Pattern Recognition - Finding the Papacy in the Bible

Catholic Frequency: Welcome to episode 50 of the Catholic frequency podcast.

You know, if you have friends or family members that are Protestant, they might say to you, well, Jesus is the head of the church. Why do you need a pope? But that view breaks down with how god has always governed his people. My friend Drago is here now to walk us through the biblical logic of pattern recognition and why it points to the papacy.

Drago: When we talk about pattern recognition, like, well, what's a pattern? So, like, a pattern, it's you might see a series of things that look similar, that look close enough, and, and then the combination of those things create, like, a total image, a pattern. It, like so, you know, if I if I look at the, you know, the cloud in the sky and, right, I see some ear things that look like ears and, you know, it looks like a bunny or something or that's a bad example. But the the point is pattern, it requires not just looking at the individual blades of grass, but you have to zoom out and look at the trees, look at the forest. You have to look at the entire holistic landscape in order to see the pattern.

So a lot of times if you're zoomed too much into the individual scene, you're gonna miss out on the pattern. And, with that, you know, how can you know for sure that you're seeing a pattern? Because this is an epistemological problem. And, there's a little bit of a mystery there, right? Because some people might hallucinate patterns, other people will be blind to the patterns.

But, even now as we speak, I'm thinking when the wise men saw the star when Christ was born, when they recognized it, it's not like the star projected text in the sky that was, like, clear instructions. You know, somehow, they were already tracing a pattern. They were anticipating a pattern. And so then you see the the the star that guides you to the Messiah. And it's and and, you know, there's a little bit of a leap of faith.

You could follow this North Star and maybe maybe there's nothing on the other side. But when you really are expecting and and connecting the dots through pattern, through intelligence, you start seeing things. And so when we dive into pattern recognition here, specifically, we could talk about the papacy. There's other patterns in the Bible as well. Just to lay this foundational idea, the big difference between Catholics and Protestants is Catholics will recognize certain patterns throughout entire salvation history, whereas Protestants will refuse to look at those or they'll accuse the Catholics of hallucinating.

They'll say, Catholics, you're reading too much into it. You know? It's it's kinda like it's kinda like in political realm. Right? You have, like, the conspiracy, like, connecting the dots, and and you see how there's all this, like, crime and stuff going on.

And then you have the other person who refuses to see the conspiracy and they just say, you're just seeing things. And, you know, it's it's kind of funny, but because obviously all the conspiracies have proven to be true, you know, more often than not lately. So it's really the same dilemma. You wanna try to show somebody the pattern. They still might not see it, and it is what it is.

But what we'll do our best is just to show the patterns of the Bible.

Catholic Frequency: Again, we're talking about a thread that Drago posted a couple of days ago, that starts off Jesus is the head of the church. We don't need a pope, and sorta sorta talking about the Protestant view. When they look at the Catholic church, they see a lot of extra stuff they don't think is necessary or even biblical, and and a lot of times they think it's unbiblical, and we've just made up a bunch of stuff and made up a bunch of traditions, you know, just for kicks, and they don't have what what Drago was talking about, the ability to sorta to really see or to understand history going back and understand this stuff from the beginning. Protestant history really begins, you know, five hundred or so so years ago. I wanted to sort of quote you one of these posts, Drago.

This is the second post in this thread you did. The incarnation wasn't abstract. The word became flesh, touchable, hearable, followable. God didn't save us from a distance. He made himself visible.

Expand on that.

Drago: Yeah. So a lot of especially the Catholic, the shift in perspective for me is and and from the Catholic approach is that, we see the things that happen, the things that God reveals, and then we further ask the questions, but what does that imply? What does that mean? Like, what's like the deeper layer? Because it's like so many layers of the onion.

Just when you think you fully understand it, God shows you an even deeper layer, and it's this perpetual, you know, contemplation of the mysteries of the faith. So with the incarnation and just speaking from my own experience as a protestant, certainly, you know, different protestants have different mindsets. It's kind of the nature of the game. When I was a Protestant, if I saw, the incarnation, it's like a fact. It's just like, okay, Jesus, God became man.

Like, yeah, cool. Like, that's pretty cool. You know, God, there he is, there's Jesus, you know. And that's it. You just kind of accept it as like a brute fact.

