Two Become Family: Restoring Confidence in Catholic Marriage and Family life
Renzo and Monica share stories, advice, and encouragement for everyday Catholics navigating the human side of a faith-filled marriage. They both bring a voice of joyful solidarity from their experience living in the trenches with a growing family. Their honesty and wisdom offer hope to couples who want to find confidence in their vocation to marriage through a candid and faithful discussion.
Renzo and Monica Ortega are Catholic ministry leaders, podcast hosts, authors, and national speakers. Their latest title, Lovemaking: How to Talk about Sex with Your Spouse was published through Ave Maria Press. They host the popular marriage podcast Two Become Family and speak nationally for the St. John Paul II Foundation’s Together in Holiness conference series.
Their testimonies of faith, marriage, and parenting have been featured by the National Catholic Register, the Knights of Columbus, and Augustine Institute. They are coauthors of the children’s devotional Go to Joseph for Children, and Renzo is also the author of the men’s devotional Go to Joseph: 10 Day Preparation for Consecration to St. Joseph.
Two Become Family: Restoring Confidence in Catholic Marriage and Family life
What is Red Pill and the Manosphere and Why Catholics Should Care
In today's episode, we tackle a fairly unknown topic that is having an influence on a lot of young men. We talk about the origins of the red pill/manosphere community, why it's appealing, and how it's influence can negatively effect Catholic men who are honestly seeking to be good husbands and fathers. This made for an interesting discussion, let's jump in!
Videos we referenced
Lila Rose on Pints With Aquinas
Lila Rose and Ruslan
We were on EWTN
Life on the Rock Episode 1
Life on the Rock Episode 2
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You're listening to To Become Family, a podcast aimed at restoring confidence in marriage and family life. Welcome back to another episode of To Become Family. We're your host, ranzo and Monik Artega, and we waited, we didn't wait. We had a busy last six weeks and at the same time, we're trying to overachieve and make videos that will go on YouTube seen by tens and twenties worth of people. We still got to do it anyway. So basically, we had. So like, if you look back at our weeks right, we had our high school ministry, youth ministry, our winter retreat, then the weekend before that we had West Virginia.
Speaker 2:Yep, we spoke at a conference in West Virginia. Yeah, what happened before that. Before that, we were in Alabama to record for EWT.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and that was released. So both episodes have been released. I'll put them in the show notes if you can't get enough of us. Honestly, if you want to see what we look like, not like this. So if anybody's looking on YouTube, Dressed nicely. I have not given up, but like and I care so much about you, the listener, and the content we bring you. My hair has nothing to do with that, so I'm just like this is all you're getting.
Speaker 3:It's a little fluff yeah.
Speaker 1:Look at, I didn't show you since yesterday and like look at all this, it's come in. Okay, Well, that's. That's going to be the screen grab I get for the cover yeah. And then before that.
Speaker 2:March for life, and then before that seek, seek. Yeah, we've been all over for the last and we still have pre-K not our parish this coming weekend.
Speaker 1:We do, and then we have a couple of high school retreats coming up in March.
Speaker 2:Well, high school and middle school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is great and I love all of it. I don't, I don't. But you know, the Lord is calling us and I'm codependent. No, no, god's putting different work that we're, you know. He's putting things in our, in having us say yes, and I think they've been very fruitful, like we see good fruit coming out of those things that we're doing and also our family is doing well too. Right Cause that's usually like our litmus, litmus test. If we are overextending ourselves and the kids aren't doing well, then we would immediately just start saying no to things. Yeah, scale back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, but things are going well, so that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've enjoyed a lot of grandparent time lately.
Speaker 1:They have, and also we're also recording the last second, because we recorded an episode yesterday and the software that I'm recording on listen. I'm asking for a refund. You're about to lose my business, because if they don't know why, they can't get to the access to the video. So we're doing this again.
Speaker 2:Doing it again. Here we are, but hopefully it's better. Same topic ish, I think it.
Speaker 1:I think so. I think it. I hopefully it's better. See, there's a problem with this phone. This thing is that I shake. Yeah, I gotta stop shaking.
Speaker 2:I gotta stop touching things. Let's stand straight up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stand straight up.
Speaker 2:You talk with your hands and your arms, like it's not just hand gestures, it's like arm gestures. Very excited.
Speaker 1:You just did it. Oh, you're emitting me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was me being you, so the.
