Saint Thomas Aquinas on The Virtues

Shannon: Welcome to episode 20 of the Catholic Frequency podcast. This conversation was originally recorded on the social media platform x in an audio space with our friend Imperator, who is a biblical scholar and classic historian from Australia. We start out this conversation, which is about Saint Thomas Aquinas on the virtues, with just the basic question, what are virtues?

Imperator: Excellent. Yeah. So virtues are basically, acts that we do. They're the habituations of certain activities that, I guess you could say that are, that are good for us, that lead to human flourishing. So if we're going back to like Plato and Aristotle, and even the stoics, virtues are those activities that, that are in accordance with our nature that, that we are direct us towards our end or our telos, which is like what we're meant to be.

So, if we look at something simple like a table, a a good table, a virtuous table is one that fulfills its purpose. So one that's sturdy that, you know, that that yeah. Essentially, a sturdy bench that can kind of lift things and hold things for for you, and that makes it a good table. That makes it a virtuous table because it's in accordance with its nature. Whereas with a person, that's a little bit more complicated.

What makes a person fulfill their purpose in accordance with their nature and, you know, different religions and philosophies throughout the world have, different interpretations of how that's done. But as we will come to discover through the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas, we basically need the four cardinal virtues, which are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and, obviously, there's the theological virtues of faith and charity.

Shannon: Let me ask you about this because, the Catholic church teaches these seven heavenly virtues, the theological virtues, the three you mentioned, and the four cardinal virtues. But the the cardinal virtues is an idea that goes back even even, you know, I guess into ancient Greece, Greece. Why, how has the church adopted this? Why, what makes that like something the Catholic church should have adopted?

Imperator: That's a good question. So basically when you look at Saint Thomas Aquinas, who is kind of the, the penultimate philosopher and theologian in the middle ages who, I guess is the, for lack of a better, for lack of a better term, like the poster child of, scholasticism, which is like the Catholic Church's official, theological and philosophical framework. Saint, sorry, I'm not saying it. Pope Leo the thirteenth even says something to the effect of Saint Thomas Aquinas is the most venerated of all the ancient doctors because he inherits the intellect of all the early church fathers and philosophers that came before him. I tend to think on a more personal level, he must have had, like, an eidetic memory or something like that.

Obviously, he's, you know, infused with grace, but the ability for him to, I guess, just absorb the information and absorb the works of all these ancient Greco Roman pagan philosophers and, historians and philosophers, and then combine that with supernatural sorry, divine revelation, and then, create this concise sumo theologian, but then he also has sumo contradicting his and a few other texts. He really is the almost like the final the final form or the final product of Western the Western intellectual tradition. So it's kind of he takes what was, good, true, and beautiful from the from natural reason, which was perfectly expressed through the, almost perfectly expressed through the Greco Roman philosophers. And then he infuses that with grace, and that's how we get things like the Summa Theologiae, which are just this if you've ever read it, it's it's phenomenal. I've never read it.

I'm in the process of reading it front and back now, and it takes a long time because it's pretty dense and you have to sit down and think about certain things and you have to sit and go, oh, I don't actually really understand what he means. I need to go back and read it again. But it's it's phenomenal. Reddit bits and pieces, you know, innumerable times, but really going through it front to back for the first time now, and it's it's just been amazing. I highly encourage anyone who has a, a decent background and philosophy to read through it.

Shannon: I don't wanna get too distracted, but but for somebody who's never read it and they let's say they look it up right now, it's got these things like objections and and how would you sort of describe maybe the best way for, like, a total newbie if they wanted to sorta read this, which is, you know, a great, you know, hefty work?

Imperator: Yeah. It's actually really dense. And the funny thing is when you actually read the Summa Theologiae, what he does is he still mans every single argument against the Catholic position. So when it comes to something like I'm just gonna make this sound like, why is justice important? He'll give you every reason or three of the best reasons and still made the argument as to why justice isn't important or, you know, objections to why justice is a virtue and things like that.

And you read his steelman objections at the start, and you're actually like, oh, that is pretty compelling stuff. You know, he actually makes a solid argument and then you like, you pause for a second and then he gives you the replies and then he just breaks every single argument. And you're like, okay, that's why he's, he's the greatest because he just deconstructs a steelman argument for pretty much every single premise that he lays out. So it's not just that you're getting this this text that just gives you, say it's almost Aquinas' views. It almost has like a didactic sort of, you know, question and answer sort of structure.

And that's why it's so compelling and so strong because, like I said, he still mans every argument. So if you've if you've, have a background in philosophy and understand, you know, basic sort of philosophical principles, and then you read the sumo, he actually gives you the complete playbook how to basically defend almost every single argument you can come up against. So a lot of people wanna do certain like, more like interactive expos where I ask a particular question and it kind of not get tated, but gets a bit of, traction with, you know, comments and things like that. I'm just pulling up Saint Thomas Aquinas arguments. It's not my own theories.

It's not my own thoughts. I'm too young, I'm not that smart. But he just lays out all these arguments so perfectly that you've just read them once and you understand them. It just gives you like a very strong apologetic framework to kind of answer almost all questions that you can possibly get.

Shannon: One of our previous, spaces, you you said this phrase about prudence. I think it was being the mother of all virtues. So when we think about the cardinal virtues, there's four of them. Prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. It's not like you sort of mix them all up in any way you take them.

Right? There's a certain order to them. Will you talk about that?

Imperator: Yeah. So this comes down to Aristotle. And, for those who know, Aristotle was the student of Plato, who was himself the student of Socrates. So like the I guess you could say the fathers of, Hellenistic philosophy. And Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, which again, I highly encourage everyone to read, he basically lays out the the virtues that you need in order to have like a functioning state or city state.

And how to live what he calls you which means to, human flourishing. So if you wanna be a good person and you wanna live according to your nature and achieve what you're meant to achieve and essentially fulfill your purpose in life both on a natural and supernatural level, the only way you could accomplish that is to have the four cardinal virtues because they essentially direct you and, to your final end and lead to your own flourishing, again, on a natural and supernatural level. So the first one he would say is, prudence, which in Greek would be like phronesis. Again, my my Greek isn't right. And the Latins would say prudencia, which is obviously where we get the word prudence from.

And that's practical wisdom. So that's knowing the means to achieve an end. And that's essentially being able to discern within a given moment, what which of the, I guess, you could say, sub virtues or which of the cardinal virtues and their daughter virtues. And I guess this is something that we'll get into later because it's not just four that breaks out to, like, 64. Which particular virtue and to what extent you need to apply that particular virtue in a given situation.

So that's the virtue of prudence. So if I could give a practical example, let's say I'm walking down the street and I'm with my family and a young man bumps into me and knocks my shoulder and you know, spills some of the coffee that I'm holding in my hands, you know, onto my clothes or onto the floor. In accordance with prudence, I wouldn't sit there and say, okay, I need to get into a violent altercation with this man because he spilled my coffee and bumped me. It's clearly an accident. I apologize if I apply or if I use prudence, if I use phronesis, I would say the level of, I guess you could say courage or aggression that I need by now is is very low.

I don't need to do anything. Okay? We can just exchange, you know, polite, you know, gestures. Sorry, Linda. It's all good.

Thank you. Sorry. Have a good day. Alternatively, if I'm in my house in the middle of the night and someone breaks in and is going to my children's room, using Phronesis or using Prudence, the level of aggression or courage that I need will have to be significantly higher depending on the circumstance that I have an armed intruder in my house. So I know that's a very extreme example, but I like to use examples in extremes cause it helps people visualize what I'm trying to say.

You would see like even your own day, you've everyone in this space is probably saying, you know, people who bump into each other and starts like a violent altercation, you know, in a shopping center or a mall or you know, out in public. That's because neither of those people, they, they definitely have the virtue of, of fortitude. Like they're courageous, they're ready to fight, but they completely like the virtue of prudence, which is knowing when to do it. So they're all these virtues come into lock with one another. So the first virtue is prudence, which is basically knowing the means to attain an end.

You know, what needs to be done in a particular situation in accordance with your state in life and in proportion to what is actually necessary considering the circumstances.

Shannon: It's also not, just knowing not what's good for you. Right? But for those around you, your family, even even the common good of of other people beyond that. Right?

Imperator: Yes. Absolutely. And that's, I guess, to make it a bit like, you know, political, I guess. That's what was coming out with, this whole, this recent interview that JD Vance did when he was talking about your, your obligations to the government and your own obligations to your community and how it extends outwards. That's actually, a perfect sort of, expression of the virtue of prudence and justice because the the extent to which you are responsible for others is not only at the virtue of prudence, but it's all sorry.

Not only justice, but it's prudence because you have to be able to discern which people need your immediate attention more. And that actually is, very important. That seems to be something that we've lost because again, like the interviewer was saying, we tend to in the Western world have such a great sort of, and again, I'm not trying to get all like involved in political politics around the world. We are so concerned with what's happening overseas, but then we have unbelievable, you know, crime rates and homelessness and inflation and, cultures. So communities are breaking apart because of, you know, drugs and, you know, crime.

That is your immediate attention. Prudence would tell you what is most immediate to me. It's actually about community. And again, that's the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. We have to, take our attention and care for what is most immediate to us in accordance with, with our with our organic sort of community.

People seem to have lost that sort of, that idea. So everything is always this external abstract. Are we going to help humanity in general? Okay. How about we use prudence and focus on what we have to actually do in our communities, in our family?

That's how you change the world. It's not some, you know, abstract concept of, you know, Dostoevsky says revolutionaries love humanity in general, but they hate human beings in particular. And I think that's very true with what we're seeing today. Everyone loves people from across the world helping everyone from around the world, but people don't love the people within their own neighborhood, within their own street. You need to actually help those people first.

That's a practical application of both prudence and justice.

Shannon: I think Mother Teresa said that when once when she was first becoming famous, people went to, Calcutta and said, what can we do to help? And she's like, help the people in your hometown, in your country. Like, help help the poor where you are first. I I know that our certainly, our politicians in The United States have very few virtues, not much prudence. But they they use they wrap themselves in, in all these wonderful terms like justice.

Like, they wanna help all these poor people. That's that's a Christian ideal, right, to help the poor. But justice part of justice is giving people what is their due. And for example, The United States cannot give every person on Earth food and shelter without harming the people of The United States when millions of people are here illegally. It's driving up housing prices.

Right? Supply and demand hurting the poor in The United States. So I know a lot of people, certainly a lot of Catholics, were happy to see, the comments from, the vice president of The United States. And you're in Australia, so how does that play like like in another Western country?

Imperator: Just before I get into that specifically, that's one of the reasons why when you talk about the the example with Mother Teresa, when you looked at, you know, when, doctor Jordan Peterson became so famous and kind of exploded onto the cultural scene, He had this whole idea of, you know, if you want to change the world, go clean your room. And everyone always thought like, oh, you know, that's a silly sort of metaphor. Why would you say that? But it's actually very important and very true. The way that you change the world is not by going out and you know, making a quote unquote difference.

You actually have to fix yourself first before you can then, it emanates outwards. You fix yourself and you again, no one's ever gonna be perfect. So you're always gonna be working on yourself, but you focus on yourself as an individual, then you move out to your family, then you move out to your community, then you move out to your nation. The way you fix nations isn't like a top down sort of totalitarian. This is what we're gonna do and I'm gonna enforce, all these rules on you.

The way that nations change is a couple it's a culture change within the family unit because individuals are virtuous and virtuous individuals create virtuous communities, virtuous communities, correct virtuous nations. So everyone keeps talking about how like, Oh, our politicians and our priests and our bishops and our cardinals, whatever, they're all corrupt. They're all good. Where do you think they come from? They don't like fall from the sky like rain and pop out of the ground like, you know, strawberries.

They come from families. Of course, if you want to have like a good strong culture, you have to have good strong children, good strong families and engender virtues in their children. So that's the first part. The second part to your question is in regards to, you know, what's happening in America and that, it's very true that people tend to okay. How can I put this?

There's people that basically use this strange brand of liberation theology, which anyone who knows anything about theology just knows that liberation theology is just Christian Marxism and is completely incompatible with Christianity, incompatible with Catholicism because it is just Marxism, but with just a Christian face and you know, it's all about this class warfare and you know, weaponizing the poor against people. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for helping the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised and those marginalized within society. And so it's your, it's your duty as a Christian to help them. But in proportion to all the other obligations that you have, like you said, if you have in America for, for the last four years, where the crime, the drug rates, the inflation and the loss of income and the lifestyle changes and, you know, housing crisis and all these things, and then you want to bring in 10,000,000,000 illegal, not even gonna say illegal immigrants because that's a contradiction of term.

You can't be an illegal and an immigrant because an immigrant is a legal sort of person who immigrates to your country. People who come to your country, whether or not their intentions are good or not. Okay. I'm not saying, you know, every single person who tries to go into America is automatically like pushing arm on the country, but you can't violate one principle of justice in accordance with this abstract form of social justice, which is basically just liberation theology, in order to quote unquote make the world a better place. The governments and every government okay.

Which government is it? The government's primary obligation is to its own citizens first. Their security, their wealth, their prosperity, their, moral, health, I guess you could say. Then after that, the secondary sort of obligation is to like, you know, your allies, your geographic neighbors. So, yeah, like, in a way, America does have an obligation to kind of, you know, make sure Canada is okay and make sure America, sorry, Mexico is okay and that, you know, there's no civil war spilling over the borders and things like that.

Yeah. You do have, like, sort of like an obligation secondarily to your own country. And then the third was like sorry. The remote obligation will be like, you know, the international community and things like that. You can't go around trying to solve problems around, you know, the Middle East and Eastern Europe when you have a crisis in your own country.

Like, that is just completely backwards. And I personally think that's why, you know, Donald Trump won the election because he's like, you know, rather than going fighting wars overseas and, you know, trying to be the world's policeman, how about we just fix our own country first? And the the majority of Americans said like, yeah, absolutely. That sounds like common sense to me.

Shannon: Yeah. The last administration was more interested in defending the border of Ukraine than the Southern border of The United States. And, the people, the people spoke, they, they wanted something, something different. I've seen you post this phrase before on your, on your ex timeline. Tolerance is not a Christian virtue.

It, it kind of sounds like one. Why is it not?

Imperator: Well that comes down to the, you know, the, the individual's interpretation of what tolerance means. People tend to think that tolerance just means that we love everyone for exactly who they are and what they do and you just have to accept that. And we believe in radical individualism. So if someone thinks x, y, and z, then you are morally obliged to accept that and encourage that and, you know, whatever makes them happy. I don't believe that at all.

I don't think if you're a Catholic, you should actually or even a Christian that that's acceptable because there are certain things that are morally, morally and just ontologically wrong and you can believe in a delusion, but I'm not going to encourage you. I don't tolerate that. Okay. Let me quantify this. You tolerate persons because, and again, I've said this multiple times, you tolerate the person because they're made in the image and likeness of God and every person has an inherent value and inherent dignity and all those things and every life is equal because like I said, we're all made in the image of likeness of God.

We all have that embargo dei, but you don't tolerate evil principles. Okay? So for example, if someone is, okay, cause I used the example before, someone is a person who really believes in the plight of the poor and they, you know, are an advocate for liberation theology. I respect that person and I tolerate that person and I pray that they, you know, fulfill their purpose in life and that they live a virtuous and moral life. But I don't tolerate liberation theology because it's wrong and I don't care.

It's pretty simple.

Shannon: For people who have maybe heard the phrase but might not be able to define it. How would you define liberation theology?

Imperator: The liberation theology is essentially this, look, it's getting a bit now it's going to get into a bit of like speculative areas. A lot of people would assert that liberation theology was spread into South America to then stabilize, base basically a very Catholic and Christian block. Like South America is historically very Catholic and obviously there are a lot of, Protestants down there too, but it's a very, Catholic sort of continent and liberation theology was exported from the Soviet Union into South America in order to, like, destabilize, the nation or the continent, sorry, and then also create, like, a geopolitical sort of alliance between South America and the Soviet Union. And obviously, we see that, you know, overthrows with, you know, Chekhovar and all that stuff. But liberation theology is essentially the weaponization of the gospel in a way that Jesus is made to, is, is portrayed as kind of like this social justice activist who was not actually fighting or sorry, not actually that they it's it's kind of like using like a Marxist interpretation or a hermeneutical or historiography of Marxism on the gospel where you read everything that Jesus does in light of a class struggle or class warfare between Jesus represents the poor and oppressed and the Pharisees who represent, like, the elite and the aristocrats and, like, the capitalists or whatever you wanna call it.

So everything is ready in that in that line. So it's not actually about the mitzvah and fulfilling the, you know, loving the lord your god with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole mind, following the mitzvah and all that stuff. It's not actually about that. It's actually about the the gospel is actually about Jesus liberating the poor. So everything has sort of like this social justice element.

And and again, it's like just class warfare superimposed onto the gospel. So that is, that's kind of like the mantra of liberation theology. So it's called like weaponizing the the masses and the poor against the state in order but under the guise of Christianity because apparently Jesus is now a revolutionary. So that's basically liberation theology and that's why even Pope Francis, a lot of people can, accuse him of being a liberal, an advocate or a, a student of liberation theology just cause he's from South America. But he has repeatedly condemned liberation theology as being incompatible with the Catholic faith.

Even though, yes, we do agree that, you know, we always have to have a preferential option for the poor and assist those who need, you know, who who can't help themselves. I'm not saying that at all. But to in the way that I've explained that that that sort of mentality where where, salvation and and the faith is actually just about class warfare and liberation, I guess you could say, is is not actually compatible with with sacred scripture.

Shannon: Just a minute ago, we were talking about tolerance is not a Christian virtue. You know, of course, in The United States, we have a constitutional right to free speech, and yet so so many people that promote pornography use this constitutional right and say that gives us a right. But I've heard you say this before that evil doesn't have a right to exist even if it's in a category of rights. Expound on that a little.

Imperator: Yeah. So, every individual has is, as I've said before, we're made in the image and likeness of God. And people were trying to think that like, oh, okay. That means that God the father has like a body and he's flying around in in space. And you know, the way that we're made in the image and likeness of God is the, is that we have a, we have an immortal soul that is obviously created by God.

We have free will and we have a rational intellect. That's how we're made in the image and likeness of God. We have the free will, the immortal soul. We have a rational intellect. We can create, we can speak, we can, but that's, that's how we're, we're made in this image and likeness.

So you can use your freedom to do anything that is in accordance with virtue and goodness and ontologically right. You know, to worship, adore, love God, live your life and live it to the full. As it says in John ten ten, you have within the, within reason you have the right to do whatever you want. So if, you know, if one of your children says to you, I want to be, I want to learn to play the guitar. Sure.

Go for it. I want to be a nurse. Go for it. I want to be a doctor. Go for it.

That because you have the freedom to do whatever you want within the limits of reason and within, if it's in accordance with your nature and if it's right, you have the right to do things that are good. You have the right to live virtuously in any way that that is possible. You don't have the right to do that, which is able. You can do it, but you're actually abusing your free will and your rational intellect and your, I guess violating the fact that your main angel like us of God. So yes, you can be a murderer if you want to.

You can use your free will and you can murder someone. But is it, do you have a right to murder someone? No, you don't. It's just that simple. People, people, people, conflate power and authority in today's day and age and they conflate, license with liberty.

So what that means is power and authority. Authority is when you have a have a, you actually have an ordained right to do something. Okay? So like a father has the right to govern his children. That is, that is, you have authority over that.

A Bishop has authority over his diocese as given to him by God in accordance with the economy of grace and natural order. And the same thing applies to the family. I don't have a right to break into my neighbor's house because my children are hungry. Even though that might save their life. You don't have a right to do that because that's wrong.

So, that's the first thing. We conflate power and authority. You have the power to do things so I can physically overpowers someone. I don't have the authority to take what belongs to them because then I'm violating their, their rights I could say. Then we have this idea of licensing, licentiousness and Liberty.

So we have the Liberty to pursue that which is true, good and beautiful. As you always talk about, Catholic frequency, you always talking about how things are good, true and beautiful. Three of these three transcendental properties. You have the right to pursue anything. If you want to be an author, a poet, you can do whatever you want, but you don't have the license, which is this unrestricted freedom to engage in every single type of action and that everyone else just has to accept that.

So you don't have the license to, like you use in your example. You know, it's it's freedom of speech to spread pornography. I don't think that's a right. You don't have a right to do that. I don't care if you believe in rights of, you know, in respect to your particular country.

I don't think that's a right because you have the right to do someone's role. You, you, you can have the power to do it. You can be given the, conditions that allow you to do such a thing, but I don't think it's right. Well, it's not just my opinion. It's just common sense, but I don't know.

Does that answer your question?

Shannon: Of course. Of course. You know, I think we live in this this modern media age, certainly for the last fifty, sixty, seventy years, television and radio. There's a lot of propaganda, and I think a lot of, certainly, Americans have come to see how the the major networks like CNN are literally just propaganda machines, but they they twist the meanings of words. Right?

So in classical education, freedom would mean something like the freedom to make the right decisions, right, to live virtuously. They would teach you about the virtues where modern education doesn't really do that. They teach you that freedom is do whatever the hell you want. Right? Indulge your carnal desires that that's freedom.

It's very individualistic. Talk about the two talk about that first of all, the the meaning of words and how we I think through prudence, we can see through things if what we had to try. Because a lot of times the propaganda messages appeal to our human nature, which has fallen, and we kinda wanna believe things to be easier or give me what I want. Talk talk about using prudence to see through things that are not always the case.

Imperator: Well, what you were just saying then in regards to using language, I just thought of George Orwell's nineteen eighty four. You know, if you if you have the ability to control language and you have the ability to manipulate semantics, you have the ability to control what people say and think, and in doing that, you control people. I think that's self evident over the last couple of years what's been happening in, you know, like the media, social media, mainstream media. That's another reason why I believe Latin is so important because, you know, there's so many accounts here on x that will teach people Latin and Latin is unchanging. People say it's a dead language.

I go, no, it's a solid language that is unchanging. When you, when you have a liturgy whose, or prayers whose meaning is incapable of change because it's so specific and is not subject to the vicissitudes of time and people's dispositions. That's the perfect language I have a liturgy in because it doesn't change. That's why again, even if you look in the East, you know, they have the liturgies in Aramaic, you go, you know, Koine Greek and, you know, the East and whites and things like that. That's a fantastic, you know, reasonable justification to keep sacred languages and liturgy.

In regards to your idea about Liberty, it's funny, I actually had a conversation with someone about this, on X and I think I even made a post about it where I said, it was basically a conversation with, someone who was an atheist or like a Nietzschean sort of, political thinker, I guess you could say. And I said, basically all atheists are just luciferians masquerading as humanists. And again, it caused a lot of, a bit of a stir because people's natural response is, well, I'm not a Luciferian because I don't even believe in God or whatever their response was. But my answer was the single commandment of Luciferianism is do what thou will, thou shalt with the whole the law. And what that means is the guiding principle of that philosophical and religious mindset is that you are the, you are the arbiter of reason.

You are the arbiter of what is true and good and you know, in your, in your, you know, disordered way, I guess you could say what's true, good and beautiful when you, impose that sort of philosophy or that mentality onto the world. So if you think a particular act is bright and good, then you have the right to do that because you are the you are the deterministic factor in in what you consider to be eudaimonia. So it's a very weird inversion of reality. So I think it shows that, I know it sounds very dark, but society is becoming a little bit more Luciferian because individuals kind of there's sort of like philosophical iminitism where you are the principle of, of right and judgment. And I think when you do that and you remove, I guess you could say the guiding principles of religion, you create a more destructive and disordered society.

And I think it's very self evident that that's happening right now. We seem to lack the, again, when you're talking about the semantics and the changing of words, when we look at something like justice, and I've even said it a couple of times, the idea of social justice, that's not even a word. Justice is by definition a social act because justice is to render another their due. It's inherently social. So what's the purpose of saying social justice?

It's just a way to kind of create this new form of justice that apparently is justice but it's just something completely different. So we have to, we have to take words back. I know that sounds strange to say, but what we tend to do online, and I've seen it myself and I haven't done it myself, is you fall into the trap of defending false premises because the language that you're using is incorrect. So you're forced to fight or to, to argue or defend within these strange parameters that you've engaged in. If you just say just straight up, I don't actually agree with your premise at all and so I just don't have an obligation to answer you because just your philosophical groundwork is so fundamentally wrong.

If that person kinda accept that, then I well, I can't help you.

Shannon: Talking about definition of words, there's there's there's a word that politicians use a lot. They talk about their values, and they I think they want us to think that they're virtues, but, you know, the Democratic party, for example, would would consider abortion being in support of that as a value. Right? So when they talk about their values, I think you have to values are not inherently good or bad. It's it's very neutral where all virtues are good.

Right?

Imperator: Correct. A value can be anything. So, like, I can value, you know, drinking coffee. You know, I value it. It's a good time.

I'm drinking coffee right now. I enjoy it. That's not a virtue. Drinking coffee is not a virtue because a virtue is something that leads to individual human flourishing in accordance with our ontological, you know, purpose. So something like, as you mentioned, you know, women's reproductive rights.

Again, changing the language rather than saying abortion, it's now it's women's reproductive rights. Just change it and make it sound nice so that people don't, actually engage with the concept because by changing or lessening the blow of what you're talking about, it makes people think of it as being something different than what it is. I don't know if we can say that in many different examples in society. There are, there are virtues and there are vices and there are things that are morally neutral. So again, when people talk about, yeah, I don't necessarily want to open a big rabbit hole.

But yeah. So there's even with the, when we're talking about the prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, which are the cardinal virtues, these are like the main virtues that you need to have. But there's actually sub virtues of what, st Thomas Aquinas and even, Aristotle will say are the daughters of the cardinal virtues because cardinal in Latin means like the head, the domain head virtues and from those flow these other sub virtues. So one of the examples that I'll use is, justice. So we've mentioned this before.

Justice is to render another they're due. So you basically give them what they owed. So Catholic frequency, let's say you lend me $100 Justice demands that I give that hundred dollars back to you, Not $99, not a hundred and $5, 90 1 hundred dollars. That's justice because I'm rendering back to you what you're due, which is that hundred dollars. Justice doesn't only apply between, human beings.

There's also justice within every order of creation. And the main and most important form of justice is to render unto God what is due unto God. And that's why Jesus says, rent unto Caesar what is Caesar, and run unto God what is God's. Because you have a when you actually, people don't think about this. When you actually live a vicious and disordered life, you're actually committing an injustice against God because he created you to glorify him through your works and your deeds and you're not.

So you must make an account and you must repair that. And that's where we get the reparation. You must fix that. So that's why and again this obviously delves onto into a different topic of like purgatory and punishment and, you know, temporal punishment things like that. But, justice is when you render unto another what is due to them.

So if someone is okay. So let's use an example, the pope. If you are a Catholic, you might disagree with him on his personal opinions or whatever. If you don't render respect and, how can I put this? Let's just say respect.

If you do not respect his authority and respect his position as being the successor to St. Peter, you are committing an injustice to him. Okay? Because you have to respect the, the divinely instituted economy of grace and order of creation that God has established. Okay?

So a lot of, you know, very traditional Catholics will just go online, just start slamming the Pope. And again, don't get me wrong. There are some things that he says or does that I don't necessarily agree with. But in doing that, you're actually committing a greater injustice because you're actually not deferring or showing respect and honor to one who is your spiritual and ontological superior. Those things he's holy than you or that he's better than you, but ontologically and, magisterially speaking, yes, he is.

Just like a father is ontologically has authority over a child. The child has to obey the parent within reason. Okay. Obviously a parent can be a tyrant. Obviously a folk can be a tyrant.

A dealership can be a tyrant. A politician can be a tyrant. But you have a natural obligation in accordance with justice to show them respect. So you'd see, I think it was in I can't remember what it would be in New Zealand or something where like the king of, King Charles went to England and he got like, you know, it was almost like this flash mob of like protesters that were screaming at him and things like that. That's in a that's not in accordance with justice.

That man is actually a a monarch and the monarch of your country. And you might disagree with him, but you're not rendering him justice, which is respect in accordance with his role. And what you think about him as an individual is actually irrelevant. So when you think about something like the the virtue of justice, you actually, there are, you know, like 10 virtues that are in accordance with justice, and one of those is actually patriotism. Patriotism is a virtue in accordance with justice because you're rendering your country what is due to it.

And because your your country as Saint Thomas Aquinas explains in the summa, it has nourished you and given you protection and life just like your parents have. You actually have a moral obligation to love your country and to defend your country. So again that's where a lot of the revolutionaries, they might say, oh, I'm showing justice because I'm caring for the poor. Well, actually no, you're actually sinning against justice because you lack the virtue of patriotism. So that's it's actually a lot a little bit more complicated than that.

And people have this very skewed understanding of what what's right and what's wrong or what's a virtue and what's a vice. But in reality, they're actually showing they have almost no idea about what's a virtue and what's a vice. So when you look on the flip side, you might think of like a vice that's contrary to justice. So, you might say, let's say, idolatry. Okay.

Because I used the idea of, you know, rendering God, his Jew. So idolatry is actually a vice contrary to justice because what you're doing is you're rendering undue worship and adoration to a created thing when that worship and adoration should be directed to God. So you're actually detracting from his glory because you owe him that adoration and worship, and you're giving it to something else instead. So to use my example with you, Catholic frequency, if I borrowed a hundred dollars off you and you said, can you please give me that that money back? And I say, sure.

Hey, memory medieval or hey, Nina Murphy, here's the hundred dollars. That's unjust because I'm giving that money that belongs to you to someone else, and that is a vice.

Shannon: For people who are not familiar with philosophical terms, you you use this phrase a few times, ontological. Explain what that is just as you would somebody in their very first philosophy class.

Imperator: Sure. So ontology is basically the it's like a philosophical study of, existence. So it's basically understand the reality of things, why things are the way they are, like their purpose. So ontologically speaking or you look at something and you think about what what why does it exist and what is its purpose of existing? So if I would use an example, Aristotle uses the okay.

So let's look at, what Aristotle calls the four causes. And this is something that we've spoken about before, and I'll just do, like, a very quick run through it. So the four causes are basically what brings something into being. So the first cause is like the material cause. So, if we were to look at the table, and I use this example before, a table is made up of let's say it's a wooden table.

This table, its material cause is the wood. That's what it's made of. That's its physical matter. It's its substance. Then we've got, like, the formal cause, the second one.

And that's the form that it takes. So what's the difference between a chair and a table? Well, they have different formal causes. One's meant to have things placed on it, and one's meant to be sat on. Technically, yes, you can sit on a table, but it's it wasn't designed for that.

Okay? It wasn't designed for for sitting on. Then you look at its efficient cause. The efficient cause of what brings something into being. So I can have a pile of wood, and I might want to have something to place my coffee on, but unless someone actually builds that table, nothing's gonna happen.

It's just gonna still gonna be a pile of wood. And then the final cause, which is the telos and then this falls under the whole umbrella of its ontological purpose, I guess you could say, is the purpose or the goal for which that thing was created. It's a reason why it exists. So the the ontological the the final cause of this table is that it's sturdy that I can place my coffee on earth with the assurance that this table will not cave in in full then a break. Okay?

Because if I place my coffee cup on it and the whole table collapses, it's a bad table because it cuts it can't do the the one thing that was it was made to do which it's Telos which is to hold things for me. It holds my laptop, and it's holding my coffee right now. Okay? It it it has failed in its in its purpose, and that in in that way, it's actually defective. It's not good.

So to bring that back to your original point, why do we talk about these things? Well, what are the four causes of a human being? We have a material cause that's, you know, our bodies. You know, we're made up of bones, organs, tissue, things like that. But then we have our formal cause, and there's, like, two formal causes.

We have our physical formal cause, which is like our genetics and our our DNA and things like that. But then we also have a soul, and the soul gives us our rational intellect, and that's what gives us our humanity, I guess you could say, as opposed to, like, a gorilla or a monkey that has almost the same sort of like form as us from a natural point of view. They have they have fingers and arms and bodies and stuff. Obviously, we don't have tails. But, we are almost like formally identical, but on a spiritual level, no.

We're not because they don't have rational intellects. We do. They don't have immortal souls, but we do. And they don't have necessarily free will. We do.

They have instinct. And then we look at the efficient cause, and the efficient cause of a human being is obviously your parents. Don't think about that too long. But then on a supernatural level, your efficient cause is God because God created your soul. But then it brings us to the final part is what's your final cause?

And that's the purpose for which you were created. So my question to you, Catholic frequency is, why were you created?

Shannon: To do spaces with you on x.

Imperator: Oh, man. You want to go on. No. Like the purpose for you created is to, is to glorify God through your through your thoughts, through your words, and your deeds, and people don't do that. So if I were to use my previous analogy with the table, if you don't do that for which you were created, you're not living to your potential.

You're not achieving your. You're actually a, to use the technical term, a disordered human being. And unfortunately, we live in a society where most people are disordered because they lack a virtue, because they don't know their purpose, whether ignorant through out of ignorance or out of, you know, personal choice. And they actually celebrate those things that actually detract from their own humanity. They dehumanize themselves, and they don't actually know what virtue is, and they praise things that are vices, and they shun things that are virtues.

So when you wonder why is society falling apart, it's because people are back lacking the most basic fundamental aspects of being a human being. And again, this is not to say that, you know, everyone has to be a practicing Catholic in order to have, like, a functioning society. I'm not saying that. Obviously, that's an ideal. But like even on a natural level, we don't people we don't even have natural virtue anymore because we promote things that are completely against our human nature.