You don't really, like, wrestle with it and let it simmer into the soup of theology or whatever. So, but here, right, if we really contemplate it, it's like, well, what does this mean? Like, the incarnation, so God, Yahweh, I am I am, I am who I am, the invisible exists outside of time, just God who is so big we can't even, like, wrap our minds or thoughts, like, he's so much bigger than any attempt at perceiving him, and all of a sudden, he takes on a concrete, visible, physical, geographically constrained form flesh. I I human, in in Jesus Christ. So the invisible makes himself visible, you know, and woundable, vulnerable.

You can hear him. He speaks. You know, you can you can see. You can touch. You can touch his side.

You know? And and so that's a big deal. And and what does that signify? Well, again, it signifies that invisible becomes visible, accessible to our senses, to the physical realm, the physical realm, because, you know and and we can get into the patterns here, but, God created a physical world. He created, you know, flesh and blood.

This is how he revealed himself. And so the incarnation most obviously kind of connects the mysteries of the spiritual and the physical. But, yeah, let let me get to the main thrust here as far as is there a pattern in the Bible of visible signs, visible leaders, especially connected to the covenant? Or is everything just kind of invisible? Well, I think very clearly if we look at, let's say, the four covenantal examples of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David.

What what when he God made a covenant with Noah, what is the visible manifestation of the covenant? It's the ark. There's an ark, right? And there's there's a flood, and there's a visible ark, and you participate. You get in the ark.

You can see the ark. The ark is a symbol of the salvation. That that's there. With Abraham, okay, God makes Abraham a promise, a covenant, you know, ruler of nations, descendants, the inheritance. Okay, that's great, but it's not just like a invisible promise where they had some conversation.

Visible sign of the covenant, which is the circumcision. So you could you could distinguish the the Israelite people from, from the rest, and you can see the covenant. With Moses, right, you know, leaving aside the whole journey of crossing through the Red Sea, the wilderness. When the covenant is made with the Mosaic Law, you have the physically, you have the 10 commandments. You have a tabernacle that gets built.

You have a priesthood. You have the sacrifice economy. Visible signs. There's visible leaders. If you're an Israelite, you weren't, like, alone in the desert closing your eyes, doing this mystical spiritual thing.

In isolation from the physical, No. You you were fully engaged in the physical senses, united with the spiritual, the mystical, and you were not confused. You knew who the leader was. You had Moses right there. You had the prophets.

You have the priests. You have the temples. You have a very visible, indisputable structure. This is the pattern we see in the Bible. And then the Davidic covenant, the Davidic king.

Okay, obviously, you know, Israel in its glory. There's a throne, there's a kingship, there's a dynasty, there's a presence. It's not just a vague idea, it's not a vague philosophy that exists in our minds, but there's always visible signs, there's visible leaders that accompanies the covenant. And so we see very clearly in the Old Testament, anyone would have to agree with what I've just said. There's a pattern of visible signs, visible leadership in all connected to the covenant.

So then the question is, well, what happens in the New Testament? And, again, we the main thing in the New Testament is the incarnation where, once again, the ultimate visibility, God who has been somewhat hidden, reveals himself in the incarnation to Jesus Christ. It doesn't get more visible than that. And so then it's like, okay. Jesus Christ, what does he do?

Does he create a visible church with the visible apostles that he chooses and the successors, or does Jesus just create an invisible thing? You know, we have a pattern of visible signs, visible things, and either Jesus breaks the pattern and, and all of a sudden, we're gonna be an invisible people and that's it. Or I would argue, if we're gonna follow the pattern recognition, we continue to have the visible signs and the visible leadership. And, obviously, there's more evidence for that, but that's kind of the the big picture idea here of of this space.

Catholic Frequency: I wanted to ask you because when you posted, you posted that, that was one of, I think, the third or fourth tweet in this thread. These these patterns you mentioned, Noah and the ark, Abraham and circumcision, David and the throne. You you said read these again very slowly. I've never seen you put something like that in a thread. Why did you think it was sort of important for people to to read it again?

Drago: Well, yeah. When I wrote that because I did four bullet points. Right? Noah, Abraham, Moses, David. And, you know, it's very summary fashion.

Like, each one of those things could be its own separate post. It could be its own thread even. And so in lieu of expounding upon that, I'm just suggesting the reader really simmer with that. Like, really, like, hear what I'm saying. Like, when you when you see Noah in the ark, right, are we talking about invisible things or visible things?

Now, there's there's an invisible reality that is connected to the visible and that's how we also understand the sacraments, right? The sacraments are the visible signs and the things that connect and reveal the invisible. But to answer your question again, yeah, I mean, each one of those things deserves pondering. We we shouldn't just gloss over this. We should really try to imagine what it's like to be alive if I was around Noah, if I was around Abraham, the patriarchs, if I was around Moses, what would my understanding be of the visible things versus the invisible things, and how exactly does God reveal himself through the people of God in each covenant?

Catholic Frequency: So God is governing his people through tangible means, structures, signs, and people. And you say not because he needs to do it that way, but we need him to. We need that. Why? Why do we need, like, the tangible?

Drago: Yeah. You know, it's right. It's like, as well, why do we need it? Because, right, he created these senses in us. God created us with physical senses.

Now even I at the very beginning, right, we used our senses to we we wanted to eat the fruits, which, whoops, we misused our senses. But then even, you know, we wanted to do sacrifice. All of the pagans, you know, the Egyptian, the Canaanites, they started the the sacrificial worship. So then even when the Israelites when we when we when we escaped, Egypt and the Red Sea, we didn't have the sacrifices right away, but the people had a hunger. They needed the physical, and so God then gave them the sacrificial economy so that they could fulfill that desire.

So God has always given us what we need, and and he created us this way. So he created us with these needs. Now, ironically, you know, when as a Protestant or maybe even from more Gnostic dispositions, we would have to see it the opposite. We would have to say that God created us with these physical senses that serve as obstacles for us to overcome, that, anything from our physical senses is just the flesh and the flesh must be overcome. And, you know, but but I think that's an over extension of the concept of the flesh.

The flesh obviously is a sinful nature. It's the triple concupiscence. It's not our physical flesh and blood experience because, again, God created us with physical matter. He didn't create us as floating, bodiless angel beings. And so to why do we need this?

I would argue it's because that's exactly how God created us. Why do we need to eat? You know, why why do we need to sleep? It's it's part of how God created us. So he gives us these visible and physical things because we need them and he made us as such.

Catholic Frequency: So holy week is just a couple of weeks away. I think it's two weeks from this Thursday. We'll be commemorating the last supper. Commemorating that time when Jesus inaugurated a new covenant, and it's no accident, of course, that he does this on Passover. It's no accident.

There's there's a pattern here for people for people paying attention. Talk about talk about that a little bit. Jesus, when he inaugurates the new government, a covenant, not government, is going to do what he's always done, what god has always done in in terms of structure and and visibility and stuff.

Drago: Yeah. Right. So how else can we extend the biblical pattern recognition? Like you said, in the old testament, when we have the covenant with Moses, we escape the Red Sea. We we do Passover in mem in memory and in representation of the lamb sacrifice that was made.

And, the Jews continue to do that. And when they did that, it wasn't just remembering that, oh, our ancestors are freed from pharaoh, but rather the Jew would reenact the Passover as a participant. They are participating in that same original Passover sacrifice as they do it. And then this developed and evolved with traveling to the temple. Jews would have to travel to the temple for Passover and in anticipation as well for the new Moses, the new Moses because just like the old Moses saved the Israelites from Egypt, the new Moses was supposed to you know, supposed to usher in the new Jerusalem.

It's supposed to, you know, be a greater salvation of the people of God, connect heaven and earth, achieve a new, more profound exodus. So this is the pattern that was already established in in building. And so when when Jesus came, he, you know, especially in the transfiguration when he met with Moses and Elijah, and he said he was ushering in a new exodus. The word there, there's it's translated in different ways, but you properly understood it is the new Exodus. So Jesus is fulfilling the pattern of the new Exodus.

Well, the new Exodus requires a new Passover, requires a new manna from heaven, the new bread of life to sustain you in the wilderness, and the new bread of presence. And so when Jesus inaugurated the new covenant, well, a year before the last supper, one year before the last supper in John six during Passover, he, you know, gave the bread of life discourse that he is the manna from heaven, fulfillment of Passover. And then a year after that on Passover, we had the last supper where Jesus inaugurated the new covenant and, you know, his body, his blood. And then, you know, the the the crucifixion, the sacrifice of the lamb, you know, began. It was like creating the portal, the doorway to kind of walk through death and overcome.

On the other side, we get baptized into the cross, which is our way of walking through the Red Sea. And then, of course, you don't just sacrifice the lamb. You have to eat it and drink the blood. And so we engage in the Eucharist, and we see that especially on the road to Emmaus when Jesus is accompanying the, the the travelers and then he breaks bread with them. So that's, you know, an instance of the Eucharist.

And, and then Jesus assumes into heaven as the eternal high priest and continues to offer and present the the one holy sacrifice to the father. And so, yeah, that that is the pattern that Jesus fulfills. And if you don't view it in the way that I described, which is, you know, the Catholic or Orthodox way, you would have to be conceding that Jesus somehow is breaking the pattern and, abolishing the pattern as opposed to fulfilling the pattern.

Catholic Frequency: Well, we talked about the leaders in the in the previous covenants and, of course, when he, the famous famous, conversation with Jesus and Peter is Matthew sixteen eighteen. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church. And the gates of the Netherworld shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. He's appointing Peter not just as a disciple, which he already is a disciple, as the rock, giving him keys and the authority. And of course, as Catholics, we see this and read this, but everybody doesn't read this then interpret this the same way.

Drago: Yeah. There's there's a lot of patterns converging in Matthew 16. And and for those tuning in later here, again, the the the the difficulty with pattern recognition is that be able to see how the dots connect, and therefore you recognize the pattern. But somebody else could just simply not see it. And again, politically, that's like when you try to show somebody, hey, there's a pattern of corruption, there's a conspiracy, and and the person who doesn't wanna see it, they're just gonna say, well, I don't see it.

You're just delusional. Right? And so the same thing is with biblical pattern recognition. There are certain patterns and then some people will say, nah, I think you're reading too much into it. I don't think the pattern's there.

And so that that's gonna be the difficulty, but what are some of the patterns we see in Matthew 16? Well, there's the pattern of name changes. Name changes. So in the bible, when someone gets their name changed, usually a pretty big deal. In fact, it usually has, you know, covenantal implications.

You know, Abram becoming Abraham, was it Jacob becoming Israel? And there's many other examples of that. And in fact, I'll I'll even share the thread of the the biblical pattern of name changes in the jumbotron here if people wanna consult that. Let me click share here. So right.

So we we we have the pattern of name changes for one. Now, so I mentioned Abram to Abraham. We have Sarai to Sarah, you know, the princess, of the mother of the nations and kings. We have Jacob to Israel. We have Saul to Paul.

Now granted, that one wasn't necessarily God changing his name, you know, that would that had a different reason, but what's the point? Jesus, when when he when Peter declares the first doctrine of Christian faith, the most important doctrine of Christian faith, but what is that? It's that Jesus is the son of the living God, that Jesus is the son of God. Notice how it wasn't out of Jesus' lips that Jesus said that. Jesus used Peter to declare the first and most important Christian doctrine.

And so, you know, and and he said, well, flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you. My father in heaven revealed this to you. And then when when when Peter, the moment that

Catholic Frequency: I'm sorry to interrupt. What you said, I think, is so important. Repeat that again, that Jesus used Peter to declare or the church to declare say that again.

Drago: Yeah. No. A great point. So Jesus could have said all these things himself. He could have said, alright, guys.

Sit down. Listen to me. I am the son of god. This this is what's gonna happen here. And but but he's he's using humans.

He used Peter. He used Peter. He he he asked him. He said, who do you say that I am? Some people say I'm John the Baptist, Elijah, but who do you say that I am?

And then the father gave Peter the answer, and Peter said, you are the son of God, son of the living God. And then, bam, Jesus in that moment does the name change. Right? Because name changes are a big deal. So it says it says, Simon, you are now Peter.

You're the rock I'm gonna build the church on. And so, okay, there's a big deal. There's a name change. The other patterns there are, well, they they were he told this story in front of a giant cliff, a giant rock where where there's a, a big temple on top of it. It says, Sarah Philippi.

So literally, imagine what in the backdrop, there's a giant rock, and then Jesus renames Peter and says, you're the rock. Yeah. You see that cliff over there? That's you. I'm building you see how there's a pagan temple on top of that cliff?

Yeah. I'm building my church on you. You're the cliff. So, we're flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you. And in case you really don't understand, here's the keys to the kingdom of heaven, which is also a pattern fulfillment of the Old Testament with Joseph who had the keys, you know, the the the prime minister of pharaoh.

If you remember, pharaoh entrusted Joseph. Joseph basically had the power of pharaoh. He wasn't pharaoh himself, but he could do that. You also had in Isaiah in the in the Davidic kingdom, the the concept of the prime minister with the keys. So Jesus says, alright, rock.

Alright, Peter. Here's the keys, and then here's the powers of binding and loosing. So if you were a Jew, and you can look this up in the Jewish encyclopedia, binding and loosing has to do with binding and loosing sinners. It has to do with doctrine. You can loosen the doctrine.

You can tighten the doctrine, but, I'm gonna give you The Rock. I'm I'm naming you The Rock. I changed your name. Here's the keys to the kingdom. Here's the powers of binding and loosing, and the gates of hell won't prevail against you.

So that's a lot of pattern recognition. But again, if you don't want to go with that narrative, you're just going to pretend like you don't see it. You just say, the keys, the binding, name change. You know, the funniest thing, and I'll I'll I'll throw it back to you, but the funniest thing is when some people say that Jesus is making a joke. That that that is, like, the funniest interpretation of the bible that I've heard, one of the funniest.

Some people say that when Jesus named Peter the Rock, he he's making a joke because Peter is unreliable, you know, because Peter denied Jesus. And Jesus decided to do, like, stand up comedy in Matthew 16. That's that's a pretty funny way to deny the pattern. I I I'll have to give it that. So, yeah.

So, anyway, Shannon, I don't know what you think about that one.

Catholic Frequency: Wow. There's so many nuggets in there. It's like, I just wanna re rewind the tape and play and play that back to soak that in. How you do just do this off the top of your head is incredible. Well, all you're kinda saying there, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that's the moment Peter's, like, becoming the first pope and and declaring the first dogma of the church.

And is that is that what you're saying?

Drago: That that's how I read it because it literally is Jesus the the the statement that Jesus is the son of God is arguably the most central dogma of Christianity, and and Jesus uses Peter to declare it. So I think he's setting a clear precedent there.

Catholic Frequency: It's funny, you said some people see it, some people don't. Some people don't wanna see it. Because if you see it, it means something is required. Right? Submission to the church.

Drago: Yeah. Yeah. And and and for me to submit to the church, I wanna feel like I can trust the church. And there's a lot of baggage in growing up in America, especially, even though we love the concept of innocent until proven guilty in our court system, unfortunately, when people look at the Catholic church, they approach it with a guilty until proven innocent. The Catholic church is guilty until they can demonstrate their innocence to me because that's how they were raised.

That that's how that's the history books. That's the history that's told. And so, unfortunately, there's some trust issues that have to be overcome for anybody who's discerning the Catholic faith. And, you know, rightfully so, it's not I mean, the Catholic church has done some things, but properly understood, you can separate the wheat from the chaff, and you can see the uninterrupted thread, holy spirit guided element of the church, and you can distinguish that as separate from some of the other political and other corrupt influences. Sermon.

But to your point, we just talked about the biblical pattern, but if you see it, like you said, it requires assent and submission, but then that emotionally requires trust and not everyone's ready to do that trust, and that takes time.

Catholic Frequency: Well, there's a balance of of faith and reason. Right? We have god god wants us to use our intellect and our faith, which can take us further than our intellect. And you say something in another post that the church you know, because there's a church, because there's a visible church and there's a visible head, the church has a system of resolutions, like in the Council of Jerusalem. But Protestants, the system of the resolution is, well, Drago's mad at me, so he's gonna start the Church of Drago down on Third Street, and he's the pope of that church.

Right? Although although they don't call it that.

Drago: Yeah. We we have to look at what are the patterns that the bible establishes and what do they mean. So, yeah, you mentioned the council, and I'll talk about the council. But even even in Matthew 18, Jesus tells us how do you resolve conflicts. If you and a brother, sister in a fight and say, you sinned against me, and then they say, no, no, no, you're sinning against me.

You got it it wrong. No, no, no. I'm right. You're wrong. If you have that issue, you bring another person, another Christian.

You you have a group setting. If that doesn't resolve, you take them to the church. Well, the church is like a visible place. It's you you take them to the church to resolve the dispute. Right?

And and that's it. Like, that that's the third. There's the church, you have to find resolution in the church. Jesus doesn't say anything greater than that. The the the top level is you take them to the church.

So obviously, it's assumed that the church will be able to resolve it. You know, there's no, like, there's no backup plan to the church. Like, the church is the highest appeal. So Jesus makes that very clear in Matthew 18. He doesn't say, oh, you disagree with the church?

You don't like their verdict? Well, just go start your own community. Just go go down the street. Okay? Like, we see a very clear pattern that Jesus sets up, and we see that pattern in action.

We see it in Acts 15. Okay. So, yeah, the Holy Spirit is is present, but what does the Holy Spirit do? You know, a lot of times, a lot of Christians think that the Holy Spirit guarantees private interpretation infallibly. If that were the case, there's no point of having the Council of Jerusalem.

In Acts 15, you had believers who were confused. We said, well, how do we integrate the Mosaic Law? Our ancestors, the people of God, they followed the Mosaic Law. It's not clear. Jesus didn't really talk about the Mosaic Law.

What do we do here? Do we do we need to, you know, avoid pork? Do we have to get circumcised? Like, what what do we do here? What do we do here?

And what didn't happen is that the holy spirit democratically illuminated the minds of all believers in some, like, unified vision where they all saw that, you know, you don't have to keep the Mosaic Law. You don't have to get circumcised. You know, that's not what happened. Right? They had a hierarchical a visible meeting of the leaders, the apostolic authority, and, you know, Peter was the one who declared the truth, if you look at, you know, an access that they were all discussing, and then everyone became silent, and Peter spoke.

Okay? So Peter spoke and declared the truth and then James affirmed it, right? So Peter spoke and then James elaborated saying, yeah, this, that, this makes sense. Alright. And so we see the visible church establishing the doctrine, and then immediately after the council, towards the end of chapter 15 in Acts, you see the people, the layperson, they receive it.

They hear the apostles proclaim it, and they say, awesome. I accept it as if it's the word of God. There was no apostle saying, well, let me decide for myself. I'm not sure if that agrees with my interpretation of the scriptures. I don't know about that.

You know, let me start my own community. We don't see that pattern in the bible. So if we're gonna be biblical, let's follow the patterns that are in the Bible. Let's do biblical pattern recognition.

Catholic Frequency: Why is that so hard for so many Christians?

Drago: I I think it just goes back to the inheritance of, you know, Catholic Church is bad. It's the guilt, the guilty until proven innocent, you know, and we inherit. The thing is, like, we grow up in a community faith. We have our parents. Maybe our parents had a certain Christian faith.

Maybe it's our friends. Maybe someone invited us to church. Different journey of encountering the gospel. And so if we encounter the gospel through a non Catholic lens, it's gonna come with some stigma, and we just kind of accepted it without without questioning it because that's how our pastor, that's how our mentor, the people we trusted presented it to us. And so, you know, there's a lot to entangle and let's face it, Protestants have done a way better job at evangelizing at least in the last fifty, sixty years.

And, you know, the Catholics have been getting it together in the last ten years, I'd say. And, you know, there's been a lot of great work being done. But, you know, hats off to the Protestants for controlling the narrative and and really kind of having the initiative to frame the discussion because that that's really what's been the big influence.

Catholic Frequency: So Catholics recognize this pattern of a visible leader. What do you say about because there's a lot of Catholics, quote, Catholics, people that say I'm a practicing Catholic, and yet they don't listen to the church on, you know, things like contraception and marriage and and a variety of things. Talk just talk about that a little bit, that it's how do you say you're something when you're not actually submitting to the authority?

Drago: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, like, since I'm not a cradle Catholic, I don't have that mindset. As a Protestant, when I was discerning the Catholic church, it was kind of obvious for me that if I'm gonna buy into the system, you kinda have to buy into the whole thing. You know, Catholicism is not a pick and choose a la carte menu of of the buffet. That's just protestantism.

Yeah. That's just like, if I get to pick and choose each belief on the menu, you know, that that that's protestantism. So, it is silly when Catholics, think that they can choose to disagree with the church because unwittingly, that well, that that's just Protestantism. And so I I don't if you're a practicing Catholic, quote, unquote, well, to practice submission, I mean, that's kinda like yeah. I'm pretty sure when you get confirmed in the Catholic church, you kinda have to, like that's part of the the thing that you have to say, you submit to the church.

So, yeah, I mean, that's just the catechesis issue. That's just people who haven't been taught or formed properly. There it's it's okay to say, Hey, I don't understand this. Hey, emotionally, I'm struggling with this teaching. Sure.

But, your will, you know, you have to follow the church, like and eventually, the holy spirit will illuminate and show you the truth. So at first, you might not understand the sexual ethics. What's up with contraception? Why do I have to do this? You know?

But, as you understand as you submit, God gives you the grace, and then it becomes so obvious. You're like, oh my gosh. Of course contraception is bad. It's just night and day. But it's because our sin gets in the way sometimes, our concupiscence, teachings.

But, once you accept and and live and walk the way of Christ and keep his commandments, the more we do that, the more clear, the clearer things become. And then it just becomes obvious. The the the the gift of faith, the infused virtue of faith gets fed and nourished, and we see even more clearly with, like, closer to twenty twenty vision. Whereas before, like, yeah, the light's on, but it's a little fuzzy. You know, at least it's not dark.

I'm not running into the wall and the furniture, but, like, you know, it's still a little blurry, but the the the deeper we grow in the spiritual life, the more twenty twenty things become, and we can perceive truth directly.

Catholic Frequency: Here's something that'll be a a flashback for you, Drago. So everybody that submits to the church that's a convert that comes into the church, during the Easter vigil, there's something called the rite of reception. So actually I'm actually preparing for this because I'm the master of ceremonies at my church this year for the for the Triduum. And so moments before someone is and so remember, you have several groups of people that come into the church. You have people who have never been baptized, and those are true catechumens.

Right? They're they're nothing. They're not Christian. But then you have people that were baptized, let's say, at the Methodist church or wherever, if they're validly baptized in the Trinitarian formula, that the church recognizes that baptism. And so because because you're Catholic, first of all, by your baptism, so that's why the people that aren't Christian, they get baptized at the Easter Vigil, don't have to do the rite of reception, but the people who were baptized somewhere else, we recognize that.

But they have to say these words, I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God. After having recognized the patterns and everything else they learned through, going through the OCIA process, they they have this this submission to Peter basically. Right, Drago?

Drago: Yeah. I remember when I said that as a convert. Like, I I didn't have it all figured out, but, you know, I I tested the church enough, and every time I tried to refute the church, I fell back on my butt. And so they had, like, such a winning streak against me. The the church had an undefeated winning streak against me trying to take it down.

And so even when I was getting confirmed, even though I knew there were still some questions I hadn't answered or explored, I'm like, alright. Like, whatever. I I submit to the church because they they're undefeated so far, and, I'm just gonna assume. In the same way that I know Jesus is undefeated in his goodness, Jesus is undefeated in his grace and mercy towards me, I can trust that Jesus is gonna show up tomorrow and the day after that, even though I can't prove it. I can also trust the church by the same way because the church is Christ.

It's the body of Christ. It's the bride of Christ. And, yeah, absolutely. So we we do say that, and, yeah, that I I appreciate you getting that language because it's a powerful language.

Catholic Frequency: Later on in this thread that you did on on March 28, you say that in every age so so Jesus didn't just appoint Peter, but through Peter continues to appoint other apostles. In every age, he appoints visible shepherds. And so that means we all have a shepherd in our diocese. Right? The local bishop is our shepherd.

Drago: Yes. Right. It's a shepherd of shepherds and the pope being, like, the chief the chief among the shepherds. Right? The you know, he is a bishop, but also he's, like, the the bishop with, you know, on top.

And and then if we I mean, not to diverge into Orthodoxy versus Catholicism too much, but even then, it's like we see the typology of, like, the monarchy system. We see a triangulation of, you know, centralization. And so, you know, what's more consistent with that pattern? Is it the papacy, or is it the the decentralized bishops? And so, yeah, there's always a subsidiarity.