Speaker 1:so what we're going to talk about today is, I think, actually this this conversation will be will make a little more sense than it did yesterday.
Speaker 2:And you won't even know what it was like.
Speaker 1:No, I'm sure the images will come up, but I want to talk about so the whole conversation and you help me stay on track because you know what I want to talk about. The problem is that there's so much to so much of this topic to cover that I never I don't know where to start. I don't know what the best way to approach it. It's kind of like a huge hamburger. You're just like where do I, how do I hold this thing?
Speaker 2:How do I get all of it?
Speaker 1:All of it at the same time without, like making the last bite terrible. So we're going to talk about the red pill manosphere. Have you heard of that before? So we pulled our listeners. Did you get the final numbers for that poll? I'll pull it up Go percentage wise. So they don't know how many people don't listen to our polls.
Speaker 2:No, actually we got. We got a lot of responses, statistically so 66%.
Speaker 1:So Monica asked the question. Would you ask Cause it's not there?
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard of red pill slash manosphere?
Speaker 1:Manosphere. That's the real thing.
Speaker 2:And 66% said no. What yeah? 20% said yes, absolutely, and 14% were just there to find out the answer.
Speaker 1:Cool. So the manosphere, the best way that I could describe it. We were talking about this this morning.
Speaker 2:So we've talked about this quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Long, long time ago there was a thing called VH1 and it had a show called the pick up artist.
Speaker 2:And see, I don't know is this the place to start.
Speaker 1:So, there's a show called the pick up artist and I. It was like early 2000. So I was like a sixth to eighth grader watching this, which I shouldn't have been. Parental advisory not followed, so it was a so the show's called the pick up artist and it was a game show, not a game show. Yeah, it was a game show.
Speaker 3:It was a game reality show, but like they had to like.
Speaker 1:So you got the. This one guy called his name was mystery. He called himself mystery and he was a pickup artist and he had some of his buddies were like the. They had a their. Their goal was to train 12 people who?
Speaker 2:didn't know.
Speaker 1:Coaches. Yeah, so the other coach, 12 guys who didn't have any experience with women, who, like, were referred to themselves as nerds or geeks and couldn't pick up women on their own. They were single. They would then be coached by mystery and his crew on this VH1 show and then they would go out to bars with, like, secret cameras everywhere and their goal was to pick up women and, like, whoever did the best at the other night stayed and whoever did the worst would get voted off and like it was no-transcript.
Speaker 2:So well you, you, you defined it.
Speaker 1:I did it's. So there's a lot of strategies. So wait, so this is gonna make sense eventually, so stick with me. So so they're. They were called poos, pickup artist, pua Poos, and some of the strategies were were one of them's don't make faces. You make faces and you feel like you're making fun of this thing. This is a serious issue. I this will make sense in a while. I don't not soon. In a while It'll make sense. So, like some other their, their strategies were like work.
Speaker 1:One of them was called negging. So like back cannon compliments. Basically like, oh, the shirt looks good, you look really good in your shirt, did they have it in your size? Like something that like, I'm sorry, but like back cannon compliments. Because the idea that the pickup artist would say is that like if you, if you come at a Potential, a person you're trying to be involved with, and make them feel like you're constantly that you desire their attention, they're not gonna be want you, but if you make it seem like I'm too good for your attention, They'll cut like oh, yeah, right, like oh, he must be a high value, I'm gonna pursue him.
Speaker 1:Another one was called peacocking, which, basically, like you would, you would wear the most extravagant thing in the room. That just looks absolutely ridiculous, so that everyone's looking at you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then be like oh, he must be of high value because he's confident this crazy thing, so like mystery were where like, like, um, like just a big fur, like scarf and like a, like a hat, kind of like a fedora or sometimes like a bandana, like it was really weird and like they'd have names like mystery Matador, don't laugh like these are the things that they did. So so the point for bringing that up in VH1 and everything was that around that time, like there was a subculture being created on reddit and Other online forums of people that wanted to be trained by these pickup artists, and a lot of it were. A lot of them were men who who didn't have, who weren't very confident, didn't have a lot going in their lives and didn't have Like male mentors, didn't have girlfriends, didn't have great jobs and they just wanted to be able to be more than what they were. So they were, they were pursuing mentorship through these pickup artists of these Pua communities, and that that's like one aspect of the manasphere and what's involved into.