So that's why society is is crumbling. Yes. You could still have functioning societies where people aren't really aren't Catholic or aren't Christian, and they still you know, look at ancient China. Ancient China was thriving. It's a powerful nation.

They're not Christian, but they had natural virtues. Like, Confucianism is is a naturally virtuous sort of, like philosophical framework that built an incredible one of the greatest civilizations in world history. You look at the Romans, stoicism is naturally virtuous. Yes. They don't know who Jesus Christ is.

Yes. Marcus Aurelius used to kill Christians, and people always say to me like, you like stoicism. Did you know that Marcus Aurelius could Christians? Like, yeah, bro. I know that.

But you don't understand that the the natural virtue leads to, opens the one's predisposition up to supernatural virtue. Not to say that nature becomes supernature, but Saint Thomas Aquinas says, grace does not destroy nature, it perfects it. When someone is naturally virtuous, it lends them to accepting supernatural truth and supernatural revelation. That's why Christianity spread in the Greco Roman world so quickly and first because they were already naturally a naturally virtuous society. So it it predispose them to accepting the gospel.

That's why in my personal opinion, I've said this about two, three years ago, I kind of not because I'm special or anything, but I called the fact that Christianity would make a huge resurgence. And again, I've spoken about him before, and I I do credit that a lot to Jordan Peterson because he made stoicism mainstream again. Whether he tried to or not, even though he talks a lot about Nietzsche and stuff like that, he made stoicism and I think that guy Ryan Holiday or whatever his name is that, that guy who writes about Marcus Aurelius. And and there's a lot of accounts on x that do that. When you make stoicism popular again, when you make natural virtue popular again, and then you introduce supernatural revelation, everyone starts seeing the crossover, like, okay.

Christianity actually complements natural virtue very, very well. And that's why those societies that had a naturally virtuous sort of foundation accepted Christianity so quickly. So that's what I think we're in that process right now in society where natural virtue and natural reason and common sense, and like, you know, you're saying with like, as we're saying before, the Trump administration, JD Vance. They're starting to promote these natural naturally virtuous concepts that are kind of, like, correcting society, for lack of a better term. And then from that, we can then build on nature and supernaturalize it, if if that makes sense.

Shannon: You had a bold post the other day. You you posted a picture of archbishop Fulton Jay Sheen, and you said America will become a Catholic nation. I like that. One day. Right?

Yeah.

Imperator: It's pretty, pretty controversial, but I I do think that whether or not people realize that that it does seem to be heading that way, you know. A lot of people say that, you know, a lot of people in the comments were got really angry when I said that they said, you know, didn't you know America was built by Puritans? And did you know that, you know, we're a Protestant nation? And I said, yes. I'm very aware of history.

I'm not saying that Catholics literally came to well, technically Catholics did come to America and found them because the Spanish did. But, I'm not saying that the founding fathers of America were all, you know, blessed by the pope and founded the country, but people don't realize that the and again, most of this audience here just flicking through the pictures, I see a lot of American flags. And people don't realize that the founding fathers of America, and I do actually believe that America is probably one of the best countries in the world, you know, top 10 in, like, world history. Why? Because your constitution is pretty much like a remake of the Roman constitution and it was done by design and it's very, very good.

When it functions well, it's fantastic. And that's why America America became a superpower. The problem is that, unfortunately, your country and your leaders haven't been, you know, living in accordance with your constitution. That's why it has been going downhill. But people don't realize that, okay, most of the founders of America weren't Catholic, but the founders of America were inspired and formed in the intellectual tradition of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suarez, and, Robert Bellamy, just as much as they were by Montesquieu and John Locke and Cicero and all these other people, they don't realize and again, I'm not I'm not taking shots at America because I actually think your country is fantastic, but people tend to think, especially on x, I've noticed this very weird dynamic where everyone kind of thinks that the world just spontaneously materialized in 1776, and they don't realize all the history that went before it.

And they don't understand the dynamics of history in Europe and and the Western world in general and what came about to bring about the American Revolution. It's just like, oh, there was there was the dark ages, Rome fell, the Catholic church basically impoverished everyone by making them buy indulgences for fifteen hundred years. Martin Luther did something and then seventeen seventy six. That's pretty much world history according to most of the comments that I received. And I'm not taking shots at everyone in general because there are actually a lot of Protestant Christians that I've met here on X that are actually great people that have really good conversations with especially during DMs and stuff like that.

And they've actually helped me understand Protestant theology a little bit more, and I really respect their opinions. Obviously, at the end of the day, I don't agree with them on all all their points, or else I'll be a Protestant too. But I still respect the intellectual sort of exchange and the, the, like, the genuine dialogue. And I'm not saying that, like, in this sort of, like, modernist sort of, like, all this dialogue with people. People think they wanna ask these questions online that I'm taking shots at Protestant because I don't like them.

I love you guys. We're brothers and brothers and sisters in Christ. You're baptized. I'm baptized. We worship one God.

I will always defend you and I'll always fight for you and we are together in in what's happening right now. Obviously, I don't agree with every theological premise that you have or else again, I'll be a Methodist or I'll be an Anglican or whatever it is. But people think that I'm just taking shots at them, but in reality, I'm just sparking a conversation because again, I wanna know what do you believe in. I've actually realized in in these last few exchanges that I've had is that there seems to be a massive disparity even within protestants about certain protestant doctrines. And, and a lot of the people probably would only see the main post that I do and they say like, oh, you're taking shots at protestants or whatever it is.

But you actually and I'm not gonna expose these or share these, but you don't actually see the hundreds of dm's that I get of Protestant Christians saying, you know what, I've been actually thinking about joining the Catholic church for a long time. This post made me think about x y and z. That's what I care about. Like, I I'm I want to help people. And I'm not here to, just go on the offensive all the time and just upset people.

But I'm trying to, in a way, educate people. Yes. Sometimes I am being a little bit edgy. I I I recognize that. But, it's just getting that conversation happening as well because, when even as a Catholic, I learn the most about Catholicism when a Protestant or like an Orthodox person challenges me because then I actually have to think about what I know.

And in doing that, you're actually it either reinforces or it breaks your your presuppositions. Because if I think that, you know, I have a certain principle that I believe in and then, for example, an Orthodox Christian challenges me or like the papacy or like the or the universality of the, of Rome's authority. And I'm like, oh, yeah. I never actually thought of that before. Then I actually have to think about that.

Either I'm wrong and Catholicism is wrong or actually have to research and it forces me to do that. So that's what I'm encouraging other people to do. And I think that's one of the ways that x is a great place because we can actually have these conversations and it's a it is a little bit more intellectual. Obviously there's always gonna be, those not crazy people, but people on both sides who are just gonna attack people and say, oh, all you Protestants are evil and then all the Protestants will say, oh, you Catholics are evil and you wish it vary and stuff. And that doesn't help anyone.

And I don't like those conversations because they're not productive. But I'm always for opening those, channels of communication with other people. Just because they're not, don't think exactly like me, it doesn't mean I'm automatically against you or, belligerent towards you or hostile towards you. I just, I just like conversation. I find it fun because it helps me learn.

Shannon: You you can't evangelize people that you're don't have some kind of relationship with, and part of that's just talking to people, having a conversation. I posted something a few weeks ago about, you know, I see a lot of you know, because I'm a Protestant convert, and I see a lot of Catholics that are, you know, beating Protestants over the head. Yes. They might be wrong about whatever, but it's like, you really think you're gonna convert them? Like, that's the goal, right, is conversion not to make them hate you or hate the Virgin Mary more or hate the pope more.

And boy, you'd have thought I posted some kind of heresy because I had all these comments and private messages, you know, how terrible I was.

Imperator: But Yeah. I I I still stand. I I agree, and I still stand by the fact that anyone who jumps online and just sits there and says, you know, it's completely hostile and belligerent. Whether it's a Catholic, look, I even hate it when I see Catholics who would just say, you know, they'll have this massive post just slamming 15 points about, you know, Lutherans or, Orthodox or what I don't like that. I don't think that's helpful.

You're just you're not we are separated brothers and sisters in Christ. The great schism and the the, protestant revolt reformation, whatever you wanna call it, I personally think are two of the greatest tragedies in world history. It was up to me. If I could change anything in the world today, I would make all the Christian churches united immediately. And not like some weird syncretistic sort of like megachurch, like a genuine reunification.

To me, that's all that matters. I I know it sounds strange. I actually don't care about anything else. People always ask me about all these other topics. I don't actually care.

To me, all that matters is orthodox and Catholics and Anglicans and Lutherans and Episcopalians and Episcopalians and Methodists, we need to become one church again. That's honestly what I believe and I pray for that every single day. So I don't like whether it's Catholics or anyone else just going in and start attacking other people just relentlessly because that's all you're doing is just making people hate you. So like when again, like you said, I get really annoyed sometimes where okay. He he here's a bit of honesty.

I can understand from a natural point of view when I read a protestants post and they say, for example, the Catholic church in the middle ages was corrupt. They were selling indulgences. Popes did x y and z. I absolutely agree with that. And I genuinely think that most of those bishops are probably in hell and they deserve it.

Okay? From a natural point of view, I understand that justification and I understand that line of reasoning that you want, like, you know, Germans want to leave the church because of, you know, corruption and stuff like that. There were underlying issues like political issues and stuff. But from a natural point of view, I understand that concept. Same thing with the orthodox Christians.

I understand, like, you know, the the the geopolitical shift and the filial way. Like, I understand that. But to just say, like, you Catholics worship Mary. I have never met a single Catholic in my life that worships Mary. And if you're a Catholic and you worship Mary, you are a pagan.

You're not Catholic. I don't know what you are, but you're not Catholic. So just like these silly posts that are just such low level, low IQ posts just slamming other people is just so ridiculous to me, and I can't stand it. I've actually learned a lot. Like, when I've done these quote these posts about like solar fee day and solar scriptura and that, I've actually seen in real time because where I live, there's there's no Protestants.

There's predominantly Catholics. There's a lot of Eastern Catholics, a lot of Western Catholics, a lot of people that follow Islam, and just no religion. That's pretty much the the region that I live in. So my I've realized that my perception of Protestantism is basically just like what I see, which is like evangelicals. And I've realized in a in in real time just how different, like, Lutheran and Episcopalian and Methodist theology is to evangelical theology.

Like, is it radically different? So even I'm learning in real time. And and again, yeah, I can read like five books about it, but I actually find that boring. I don't want to sit there and just read some guy from like the eighteen hundreds what he said. I actually wanna speak to real life people and and get what they they, would understand what they believe.

Because then that gives me a better gauge about where the culture is and where people are and what people think. And actually finding out like, yeah, you know what? Most protestants actually don't subscribe to certain parts of the soul, like the five solas and things like that. So that's actually interesting to me. But yeah, I know we've deviated a little bit off point, but what what that kind of ties back to is at the at the very fundamental level, whether you're Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, whatever, we're all striving for the the natural and supernatural virtues, and we should encourage each other to get there.

That's that's probably where how I'll draw that back. We we have to work together to make society better, whether you live in a protestant nation, or a catholic nation, or an orthodox nation. Christianity is the true religion because it leads to human flourishing. It promotes the virtues and the sub virtues. It leads to the flourishing of the individual.

It leads to the flourishing of communities. It makes them strong. It makes them virtuous. And that is why the Western world dominated for like fifteen hundred years is because we were under the framework of a religious tradition that encouraged human flourishing both on a natural and supernatural level. That's why the greatest works of art are cathedrals and basilicas and and paintings and frescoes and architecture and all these things.

Why they all in Christian nations? And I'm not saying that only Christians can build beautiful things, but why 99% of them in Christian nations is because we lived under a framework that encouraged human flourishing both on an artistic, creative, mathematical, scientific level, and that encouraged or promoted achievement and success and beauty and truth and goodness. That's what they said that other cultures can't accomplish that to to the to a degree. But that's why it's so dominant in in the West is because we had fifteen hundred years of uninterrupted Christianity that that facilitated our growth and development. So, again, it comes back to that principle that faith that grace doesn't destroy nature.

It perfects it. Grace takes what is good, true, and beautiful about you as an individual, and it makes it better. It supernaturalizes it. Paul was already a zealous, when you read the New Testament, Paul was already a zealous Pharisee who was able to preach and knew the the law so well. And then with grace, he was actually able to supernaturalize it and start preaching in favor of Christ.

And his epistles are phenomenal, and that's why we still read them today. Because grace did not destroy his nature. It perfected him. It made him stronger. It made him better.

It made him more fluent. It made him more articulate. It made him more, you know, dominant. It made him formidable in all these ways. In every way that he was naturally gifted, grace supercharged that.

So you have a if you have a culture that's already naturally virtuous and then you supernaturalize it with grace, it just becomes a better culture. I know that's a controversial statement to say, but, yes, some cultures are inherently better than others because they lead to human flourishing. That's it's pretty simple.

Shannon: Our friend Jeremy Wayne Tate posts a lot about how people who are atheists, you know, flock to Rome and flock to Paris, and they go to the great cathedrals, and they're mesmerized. They love it. And yet we we don't build these things because as a culture, majority of us don't believe what our ancestors believed. I'm gonna give a plug to our friend, Humble Flow, who's in here. He just posted about an hour ago a great thread on how much Thomas Aquinas has shaped western thought, 50 Lessons from History's Greatest Mind.

So everybody check out that thread, give it a repost. And then our final moments, Imperator, I I don't wanna divert too much, but maybe just in sixty seconds or so because we talked about when we talked about this space, maybe we'd talk about this. But in the news last week, there was something about Joe Biden, the former president of The United States, had become a Freemason. If that's true, why is that a bad thing for a Catholic?