There's, yes, there's the pair there's the priest of your parish, and the that priest is the shepherd of the flock. There's the bishop of the diocese and he is, you know, shepherding the priests. And then there's the the the shepherd of the bishops. So, yeah, absolutely. This is just this is just part of that pattern.

Catholic Frequency: I like something in the thread you said. You said, look at this through the lens of delegation, not competition. God is the king of the old testament, but so is David. Like, David's not taking away anything from god. Peter's not taking away anything from Jesus.

It's the same thing, I think, when people Protestants look at the Virgin Mary, they think because the Catholics pay so much attention to Mary, somehow you're taking something away from him that's supposed to be him, and you're then turning it and pointing it to her. Just sort of expand on that too.

Drago: Yeah. Yeah. So this is in in in and I'm sorry if you're a Protestantist. I'm not trying to be, like, mean or anything. But if you like critical thinking and truth, like, I'm gonna use this terminology.

This is the fallacy of of the false dilemma and also a category error. I mean, this is you'll hear people say both and as opposed to either or. So right. David being king does not compete with the idea of God being king. There's a concept of instrumentality.

So there's the painter who paints the painting and there's the brushes that the painter uses. So God is the master painter. Make no mistake. God you know, all glory to God. God uses brushes and brush you know, the human beings are the brushes.

You know, God could just paint without a brush. Right? If God wanted to, he doesn't need a brush. But God chooses to use brushes, and and and that is the participation in the salvation. So even, you know, aside from the leadership, here's here's here's a very biblical concept I'll share that sounds shocking, but it's it's completely biblical.

I can give you verbatim verses from the scripture. Shannon, you save people. I save people. You know, I mean, God willing, right, if we're doing God's work. If you're listening here, maybe you have saved someone else's soul.

And now you might say, well, how can that be? Jesus is the one who saves. I can't save, you know, all all God's power. Well, correct. But what does the Bible say?

If you look in Jude, they say you need to go save others. If you look in in James five, he talks about, if you keep a brother from stumbling into sin, you have saved their soul. Paul talks about the spouses. You can save your spouse. You are saving.

But what does that mean if Jesus is the savior? Jesus is the primary cause of salvation. Jesus is the medicine. Jesus is the medicine, but you can be an instrument that administers the medicine. You can be a nurse or a doctor or somebody that gives the life saving medicine.

And when that person is healed, what saved him? The medicine or you? Well, the, you know, the medicine is the essential ingredient. Without the medicine, the person's a goner. But the fact that you participated in delivering the medicine, you are participating in this salvation economy.

And Mary is a participant instrumentally in in in providing Jesus Christ. Jesus is the primary cause of salvation. Mary is the instrumental cause. God is the king, the pope is instrumental representative, and so on and so forth. And so, this is not a we must not fall into the false dilemma thinking, but rather it's a complimentary participatory, synergistic thinking.

Catholic Frequency: Very similar to how protestants might look at confession. They'll say that "I ask God to forgive me. I don't go to some man." Right? They think it's like we just believe, you know, father Bill, you know, off on his own, you know, can can forgive us.

It's it's Jesus that's forgiving us. You know, the priest is there in persona, Christy. Well, we just did this pop up space. We just decided to do this maybe fifteen minutes before we actually did it. So I love talking to Drago because I always learn so much.

Before we go, Drago, tell us about holy habits.

Drago: Yeah. Thanks, Sean, and for popping this up. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a hunger for people to dive deeper in the spiritual life so that we're not stumbling into the same sins, confessing them, and then here we go, confessing the same thing again.

There's really a, a progress that's meant to happen in the spiritual life living in the grace of Christ. And, you know, there are three stages of that between a new believer and a saint. And so, you know, a lot of times as Catholics, we get stuck on stage one. And so what we're doing in Holy Habits is we're helping kind of clarify the path to sainthood or at least getting past that first stage for people overcoming the battle with habitual mortal sin and then other sins as well, building virtue. So if you're feeling that pull to seriously pursue that deepening in the spiritual life, please take a look at what we're doing at holy habits. We have the app on the app stores.