Speaker 1:Now, like what we what will like, what people will say online will call the manasphere or red pill is basically a place where a lot of these men who don't have a lot of direction have gained direction by following the advice of the influencers within the, within the manasphere, and their three primary sources of like sorry, not not their sources of Advice, but like the the main advice that they're getting within the manasphere is that they have to optimize their money, their muscle and their game. The faces you I could see, the face you're making, you're making fun of it, but so, like they have to optimize those three things money, muscle and game and by doing that, you become a high-value man. It might be coming a high-value man. You're gonna be able to get a lot of women and then eventually you'll be able to have your pick of whatever woman you want. And and that is the manasphere. Okay, any questions at this point?
Speaker 2:where did the Title red pill come from?
Speaker 1:oh, that's from the matrix, which I know you've seen plenty of times, so in the matrix.
Speaker 1:So they and like so people have heard the term of like you get red-pilled for a thing, so, but like in the matrix, there's a character named Neo who is living in a like virtual reality simulation. He's hooked like in reality. The aliens have taken over the world and I've hooked up all the humans to this virtual reality. And there's a character named Morpheus who meets Neo, who, because Neo, is supposed to be the person who saves everybody.
Speaker 1:Morpheus meets Neo and he explains them like you're actually hooked up to a machine. You have to like this is a real world. And he offers him the the chance to have a blue pill or a red pill. Blue pill is you forget everything and you go back to living life as normal in this virtual reality. Red pill is you you take the red pill and now you get to live in the real world, actual reality. You actually have to contend with the things of the real world. So when people like you see on YouTube, sometimes they'll say that they got red-pilled for a particular topic, it's like oh, they learn what it really means they've become like enlightened.
Speaker 1:Yes truth, right and but for like. This community, for the manasphere, and now it's also like been called the red pill community, is like a lot of men feel, like the Society as a whole, from like whenever, when 1960s until now, has been Over indoctrinated by feminism to the point that masculinity has been seen as like a bad word, a bad thing, and a lot of men have not been able to live out their masculinity the way they're supposed to. So the red pill community, outside of just trying to make men be good at having money, muscle and game, it's also been a way of like reclaiming strength and position of masculinity, so that men should not be ashamed to be men anymore, that they should be respected for being a man, and then that's a powerful thing, it's a good thing and Because of those messages it's attracting a lot of conservative Christians now too, because it's not just how can you be a High-value man, but it's also how can you combat feminism and be feel good about being a man. Yeah, instead of being ashamed for mansplaining, for example, or being ashamed for For having to stop showing and wanting to do hard things like. No, look you could you like?
Speaker 1:Part of this Manifest fear thing is like to turn that on a side, be like no, being a man it's good. Men with testosterone are good, and so now a lot of conservative Christians and this is the point we're bringing this up today. This took what this took 11 minutes, 12 minutes and we got to it. But the reason I thought it would be it's good to bring up is because that message now is attracting a lot of faithful Christians, but also a lot of faithful Catholics who are like yeah, society is against us, feminism is destroying our religion, is destroyed our culture. Because, like, then you hear a little bit of Tim Gordon and that too, saying how bad feminism is, and now a lot of young men are attracted to this red pill mentality and are learning things from these men.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these influencers, these influencers who are not Full of virtue, Mm-hmm, and are giving them very. They're not giving them a lot of good. I advice though it might sound empowering, it's actually I would argue that it's actually emasculating.
Speaker 2:Okay, but I think the appeal to it is that they've identified a problem, sure, and they are providing, like practical answers and like guidance and solutions to this problem, so that, I think, is where some of the Christians have have lashed onto some of their thinking and some of their strategies and things like that, like I don't think that they are really worried about their game necessarily.
Speaker 1:No, well, no, yes, I would argue. I would disagree because there's a lot of faithful young Catholic men who cannot find a faithful young Catholic woman and feel like I need to find a wife. I don't know how to talk to women, like the church has given me, like you know. I remember I thought I'm gonna go to the church and memorize my Baltimore Catechism Okay.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't help me. And like I cleaned my room, jordan Peterson, thank you Sorry, but like how do I get a wife, okay? So like then they go to Red Pill as like okay. Now, how do I have to make a lot of money? I have to work out all the time and I have to have good games, so like that, that's where the pickup artist comes in.
Speaker 2:Fair, yeah. So and I think that like, yeah, some of this mindset has started to infiltrate conservative Christians.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Because it's definitely a conservative leaning.
Speaker 2:The Red Pill community is a conservative leaning. Community of men, sure yeah.
Speaker 1:So in, and I think, because their goal was to combat feminism and that's kind of ended up being more left, sure.
Speaker 2:So, but I think it's. It starts to be a little dangerous when you, when those lines are getting blurred, like where where is that line of virtue versus like selfishness and self centeredness? And and you even said like it it sounds like it sounds Masculating, but it really is emasculating. Right and I think why do you say that?
Speaker 1:Oh, nobody talk about Aquinas. Okay, so yes.
Speaker 2:I love it when you talk, aquinas.
Speaker 1:No, I'm trying now and I have to back. I have to think.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:So no, so emasculating, so that like prevents you from being masculine and I forgot what the term is in the summa but like, basically passivity is what makes a man emasculated, because a man should be able to initiate, however, I think a lot so like emasculating to to a sense of like. So if a young man wants to ask a girl out and Jason ever says this like, then go ask her out and if she says no, she says no. But I think a lot of men are like they. Instead of going out and trying to get married and start a family, a lot of them now are focused on themselves and like self-improvement and getting a lot of having a huge career making, getting a lot of muscle and then having the perfect pickup artist game. So like they might. So one of the one of the things that the red pill community says is like they have to spin plates, meaning like, like. If you've ever seen like a or on stage like a magician would ever spin multiple plates at
Speaker 2:once.
Speaker 1:So like having multiple women, Okay, so like as a way of, as a way of making your game so good that, like, once you find the woman that you want to be your wife, you're ready for it. The problem is that, like that's a masculine because it's not you're not actually committing to give yourself to another so that you could be married. But like you're, you're dating with the purpose of, like I want to use you to make myself better. So like you're not ever. Like the full initiation of a man is like to start a family and like you're never going to do that because you're, you're wasting your time focused solely on your career, on your body and then on your, on your body count.
Speaker 1:So like that's and that's yeah. So like that's what the red pill is pushing for and I think a lot of young Christians are being seduced by it because it sounds very powerful and it doesn't sound like it's, it doesn't sound sinful, Except the like the spinning plates thing. Like I think Christian men can be like, well, I'm not going to have multiple women. But like, yeah, at the same time, like you might be talking to multiple women as though they were your girlfriend because you're trying to learn how to flirt and trying to learn how to, so like your emotional chest that it could be.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so you're kind of like manipulate, manipulative or manipulating a situation to try to see if I can get what I want out of this. And then if I'm not getting what I want, then I can just leave her and move on to the next. Yeah, so like even if you're not like thanks, but you taught me how to be a good boyfriend. Now I'm going to go be a boyfriend to this girl.
Speaker 1:Right, and then there's just there's a lot of like, there's yeah, so it's just alluring to, to young men, and then so, so, yeah. So that's that's the first part, and what I think is super dangerous is that it's alluring to young men, and I think a lot of the like the Catholic speakers that we grew up with, that like at least I grew up with listening to it like zoom vote conferences and stuff, kind of think this is silly and dumb.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And aren't taking it as seriously as they don't really see it as a movement that's going to take root.
Speaker 1:No, they see it as like oh, and it kind of like you, like you're even though we talked about this yesterday like I'm saying things and you're still making faces at it because it sounds stupid, and I'm sure people listening are like this is silly, why even spend time with this? But I would say the reason this shouldn't matter is because one the generation younger than us, so like we're in our mid thirties, I'm in my mid thirties, monica's gonna get there eventually, but I'm in my mid thirties and I think people like the couple that are like 10 years younger than us and below are have been exposed to these ideas and then even younger than that are exposed to these ideas because of the internet.
Speaker 2:You said a sixth grader at one of our confirmation retreats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, confirmation retreat about almost a year, no, maybe eight months ago. I asked them like well, if you had, if money wasn't an object and you can fly anywhere in the world to meet somebody, who would you meet? And they told me they want to meet Interate, which, like, if you haven't really heard the name, like that's one of the people that's involved in the red pill manasphere and has like very certain views on things and has pushed a lot of things towards young men. And this is a sixth grader who knows who Interate is. And I remember saying that to people like, oh, my goodness, that's crazy, but like that's just one out of how many thousands of young men who are being influenced by 12 years old being influenced thinking like what they have to do is have money, muscles and game.
Speaker 1:So, like at 12 years old, they're thinking that's what they have to do. So, like you know how much harder it's going to be to convince them that. Like they have to give their life to Jesus when they get older. And like they have to love their families and give their lives to another. Like the reason that you want to build up money, muscle and game is to be able to give your life away and die for another. Like they're not going to. That's not. Those two thoughts aren't going to make sense.
Speaker 2:And you think about, like I hear that and my initial response is like, well, yeah, we've all been influenced by pop culture.
Speaker 2:So, like back in, you know, our middle school days, it was like the rappers and the R&B artists and hip hop artists and stuff like that, and they were talking about, you know, being with lots of women and having lots of muscle and having lots of money in their chains and all this stuff to like show off. But I think the slight the piece of this that's like okay, there's celebrity, and then there's like influence or two like it's a little bit deeper is because of this, like way of thinking and like way of being. It's not just like be fancy, like me, like a celebrity, but there's almost like a rubric, like a method to like this is how you can live this in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would also argue that it's because, like, I made a joke about VH1, but like, how did we see the celebrities? Like it was what. Like what was it Teen Vogue magazine or Seventeen magazine or whatever? Like it'd be that, or we would be watching them on TV or whatever. Right. Like, yeah, like whatever whatever they came up on TV. But like the kids now, like they can go on their YouTube channel and watch hundreds of hours of content and hear that from them directly.
Speaker 1:Yes, and like it's, and like they have a direct and like then you support them for $3 a month, and like you get even more stuff and you get their free courses, like we didn't. We never had that kind of access to our celebrities.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The way that we do now.
Speaker 2:And a lot of these people aren't even necessarily celebrities, like they're not movie stars or musicians, they're just just people with a camera and speaking Hello.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so so I want to.
Speaker 2:I want to make a point though.
Speaker 1:I want to show Lila Rose and Matt Fradd talking about this because they, like she went on his podcast this is about a year ago. She wanted his podcast to talk about it and they she brings up red pill really quickly because she was on a red pill podcast called the whatever podcast, which we've reflected on before, and he just kind of and if you notice Matt, he just kind of ignores it and like this is silly type, like he reacts to it as like a not not that he's a bad person and like we all age, but like he just reacts to it like such a boomer Sorry, those of you that are boomers, I'm not insulting you, insulting no one. I love everyone.
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 1:This is Lila Rose talking to Matt.
Speaker 4:Well, anyways, we were talking about red pills and I did a podcast this past week where we were talking about basically the red pill stuff, so that's, that's something that I have my eye on a lot because I feel like do you know what red pill is?
Speaker 1:I mean I think I know what you mean, like the matrix red pill, blue pill thing, or is it something different Like?
Speaker 4:and you have your hood of andretate.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is the red pill thing?
Speaker 3:What is the? I'm sorry, I'm going to.
Speaker 1:Gen Z boy over there Tell me about the blue pill. So okay, so I'm I'll stop it here. Stop it here. No, Matt, you were right here, Listen when I was in college I'm 35 now was I was in college.
Speaker 2:This man changed your life.
Speaker 1:He did. I read all his stuff on his blog. I used to follow all like all his talks Anytime he like had a CD to buy to like to listen to another talk, to like help me with all of my stuff. Like I love, like he was like the way that some of these young men look up to like entertain others Like I, Matt I was giving all the answers, right?
Speaker 2:No, I'll do all the things.
Speaker 1:I'm like now to see him out of touch with what the young men like the like, the young men that are now the age that I was when I needed Matt. I'm like you're not there for them. What?
Speaker 3:the heck, I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm too flamboyant to do that. I don't have a good accent.
Speaker 1:No, I love Jiu-Jitsu. Is that enough? No, but so it, so it, just it. It's interesting and like so, him and Jason Everett. I feel like they're in the same boat of just like you guys aren't addressing even like.
Speaker 2:But also the scary thing is is like his kids are that age. Well like, right Like they're the they need a Peruvian, I got it All right.
Speaker 3:Should I? That should have been my pitch when I was in the elevator with them.
Speaker 1:I was in an elevator with all the frats and I played it so cool.
Speaker 2:And I think, like If you're a, I guess maybe two. Another reason why we're bringing this up is maybe we don't have that many young adults and teenagers listening to this, but we have parents of teenagers listening to this.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Parents of middle schoolers and like these are the people they're listening to, so you can't. I know I'm gonna make funny faces because some of this is sound so ridiculous, but it's there's the grooming process that gets to that point right.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Like they, they believe it and subtle Like GenZ and below is being influenced by this now, right, even if you think it's Right, and it can't be just like a, like an old person, like oh you kids in your music, type thing.
Speaker 3:Like.
Speaker 1:No, this is because of the way social media is like. We've never been in a time where this much information was this accessible to this many people at once. So, like any little kid who has an iPhone or an Android in YouTube can get to all of this stuff and hear all these things and you would not even know that they're being influenced by it. All right, so let's see how Matt is how. Thursday, his GenZ counterpart explains this it does come from the matrix.
Speaker 3:The red pill just refers to when you wake up on something. Yeah, it gets used a lot in manosphere to mean waking up to like the problem of women in society, but it's it's also taken on a larger thing, like you get red-pilled on abortion or you get red-pilled on the trans issue, yeah, or you get red-pilled on I just didn't know if it was something different, but it's like red pill dating, I think, is the oh yeah.
Speaker 4:The genre that I'm talking about, which is is just kind of a big and growing genre. Okay, and I think it's like the counterpoint to kind of like I don't know. You could argue like far left, there are no genders dating which is kind of like how do you date when there's no gen?
Speaker 1:like what does dating look like in a so that's, that's Matt Fradd and Lila Rose talking about it and, like I said, like, the biggest thing that's distressing to me is that, like they, that distressing, distressing that the right word, that's that's being a little much runzo, but like, but he, he just doesn't seem well, but like he's not, he's not making content for that, right, he's making content for for the Catholics who are devout, who care about the Shroud of Turin and like, who aren't worried about dating and Because they're married now.
Speaker 2:Like I think that it's like you listened to Matt Fradd when you were in high school and early into college and now you're still listening to him, like you still like Pine Toth Aquinas often.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think he's speaking. He's still speaking to your generation.
Speaker 1:Because I have money.
Speaker 2:You don't have. No, I'm not Jokes on you, matt, not a supporter, but that's John Trayther, though I did buy a mug and a shirt from him, true.
Speaker 1:You first started. He's a Tomas, that's not but the, so so that's actually. I want to watch one more. This is another creator now and I think Ruslan. This is a creator called Ruslan who was on Lila Rose's podcast and I think he did a really good job explaining the manosphere and then also Sorry, I didn't, that's not, I didn't share the screen yet he explains the manosphere and then he also talks about why it's wrong, and this is going to connect back to specifically Catholic things. If you're like not sure where I'm going, I'm not sure where I'm going, but Monica does, let's just, let's just follow. No, so he's going to. He's going to talk about, specifically about red pill and you know, kind of kind of summarized what we just talked about, but then we'll be able to take it from there and talk about how this affects Catholicism.
Speaker 2:I like this clip.
Speaker 5:I'm saying so. So the interesting thing about the red pill is that there's a lot of overlap. So they, they, they. They assess the right problems but prescribe the worst solutions, but they.
Speaker 1:So the overlap he's talking about is overlap between Christianity and red pill Right, and this is and I think that's where the crux is of why we're bringing this up is that there's a lot of overlap. But he talks about here and I really like his point here of it assesses the right problem, it just gives the wrong solutions.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they claim they don't even give prescriptions, but they clearly do so. They'll assess, hey, you know, women's rights in third wave feminism and birth control we're not net positives to women and they'll assess that. Hey, men are hurting. Men are the most likely to die on the job, most likely to commit suicide, most likely to be depressed most like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah If they. If you get divorced, it's really hard on a man.
Speaker 5:So they assess a lot of the right problems. It's just that they're very incomplete solutions. And so it's this interesting thing, because intrinsically, people know some of it. Is true, you could just look around society and be like this is kind of wild, right, but then the application of how to navigate it is the complete opposite, because you're really just adding to the problem, right. So a high value woman to them is a woman that's younger, who's a virgin, and yada, yada, yada. Yet the prescription is to go spin, spin plates and to date women on Wednesdays, but the girls that are sexually active with you, prioritize them for Fridays and Saturdays. This isn't his book and I'm like.
Speaker 4:So basically, the man doesn't need to be a virgin or committed to chastity. Yes, just the woman.
Speaker 5:Just the woman. And my thing is, and he's- okay with that for his daughter.
Speaker 4:And again, I didn't, I, didn't, I didn't poke at the daughter thing but.
