Collins: So just so you get an ideaOf like what level of authority this teaching would hold. It would hold the same level of authority as something like the theology of the body which actually I think holds a little bit less because it wasn’t also affirmed by a religious council. So that, that sort of gives you an idea of like the level of import...And theology of body is pretty important Catholic teaching. Mm. So yeah. [01:08:00] Anyway love you Simone. That’s a crazy episode. And it- Understatement, yeah. It, it feels a bit like, is this a simulation? Because like if there was something this big, why was I unaware of it?Yeah.Yeah. Like, it seems like one of the first things you would mention if you were a Protestant talking about this stuffSimone Collins (2): You would think that.Y- yes. But again, I think it’s one of those things where it’s so outlandish, it’s so hard to believe, that it just doesn’t process. Yeah. And again, I, I have... I think there’s at least a good 30% chance that someone, a Catholic in the comments chimes in and is like, “This means nothing. You’re doing the equivalent of s- you know, saying, well, you know, Person [01:09:00] X responded to Person Y’s comment on YouTube, and that doesn’t mean that’s an endorsement of Person Y’s com- you know-Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that’s not-reputation or commentary ... an official endorsement. Yeah. Or that there’s different ways of relating to the councils, or there’s different ways of relating to the bishops. Yeah,Simone Collins (2): so I feel, I t- I, I just, we have to be missing something. It has to be something like this. The bishops whoMalcolm Collins: voted on this, the thing that I c- is, is le- less than 4% voted against this.Like, that to me shows that, like, the quest, even if that’s true, for retaking the Vatican, is an astronomically uphill battle.Yeah.That’s like when my loading bar’s at 96%, that’s like when I am in my- Yeah, it’s, you’re functionally there, yeah.Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm. It,Malcolm Collins: it, it’s like there. It’s done, right? Like, it’s cooked.Mm-hmm. But they do have, fortunately, current demographics on their side.Simone Collins: Yeah.Simone Collins (2): We’ll see. We’ll see. Thanks for sharing that with me, [01:10:00] though. That was a wild ride. All right, have a goodMalcolm Collins: one.Simone Collins (2): You too.Malcolm Collins: What are we doing for dinner?Simone Collins (2): You’re having the rendang either with french fries- All right ... or on a Hawaiian bun.Malcolm Collins: Fries.Simone Collins (2): Okay. Fancy Korean fries or normal fries?Malcolm Collins: Fancy Korean fries.Simone Collins (2): Oh, if we have any. I’ll make sure we have some. If not, normal fries. If we don’t have those, then we canMalcolm Collins: do curly fries.Simone Collins (2): Oh, I thought you didn’t like the curly fries. YouMalcolm Collins: did like them? They’re great. We just gotta cook them a bit longer.Simone Collins (2): Okay. All right.Simone Collins: thought I was aprude. No Yeah, people wereMalcolm Collins: mad at us for likeNot being aggressively mean.Simone Collins: Yeah. What on earth? Like, hello.Malcolm Collins: Like when we give me, I think this is something that the wider conservative community doesn’t get about Aila’s relationship to the community. We’re talking about the episode , from yesterday about how somebody from Aila’s circle actually made us against early stage abortion, which we were not before through a very well argued piece.But it starts, the story [01:11:00] starts with a birthday gang bang. Well, no,Simone Collins (2): her, her essay doesn’t, but like our discussion of her does because she recently talked about her experience meeting her future husband, I think, I think they’re engaged to be married and they have a kid to- together now, at Aila’s famous birthday gang bang.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I, because people generally in the conservative movement who aren’t on like the nerd tech side, they’re unaware that Aila in terms of gravity and orbit has been pretty useful to the right. In that because she tries to always say what she believes is true means that she is constantly pissing off the trans community.A- and constant- Is she? Oh, yeah. She’s, sh- sh- the trans- well, because you, you can’t really talk about the science around transness anymore without just incensing trans people. And because of that, she’s actually sort of broke the egg for a lot of people’s- God ... transition into [01:12:00] more and more conservative ideas.And I think- Mm ... for a lot of people, the trans issue is their first step on that pipeline.Simone Collins (2): And so- She, I mean, her sex survey does have, or big kink survey has one of the best samples of at least self-reported trans individuals of probably m- maybe any research done, just given her sample size. So I don’t know if she’s said anything that’s like disturbing, but, or that like makes them look bad, has, she does have very good sample data.Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, she’s the one who did the study when we did the trans one showing that transness is linked to violent fetishes. Oh, yeah. We used her data. That’s from her- That’s right ... that’s from her study. That’s true. That that comes from. .Simone Collins (2): But, but what I mean isMalcolm Collins: while I may think her actions are immoral, and more immoral today now that I understand the potential negative consequences of sex, and I’ve become dramatically less sex...Like, I’m kink positive, sex negative now. I just think that n- non-procreative sex is bad. Until [01:13:00] we have better forms of- I guess I just- ... birth control ..., but in the net she pushes people towards our movement. And, and advances, like, the number of conservative donors, voters.Well, she’s not encouraging anyoneSimone Collins (2): to live her lifestyle. Like, I, I... Sometimes I feel like I get this insinuation from people of, like, that she’s selling something to them. She’s not. No, she, she said that she didn’t likeMalcolm Collins: the gang bang. She tried a gang bang and did not enjoy it. Everybody- Yeah ... like, that seems like a pretty good indication of, like, don’t do this, people.Simone Collins (2): Well, but more, ugh, Tex is so into pulling on everything. She’s not trying to fob her lifestyle onto anyone. And just like we aren’t either. Like, we’re not... A lot of people like to accuse us. They’re like, “You’re trying to convince all these people who aren’t equipped to have children to have kids.” Like, that’s something someone just today was accusing us of.And that we... No, we absolutely don’t do that. So I think people like to misattribute this. Really? Were theyMalcolm Collins: accusing us on our comments or on, like, Twitter or something? On X,Simone Collins (2): yeah.Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. So, like, somebody has [01:14:00] no idea what we’re about.Simone Collins (2): Yeah. But a lot of people have no idea what Aila’s all about, so you know, like, it’s...I just think it’s stupid. It’s very annoying.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the informational sphere, I guess just when somebody’s aligning with us on anything that puts them on the outs with progressives and they are also helping the whiter project, I’m generally, like, pro them. Like, that’s the way I operate.Simone Collins (2): I’m generally pro when someone is thoughtful and takes a first principles approach to what they believe and what they’re doing and why, and that’s Aila. Yeah, butMalcolm Collins: sometimes those people can still be antagonistic to us or, or our efforts. And I, I think that, you know, in th- those instances we need to..[01:15:00] This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe