Skip to content
Sign in
Artwork for Avoiding Babylon
Religion & SpiritualityChristianityEducationComedy

Avoiding Babylon

Avoiding Babylon Crew

Avoiding Babylon was started during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these difficult and dark days, when most of us were isolated from family, friends, our parishes, and even the Sacraments themselves, this channel was started as a statement of standing against the tyrannical mandates that many of us were living under. Since those early days, this channel has morphed into an amazing community of friends…no…more than friends…Christian brothers and sisters…who have grown in joy and charity. 


As we see it, our job here at Avoiding Babylon is to remind ourselves and those who enjoy the channel that being Catholic is a joyful and exciting experience. We seek true Catholic fraternity and eutrapelia with other Catholics who, like us, are doing their best to live out their vocation with the help of God’s Grace.  Above all, we try to bring humor and joy to the craziness of this fallen world, for as Hillaire Belloc has famously said:


“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,

There’s always laughter and good red wine.

At least I’ve always found it so.

Benedicamus Domino!”

Play
Open in
  • 40 episodes
  • a few times a week
  • Avg 1 hr 10 min
  • English

Support the show

Goes straight to the publisher. podnod takes nothing.

Episodes 40

NewestOldestLongest
All20Unplayed20In progress0Played0
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
  • Friday · 1 hr

    Christ Is King, Never Vivek: The Speech That Aged Perfectly

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A packed auditorium, a national candidate, and one question that made the whole room squirm: when politicians say “God,” who do they mean? We sit down with Alex (American Reform), now writing with Integrity Magazine, to break down the viral Charlie Kirk tour clip where he confronts Vivek Ramaswamy on faith, public language, and the temptation to hide behind safe, generic spirituality. The moment is bigger than one Q and A. It’s a window into how American civil religion works, why audiences reward vagueness, and how “Christian values” can become a substitute for actually naming Jesus Christ. From there we zoom out to the deeper framework: the founding story, Thomas Jefferson, and why deism and religious indifferentism still shape modern conservative politics. We talk about the Jefferson Bible, the way founders get treated like secular saints, and why Catholics who care about political theology can’t ignore the moral assumptions baked into the system. If your instincts tell you something feels off when faith gets reduced to a campaign aesthetic, we put real words and examples to that feeling. We also wrestle with the practical question everyone dreads at election time: what do you do when the choices are bad? We discuss the “lesser of two evils” argument, principled abstention, and how voting blocs actually gain leverage when parties stop taking them for granted. Along the way we touch on libertarian framing around culture issues and why the “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone” standard can’t carry a society. Follow Alex’s work at Integrity Magazine and the Journal of American Reform, then stick with us on Locals for the extended aftershow. Subscribe, share this with a friend who argues politics like theology doesn’t matter, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • Wednesday · 44 min

    Belloc Was Right: Europe Must Return to the Faith or Die

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! France is burning on your timeline and it’s hard to look away, not because it’s “foreign news,” but because it feels like a preview. We bring on Adrian from Sips with Sarah to talk through the France riots, the copycat unrest spreading across Europe, and the sickening vulnerability of churches, cathedrals, and historic landmarks when the state hesitates and mobs realize there’s no consequence. We keep coming back to a concrete question: what does real, non-vigilante resistance look like when sacred places and public order are on the line? From there, we get into the bigger drivers people don’t want to name: European immigration policy, the collapse of assimilation expectations, and a cultural formation pipeline that can teach both natives and newcomers to despise the very place they live. We also unpack why so many officials seem frozen, including the idea that the post-war moral framework treats “racism” as the ultimate heresy, making leaders qualify everything while cities burn. Adrian adds a Catholic lens, including what older Catholic teaching says about borders, obligations to the common good, and the duty to respect a nation’s religious heritage. The conversation doesn’t stay purely political. We talk about why watching formerly Catholic countries drift from their roots feels like a spiritual wound, what the Church’s leadership gets wrong when it defaults to dialogue alone, and whether any recovery requires something like a Nineveh-level return to God. If you care about Europe, Christianity, mass migration, assimilation, and the future of Western civilization, this one will challenge you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your take: are you hopeful or bracing for worse? Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • October 16 · 55 min

    Race War & False Religion: What's Really Destroying America

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! Your feed wants you furious, but your soul can’t live there. We start by unpacking why a recent guest conversation sparked such a split reaction, and why we still think friendship, charity, and real dialogue matter even when we strongly disagree. The internet trains us to be adversarial on reflex, but we’re trying to keep a Catholic framework: speak honestly, avoid performative dunking, and remember there’s a real person on the other side of the take. From theology we move straight into the interior battle: what happens when fear turns into scrupulosity and despair. We talk about hell, how different saints describe judgment, and why obsessing over the harshest interpretations without Mass, confession, and grace can wreck your spiritual health. Along the way we share a powerful Marian intervention story tied to the rosary, suffering in the NICU, and a slow conversion that comes through patience, devotion to Our Lady, and the beauty of the Latin Mass. Then we hit the cultural flashpoints that tempt people to lose their souls: immigration policy and planned resettlement, the pain of walking into a familiar place and feeling like a stranger, and the danger of letting justified anger harden into disgust. We also talk about modern spectacle: phones ruining presence, social media turning everything into content, and why livestreaming executions crosses a line by making justice feel like entertainment. Finally, we dig into the Noahide laws controversy, Ben Shapiro’s rhetoric, and why Christians should be clear-eyed about theological conflict instead of sleepwalking through influencer politics. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who’s sick of rage bait, and leave a review that tells us where you think righteous anger ends and spiritual danger begins. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • October 14 · 1 hr 23 min

    Monitoring the Situation: Aliens, AI, and What Comes Next

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! “Non-human intelligence.” “Non-human biologics.” “Crypto-terrestrials.” If UAPs are simply aliens from another planet, why does the public language keep getting fuzzier instead of clearer? We take that question seriously and use it as a map through the UFO and UAP conversation, from congressional testimony to whistleblower interviews, and we ask what the wording is trying to include, or avoid. Then we follow the other thread that keeps showing up alongside UAPs: AI. Drawing on Diana Pasulka’s way of watching belief form in real time, we talk about why AI and “alien” narratives so often intertwine, and why the most unsettling part might be spiritual rather than sci-fi. When AI becomes the “god that answers,” always available, always confident, always responsive, discernment can get blurry fast. We connect that to reenchantment, the return of pagan frameworks, and the modern struggle to even name the weird without flattening it into superstition or PR. We also dig into the latest AI doom reporting, catastrophic cybersecurity predictions, and why regulation talk can double as competitive strategy. That opens into TESCREAL, effective altruism, longtermism, transhumanism, and the Frankenstein logic of “we have to build it because someone will.” Along the way, we get practical about how we actually use AI tools for podcast prep, outlines, clips, and posting, without pretending the machine is the author. If this conversation hit a nerve, subscribe, share it with a friend who loves UAPs or AI, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • October 9 · 1 hr 12 min

    Mass Immigration & the End of America

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! Something feels off when the rules look flexible for everyone except the people who grew up here. We follow that feeling straight into the most charged corners of immigration policy: H1B visas, workplace gatekeeping, housing access, and even who ends up staffing hospitals. Along the way we push back on the comforting slogan that “America is an idea” and argue that national identity, shared culture, and assimilation are the real center of the conflict. We break down allegations we keep hearing from listeners and seeing firsthand: managers hiring only within their own networks, visa dependency that keeps workers silent, and the sense that fraud is tolerated until it becomes impossible to hide. Then we zoom in on North Texas examples like Frisco and Plano, where rapid demographic change and housing competition turn politics into something local and personal. When people believe apartments and opportunities circulate through closed channels, “affordability” becomes a question of enforcement and fairness, not just interest rates. Healthcare takes the pressure to a new level as we react to reporting about residency programs filled overwhelmingly by foreign-trained doctors and what that does to trust, quality control, and accountability. We also get into the political theater around it all: how scandals suddenly surface near elections, who gets scapegoated, and why we think the real story is the system that incentivizes it. If you care about immigration reform, assimilation, national identity, and how policy choices hit jobs and housing in real life, hit play. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave us a review with the biggest question you want answered next. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • October 7 · 1 hr 4 min