Imperator: I like that we're ending on a light note. According to Catholic teaching, as you could say, even to the 1917 kind of canon law, if a person is a Freemason, they are late and tensea excommunicated from the Catholic church Because you belong to an order that is completely antithetical to not only the Christian religion, but also the Catholic church specifically as in accordance with, like, their charters and things like that. It's it's a people tend to think that it's a very, like, it's just a fraternity. We're all friends with your charities and and yeah, they do do that. But people don't realize without getting very dark that they swear allegiances to the grand architect and the grand architect when you go to the high levels is actually Lucifer.

So again, it turns back to that Luciferianism that I was speaking about before, where do what that will shall be the whole of the law. That's why you see so much corruption in the world is because a lot of these people who are in positions of power in our world actually are part of these organizations such as Freemasonry that are designed and whose mission it is to destroy Western civilization primarily through the Catholic church. And that's why we've seen so much infiltration of the Catholic church, and because these people aren't actually loyal to it. They're just using that to for their own agenda, and your former president is a perfect example of that.

Shannon: Let's end on something more positive. There's there's been a lot of stress and negativity the last few years in in the Western world, but I know for me as an American, there seems to be a vibe shift in the West even that goes beyond the the borders of The United States with the election of Donald Trump. And there's a lot of high profile conversions to the Catholic church. There's some positive signs coming out around the world in the West that maybe people are waking up. Do you sense this vibe shift?

Is it are you optimistic about the future?

Imperator: Absolutely. If you find just in the culture has already started to change, it's it's it's something that's been happening for a long time, but, obviously, because it doesn't get publicized or wasn't publicized on social media and things like that, you would have thought that you were. This is one of the reasons why x is so amazing because you would have probably thought five years ago, I'm like the only person who thinks this. No one else talks about this. I'm completely alone.

Then you jump on x and because there's freedom of speech, you realize, wow, there are like a hundred thousand people who think exactly what I'm thinking. I'm not alone. There are other people who can say this just like me. There's absolutely a vibe shift. As I was saying before, the world is becoming more it's very more towards natural virtue again.

Common sense is starting to return. We're starting to see principles like, you know, the vice president of America speaking about Aquinas and and principles of a subsidiary. We had a Catholic you had a Catholic president for like four years and never heard anything like that. So you're starting to see this transition back to reason, to natural virtue, and again, that lays the foundation for, for true evangelization because you can't evangelize someone who doesn't always have the natural foundation. I'm absolutely saying that.

Just due to the nature of my work, I, I've noticed that young people in particular, are very very conservative. I don't know what it might be like in your area or where you live, but people that I'm finding, young people in particular, are incredibly conservative. Whether that's crucial or just some natural point of view, and that's rising exponentially. And I do think that you're finding that Christianity is starting to wake up. And again, if if you look at what's happening around the world, you look at what's happening in Europe and things like that, it actually is I know it's tragic to say because horrible things have happened, but it actually is a blessing in disguise because I think that the rest of the world has been too dominant and too, complacent for far too long.

And it's finally starting to realize that the source of our strength was our God. And it's time to return. You look at all these countries in Europe, for example, that are strong. Look at something like Poland. Why is Poland so strong?

Because they're unbelievably Catholic. Look at a place like even the Orthodox culture like Serbia. Why is Serbia so strong? They're unbelievably Orthodox, you know. That lends itself to flourishing because they, above all else, they love God, they love their country, they love their families.

And that promotes a sort of, like again, because they have the the the cardinal virtue of justice, because they render unto God what is God's, they then have the the the the sub virtue or the daughter, which is, as I spoke about before, patriotism. Because patriotism flows from justice. So why is it that all these incredibly Christian countries are also very patriotic because it flows from the virtue? That's why America for, you know, the first two hundred years or so of its existence was such a patriotic country because they were hardcore Christians. Obviously, they weren't Catholic.

They were and that's not to detract from that. But they're hardcore traditional Christians who love God and love justice. And as a consequence of that, they're very patriot patriotic. So you start to see how, like, all these virtues start to weave in together. And I'm realizing now as I'm saying this last little part that we can't take it out at all our, original topic a little bit.

But that's just the nature of this space. That's why I love talking to you. I always say this, but that definitely means we have to do another one to continue where we left off.

Shannon: We always go off topic, but that's okay because we set the topics. So we're just we're editing in in real time. I think, before we go, I think maybe we'll if it's okay with you, Imperator, we'll end the way we did last time, which is with the Saint Michael prayer in English and you do it in Latin. But before we go, I just wanted to to thank you. I think this is our fifth or sixth or seventh space.

I can't keep up with it. It's good to be back sort of in a regular routine of at least once a month. And, I always learn so much from you. I see you're approaching in the not too distant future, the 50,000 follower mark. So as as you go into the big time, just don't forget your friends that are that are smaller.

Okay?

Imperator: Mate, the, I can't believe it, to be honest, that, it's even gotten this far. I just started this as, a little slide hobby just, you know, sharing quotes and pictures like that, and I can't believe it's actually gotten this far. You've grown heaps. You've gone up, like, you know, fifteen, twenty thousand in the last month or so, haven't you?

Shannon: Not that much. I'm I'm riding in your wake, so pull me up.

Imperator: I don't know. Your your spaces, even your videos, I think last night I jumped on, and I saw, like, one of your live videos at like seven or 800 people. That's amazing.

Shannon: Trying to stay busy so I can stay out of trouble. So that's the goal.

Imperator: Oh, you're doing you're doing God's work. Like, what you do, and I said this before, is incredible. Not not just having me as a guest, but just the guest that you bring on to your spaces, the people that you connect with one another. I always have the best conversations with people after the space that I'll do with you because you just connect these great, you're able to capture this great audience of people. And just like the fact that you're promoting things like the rosary and the threads that you've been doing in the and the images, like, honestly, you're I said it before, favorite account, you just bring so much beauty, truth, and goodness to this platform, and, honestly, I love love the fact that we've got the connect over over X.

So I'm always down to doing another space whenever you want, and we can call it whatever we want because I know we're not gonna be on topic, but that's okay.

Shannon: We'll just call it this and that. Yeah. You gotta move to The United States so we could get rid of the sixteen hour time difference, and we can do, we can do a space every day. So

Imperator: Yeah. Definitely.

Shannon: Alright. Let's end with the Saint Michael prayer. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May god rebuke him, we humbly pray.

And do thou, oh, prince of the heavenly host, by the power of god, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls. We hope you enjoyed this conversation with Imperator on the virtues. Just a reminder, you can visit our website, catholicfrequency.com, for more content. You can also sign up for our free newsletter there. We'll keep you up to date on upcoming spaces as well as provide weekly content exclusive to the newsletter.