    Woman Sets Internet at War Over a Tweet About Her Boomer Parents

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A single text about a grandma refusing to babysit shouldn’t break the internet, but it did, and we could not let it go. We read the viral “boomer mom” childcare thread line by line and ask the uncomfortable questions: when does family help become entitlement, what does gratitude actually look like, and why does “I need a reliable backup plan” hit such a nerve for grandparents who feel like they already did their time raising kids? From there, we zoom out into the bigger generational fight. We talk about baby boomers and millennials without pretending it’s simple, including how post-war culture, propaganda, the sexual revolution, and family trauma shaped the way people parent. We also get practical about discipline, the “fun grandma” role, the resentment that builds when one parent becomes the constant disciplinarian, and the difference between real safety boundaries and trendy no-contact culture. Then we pivot into money and systems: Social Security, fixed income fears, taxing younger workers, inflation, national debt, and why so many people feel like the whole economy is held together with duct tape. We also break down inheritance realities like capital gains exposure and why trusts matter, because losing a family home to an unexpected tax bill is not theoretical. Finally, we give a grim true-crime update and debate the death penalty from a Catholic lens: justice, deterrence, and whether swift punishment can be a severe kind of mercy that forces repentance instead of decades of denial. Listen, share it with someone who has strong opinions about boomers, and leave a review if you want more episodes like this. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • October 2 · 1 hr 2 min

    She Survived Her Execution: Christa Pike & The Death Penalty Debate

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A lethal injection that allegedly didn’t do its one job sets the tone for a wild conversation: witness accounts of strange sounds in the chamber, headlines about an all-women execution team, and the feeling that the public is being handed a story engineered to trigger a specific reaction. We sort through what’s being claimed, what feels inconsistent, and why “humane” capital punishment can still look brutal when the process goes off the rails. Then we zoom out to the bigger issue underneath it all: narrative control. When the same medicalized language can be sold as torture in a death penalty case but mercy in euthanasia, it forces a hard question about moral consistency and institutional trust. From there we get into how social media algorithms reward outrage, how selective reporting can inflame men versus women hostility, and why parenting in 2026 means having honest, awkward conversations with your kids before the internet does it for you. The back half turns to AI ethics and AI safety, including reports of companies pushing “AI personhood” and trying to influence religious leaders and public language. We also talk practical AI adoption at work, what tools like Claude can actually do, where they still fail, and why hallucinated citations and fake confidence are not small problems. If you care about capital punishment, media manipulation, parenting, or the future of artificial intelligence, hit play, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave us a review with your take on what’s real and what’s performance. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 30 · 41 min

    The Wages of Sin: How Sin Destroyed Caleb Flynn's Life

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A married pastor. A 20-year-old singer on the worship team. A secret relationship that stops being “just an affair” and turns into something darker, uglier, and catastrophically permanent. We break down how this case unfolds, why the text messages matter so much, and how two people can talk themselves into the kind of evil they’d never admit to in public, all while leaving a digital trail that’s basically a confession. We also wrestle with the parts people love to ignore: motive and consequences. When divorce threatens a reputation, a job, money, and the future someone feels entitled to, the temptation is to “solve” the problem instead of facing it. We talk about why the intruder story is so common, why it almost never works, and why “he seems remorseful” often translates to “he’s devastated he got caught.” Along the way, we pull out the bigger lesson about temptation, desensitization, and why real accountability and boundaries matter long before anything crosses a line. Then we change gears into culture and theology, reacting to a women’s conference clip that sets off alarms for us, plus broader frustration with how certain talking points spread across generations. We close with a thought-provoking segment sparked by a clip describing Judaism as a “worldly religion” and our Christian argument for what it means that God chooses to dwell with His people, not in a building. If you got value from this conversation, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it. What part of the story hit you hardest, the texts, the motive, or the aftermath? Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 25 · 1 hr

    Jeremy Boreing Is Wrong About Integralism and the American Founding

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! America doesn’t have a “neutral” public square, it has a creed it rarely names. We take on the rising debate over Catholic integralism by reacting to Jeremy Boreing’s interview with a Catholic academic and then pulling the thread all the way back through Catholic social teaching, church and state history, and the modern liberal order that most of us were taught to treat as inevitable. We start by defining liberalism in plain terms, not as a generic insult, but as a set of ideas with real consequences: religious liberalism that separates civil society from the Church, political liberalism that grounds authority in popular consent, and economic liberalism that elevates individual autonomy in markets. From there, integralism becomes easier to understand as a competing vision of the common good, where the state is not a “theology-free zone” and where spiritual ends outrank temporal ones without collapsing into theocracy. We also tackle the hard part Catholics keep circling: Vatican II and religious liberty. We talk through why Dignitatis Humanae is invoked as a conversation-stopper, why older papal condemnations like Quanta Cura still matter to many Catholics, and what it means when people read everything through a conciliar lens. Then we test popular claims about Spain, Ireland, and Quebec by looking at the timing of religious decline, the role of Catholic education, and the way culture shifts can break practice faster than any single policy. If you care about Catholic integralism, post-liberalism, Americanism, or the future of Catholic institutions, this is a sharp, source-driven conversation that refuses easy slogans. Subscribe, share this with a friend who disagrees, and leave a review with your best question: can a liberal state ever be truly neutral? Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 23 · 55 min

    Did Jimmy Akin Just Defend the Golden Calf?

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A couple hundred bucks lost in Atlantic City turns into a surprisingly honest gut check: why do some temptations feel instantly disgusting, while others slowly become normal? From that cold open, we move into two listener stories that hit the opposite note: real momentum in Catholic life through community, courtship, conversion, and even a vocational step forward. It’s a reminder that small choices and daily habits can compound in either direction. Then we tackle the main spark for the night: a viral clip featuring Jimmy Akin and a question about the golden calf. Were the Israelites attempting to worship the one true God through an image, or was it a flat-out return to pagan idolatry? We don’t just react to the clip, we walk through why the framing matters, why “context” can still leave a bad argument intact, and how Catholic apologetics can drift when novelty starts replacing clarity. Along the way, we talk about Church messaging, interreligious dialogue, and how vague language can leave ordinary Catholics unsure about mission, conversion, and what the faith actually demands. We also widen the lens to modern pressures that shape the soul and the headlines: prescription stimulants and the fear of spiritual numbness, AI and cyber-panic narratives, and Canada’s MAID assisted dying program as a case study in the culture of death Pope John Paul II warned about. If you’re tired of recycled talking points and want an unfiltered conversation about doctrine, culture, and discernment, press play, then share this with a friend and leave a rating and review so more people can find the show. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 18 · 47 min

    60 Years of Nostra Aetate, Adderall, and Novus Ordo Mystics

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A single phrase can light the fuse on half the Catholic internet, and we’re watching it happen again. We start with the behind-the-scenes fallout in Catholic media as friendships fracture, platforms rebrand, and old “trad movement” alliances look shakier by the week. The bigger question we keep coming back to is what all this conflict does to regular Catholics trying to hold the faith without getting dragged into constant faction warfare. Then we dig into the real flashpoint: new talk around Nostra Aetate, Vatican II, and the claim that God’s covenant with the Jewish people is “irrevocable,” paired with the insistence that Christ is the one and only Redeemer. We wrestle with how Catholics should read that language, how Romans 11 gets invoked, and why unclear wording fuels suspicion, bad arguments, and endless online escalation. We also talk about the pressure-cooker created by modern rhetoric, where people fear labels more than they fear confusion, and where “interreligious dialogue” sometimes gets treated as a substitute for straightforward Catholic evangelization. One of the most powerful moments comes from a viral clip at a Novus Ordo Mass: a priest appears physically shaken, struggling with the chalice, and overwhelmed as he prays. We take it seriously as a reminder of Eucharistic faith, the weight of sin, and the danger of letting our hearts grow cold, especially when our first instinct is to sneer instead of to pray. If you care about Catholic theology, Catholic Jewish relations, Vatican II debates, and the future of online Catholic media, you’ll find plenty to wrestle with here. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who needs a calmer take, and leave a review with your biggest question from the conversation. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 16 · 1 hr 5 min

    Elliott Hulse: With Age Comes Wisdom – What I Wish I Knew in My 20s and 30s

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! Fear doesn’t always feel like fear. Sometimes it shows up as “being responsible,” “being prepared,” or “staying in control.” We sit down with Elliot Hulse to talk about the moment that illusion breaks, and what happens when God starts asking for more than your habits, your hustle, or your plans. Elliot walks us through his backstory: growing up Catholic, drifting after the sacraments, wrestling with identity, and going deep into philosophy and Eastern spirituality before finding his way back to Jesus through charismatic Protestantism. Then YouTube success hits hard, and so does the crash. What follows is one of the most concrete parts of the conversation: repentance that leads straight to confession, daily Mass, and a Catholic reversion that reshapes his marriage, his parenting, and his entire home. We also go into modern masculinity and the manosphere, why young men look online for the guidance they can’t find elsewhere, and how “red pill” insights can rot into rage when Christ is removed. From there we turn to the pandemic mindset, prepping, homesteading, and the spiritual trap of believing we can save ourselves. Elliot connects it all to Abandonment to Divine Providence and the daily practice of acting from love and peace instead of fear and mammon. If this conversation challenges you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review so more people can find it. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 11 · 50 min

    E. Michael Jones on Social Engineering and the Synagogue's Influence on Catholic Media

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A highway can change more than traffic, it can dissolve a community. We talk with Dr. E. Michael Jones about the argument behind *The Slaughter of Cities*: how urban renewal, redevelopment, and forced dispersion reshaped Catholic ethnic neighborhoods and quietly reduced their cultural and political influence. Along the way, we get specific about the mechanics, not just the slogans, including what archives revealed, why certain neighborhoods emptied out, and how “progress” can become a tool of social engineering. The conversation also turns to credibility and censorship: what happens when a controversial writer is removed from major platforms, and why citations and documentation matter more than ever. We dig into how information travels through Catholic media, how narratives get framed, and why funding, gatekeeping, and distribution channels can determine what the average listener even hears. Some of the claims raised are provocative and hotly disputed, so we constantly come back to a practical listener question: what can you verify, and where are the sources? We close by zooming out to demographic decline and mass migration in Europe, plus the deeper issue of institutional formation, from Catholic schools to public history. Whether you come for urban planning, Catholic culture, deplatforming, or media literacy, you’ll leave with a clearer sense of how power operates through infrastructure, publishing, and “respectable” messaging. If this episode challenges you, share it with someone who will actually argue the details, then subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the conversation. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 9 · 1 hr 4 min

    What Really Happened on 9/11? 25 Years Later We Examine The Evidence

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! The world before September 11 felt slower, smaller, and oddly harder to explain to anyone who didn’t live it. We’re not just talking about flip phones and dial-up, but the way information moved, the way rumors spread, and the way a single day could lock an entire country to the television like it was the only window to reality. We share where we were when the towers were hit, what we saw from New York, and what it felt like trying to reach the people we loved when networks went down and the city shut its doors. From there, we follow the aftershocks: the blackouts, the anthrax scares, the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, and the emotional stampede into the War on Terror. We also wrestle with why doubt persists for some people, including how footage replays, controversial TV clips, and long-running claims about timing and collapses keep resurfacing every 9/11 anniversary. Our goal is not to turn grief into entertainment, but to talk honestly about memory, media literacy, and why “trust the narrative” became such a loaded demand after a national trauma. We end by tracing the line from 9/11 to Iraq, “shock and awe,” and the political world we’re living in now, where suspicion is common and unity feels rare. If you care about September 11 history, World Trade Center remembrance, Building 7 debates, or how propaganda and polarization take root, this conversation will give you a lot to think about. Subscribe for more, share this with someone who remembers that day differently, and leave a review with the one detail you think the country still misunderstands. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 4 · 55 min

    A Lawyer Breaks Down the Lone Holdout in the Lindsay Clancy Trial

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! One juror. One note to the judge. One phrase that can blow up weeks of testimony: “refusing to follow the instructions.” We bring on our longtime friend Mark, a working attorney who lives in the world of jury trials, to help us sort out what’s actually happening inside the Lindsay Clancy trial and what the court can legally do next. We walk through how jury instructions function, what “reasonable doubt” is supposed to mean, and why it gets messy fast when real people bring their own definitions into the jury room. We also dig into the high-stakes choices that follow a deadlock: questioning a juror, seating an alternate, risking a mistrial, or setting up the case for appeal. Along the way, we talk about the practical reality that the public rarely sees: juries are persuadable, courtroom procedure matters, and a case that lives on social media doesn’t stay neatly inside the courthouse. From there we get into the insanity defense and why Massachusetts rules around burden of proof can change the entire shape of a verdict. We also tackle the fairness problem nobody can wish away, especially in a headline case: if jurors aren’t sequestered and they go home to phones, feeds, and opinions, how “untainted” can deliberations really be? Mark also shares real-world stories from municipal court and CPS work that show the moral weight behind legal systems, then we close with a clear breakdown of Fourth Amendment basics, probable cause, DWI checkpoints, drug-sniffing dogs, and why polygraphs don’t deserve the trust pop culture gives them. If you want clearer thinking about jury deliberations, reasonable doubt, and the insanity defense, subscribe, share this with a friend who’s following the trial, and leave us a review with your take on what the judge should do next. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • September 2 · 1 hr 10 min

    The FBI's SHOCKING Allegations Against Traditional Catholics

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A hung jury sounds like a procedural hiccup until you ask what it exposes about the whole system. We start with the Lindsay Clancy hung jury and the obvious elephant in the room: when a case is drenched in TikTok clips, podcast commentary, and public protest energy, how can a non-sequestered jury realistically stay “clean”? We talk through jury dynamics, why one holdout matters, and what a retrial, institutional sentence, or appeal could look like when the internet is effectively sitting in the jury box. Then we get into the argument everybody wants to shortcut: SSRIs, postpartum depression claims, and the temptation to turn tragedy into a blanket excuse. We’re not pretending medication and mental illness never matter, but we are worried about precedent and accountability in criminal law. If the standard becomes “the system did it,” what happens to future cases, especially cases involving child abuse where online fandoms can blur moral clarity into therapy-speak and sympathy campaigns? From there we pivot to institutions watching institutions: the Richmond FBI memo on “radical traditionalist Catholics,” the Latin Mass, “integralism,” and the wild framing that compares orthodox Catholic ideas to Islamist ideology. We react to the screenshots, talk about why insular communities attract scrutiny, and even contrast that with other tight-knit religious enclaves in New York. We close by teeing up the Deloney clip and the modern therapy trap where “counsel” can quietly plant suspicion and divorce inside a marriage. If you got something out of this, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a rating and review so more people can find the show. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • August 28 · 1 hr 1 min

    Wicked, Maleficent, and Lindsay Clancy: Satan's War on the Christian Conscience

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A jury room can’t fix a culture, but it can expose one. We wrestle with the Lindsay Clancy trial as closing arguments land and the internet picks its side, and we ask the uncomfortable question people keep dodging: what happens when “empathy” becomes a way to deny obvious evil? We talk through why verdict timing matters, why a hung jury is plausible, and why the details many viewers never saw still matter for truth, justice, and the victims who can’t speak. Then we zoom out to the bigger machine that shapes public conscience. We dig into how stipulated facts can make a trial clearer for jurors but murkier for everyone watching, especially in true crime TikTok culture where missing context becomes conspiracy fuel. From there we connect the dots to modern storytelling: Disney villain redemption arcs, the habit of blaming the male love interest, and even Frozen’s “no right, no wrong” message as a window into how moral imagination gets trained over years, not moments. We also get practical and personal about the pharmaceutical layer behind modern life. We discuss SSRIs, antidepressant side effects, withdrawal experiences, and why a society built on prescriptions feels brittle if the supply chain breaks. We touch Adderall and adult ADHD self-diagnosis, and we close with a real-world example of community boundaries through church discipline and family accountability. Subscribe for more long-form cultural analysis, share this with a friend who can argue in good faith, and leave a review with your take: where do you draw the line between compassion and excuse? Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • August 24 · 1 hr 32 min

    "Your Father Is the Devil" — Fr. Mawdsley on Knowing Your Real Enemy

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A book so controversial the author half jokes he may have to “press publish” live just to see how long it survives. We’re joined again by Father James Mawdsley to talk about Know Thy Enemy, the personal cost of writing it, and why certain questions Catholics were told to stop asking keep forcing their way back into view. We dig into how propaganda and education build the “frame” that decides what you’re allowed to notice. That takes us from post war narratives and Vatican era assumptions to today’s arguments about interfaith language, “Abrahamic” messaging, and what the Gospel actually says about spiritual fatherhood and spiritual adoption. Along the way, we connect the dots between ideas that sound religious and ideas that quietly replace religion. From there we get into the culture side: Teilhard de Chardin, Fulton Sheen, and the lure of progress talk that treats borders, traditions, and inherited identity as problems to be dissolved. We also discuss evolution in Catholic schools as a faith breaking domino, and why a purely political “universal brotherhood” cannot do the job of the New Covenant. The back half turns practical and personal: what to do when online accusations become a distraction campaign, how to stay charitable without going soft on truth, and why Father’s advice on mental health is blunt. He argues that regular confession, prayer, and real community often do more than therapy culture and pharmaceuticals for people trying to rebuild a stable interior life. If you want more long form Catholic conversation on Vatican II debates, interfaith dialogue, propaganda, national sovereignty, Catholic anthropology, and confession as therapy, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • August 21 · 46 min

    Is There Demonic Influence in Our Technology?

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! Nuclear weapons, IVF, AI, and the postwar story we’ve all been taught are not separate conversations, they’re one big argument about who (or what) shapes human history. We start with a raw look at how a “content drought” turns into algorithmic rage bait, especially around male-female dynamics and the true crime ecosystem. Then we pivot hard into a headline surrogate case that sounds heroic on the surface but feels, to us, like a glimpse into the contractual and moral nightmare built into modern surrogacy and IVF. From there, we dig into Tucker Carlson’s claim that nuclear weapons weren’t truly “created by people.” We don’t treat it like a cheap shock line. We ask what it means to say technology can be influenced by demonic forces through pride, rebellion, and the pursuit of forbidden knowledge. That takes us into Oppenheimer, the Trinity test, the occult flavored edges of early rocketry, and why 1947 keeps showing up when people talk about UFOs, UAP phenomena, and the modern age of secrets. We also read and react to JD Hall’s framing of Eric Metaxas and the postwar consensus as a kind of civil religion, where Allied victory becomes moral immunity and certain questions are treated as blasphemy. Along the way we preview upcoming shows, including our conversation with Father Maudsley (Know Thy Anime) and a planned 9-11 episode that separates memories of the day from the conspiracy theory rabbit holes. If any of this hits a nerve, share the episode with a friend who actually likes hard conversations, then subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s the one modern “official story” you no longer trust? Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
  • August 19 · 58 min

    Why Women Defend Murderous Moms and Immodest Girlfriends

    Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link! A mother kills three children and the internet immediately starts bargaining with reality. We dig into the Lindsay Clancy trial, the postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis claims surrounding it, and the unnerving trend of people avoiding plain language like “murder” while trying to relocate guilt onto doctors, medications, or even the husband. Yes, psychiatric medication harm is real. No, euphemisms don’t bring children justice. We try to hold both truths at once, without flinching. Joshua Charles and Mike Pantile join us for a wide ranging conversation that connects true crime headlines to everyday moral formation. We talk about SSRI stacking, withdrawal, intrusive thoughts, and why “mental health awareness” can become a permission slip instead of a warning label. We also react to public commentary from pro-life influencers, contrasting language that blurs responsibility with reactions that insist on accountability and consequences. Then we pivot to the viral modesty tweet that triggered a full blown backlash: the outrage wasn’t just about clothing, it was about whether a man is allowed to ask anything of a woman at all. That opens into fraternal correction, boundaries in courtship, standards in marriage, and the way social media trains all of us to chase validation instead of truth. If you care about family, faith, and sanity in modern relationships, this one will challenge you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who will disagree, and leave a review with your take: where do you draw the line between compassion and excuse? Support the show Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout! Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order! Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.avoidingbabylon.com Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

    • Transcript
    • Chapters
Showing 1–20 of 40 episodes