Speaker 5:I'm like but you're making the problem worse Because now we know that the more partners someone has, the less likely they are to be satisfied in the marriage. That's, that's empirically proven. So now all these women that say they're at, you know X amount of partners? The CDC says the average woman has four partners, self-reported. We don't know how I could average men at six. So now you're you're making this worse because you're creating more and more women that are going to have more and more partners that are probably eventually going to settle down and are going to have struggles in their marriage because of this, or you're going to have a bunch of abortions, and that's another aspect of it and you know. So it's. It's just a mess. Like all of it is a mess and I like engaging with it because some of the guys are reasonable. I had another debate.
Speaker 1:So I thought that was a good summary of what we were talking about. Again like that. And well, if they show that it is summary and also that we're not making it up like this is actually a legitimate thing. I think evangelicals and Protestants are a little bit more hip to it and they're starting to start speaking to it.
Speaker 1:Trent Horn, lila Rose and Michael Knowles have been on the whatever podcast to try to specifically combat the abortion piece, not like the overall masculinity issue, but the overlap, and he kind of talks about it. It's interesting because, like the feminism stuff that he's talking about and the you know, things are hard for men thing that he's talking about, I think is something that a lot of conservative Catholics not conservative Catholics, but like conservative Christians, but then within within our circles, like Catholics are very sympathetic to. And because of that I think there is more of a like acceptance of what the red pill saying, but then there's also an adoption of what I would say like a red pill mentality to marriage once these people who've been influenced by this get married right.
Speaker 2:Because, like, ultimately, like the or if they're married and now are starting to like. Come to this thinking.
Speaker 1:What thinking?
Speaker 2:Of just like more. This, like having to over correct how men have been perceived and treated Sounds like we have a cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, when that's in our ears, so right. So I think that there's a lot of men who who are now married, who are in great, great marriages and are Catholic, and see that there's still there, there's issues with our society who are assessing the right problems, like Ruslan said, and one of the problems being like the high rate of divorce, and then saying, okay, I don't want to get divorced, I see how, how damaged society is because we've been, we've we've been getting divorced and allowing divorce, and so, similarly, they're assessing a good problem. They're saying, okay, the best way to make sure that we are not, that that doesn't happen to us. They've assessed as we need to. Really, we really we need to really go back to the scriptures on how a household should be run. Yeah, and like they've really leaned into the husbands are the authority in the household. Wives must always submit and be obedient to that authority and that is how a household runs. That is going to be.
Speaker 2:And if it's, and if it's run in this biblical sense that they're sharing, then that will be how their family is successful and holy and that's how our marriage will be beautiful.
Speaker 1:And that's how to save society, that is how to combat feminism, and I think so in the reason I think this this is comparable to the red pill idea is that you have a lot of young men who so similar like back to what I was saying about the V8, vhh one- yeah, VHH.
Speaker 2:one VHH is VHS, what I said what I was saying about V8.
Speaker 1:Vh1, was that, like you had a lot of young men who wanted, who ended up being mentored by these pickup artists because they didn't know how to get women yeah right, so they got and then that that led to this whole man's fear thing. And I think, similarly, you have a lot of young men who grew up in broken homes, who grew up with seeing marriage is just being absolutely terrible, seeing maybe sometimes, maybe some of them saw their dad's be Trashed by their, by their mom and and their dad wasn't able to live up as a potential and like he just had a terrible life. No one respected him in the home, and they just see that that's what society tends to be like. Now, with the bigger push with with some, some aspects of feminism that are pushing to Downplay masculinity even more, they're saying like, okay, this is, we have to be so counter-cultural, we need to know exactly how to do that. So they're going back to similar like having the pickup artists that are mentoring these young men. Like now there's they're going to very strict, strictly interpretive views of scripture and that they're because they want. They want the steps on like how do I doom family Right?
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of them have found that through people like Tim Gordon who interpret, I would argue, interpret scripture very similar to what we would. We would Accus event evangelicals of interpreting as like we would in a lot of times. For in those of you they may not know like the difference between evangelicals and Catholics in the way they see you view scripture is different, because Evangelicals believe in scripture alone. They believe there's a soul. Truth of everything in our faith relies in scripture alone and as Catholics you believe in scripture, tradition, in the Magisterium, we, we. One of the. The ways that I that I learned it in school was that like the, if truth is like a table, the, the evangelicals and Protestants have one leg on the table right, which is just scripture, and the Catholics have a three-pronged table.
Speaker 1:So they have scripted and so you can stand so you can stand, so a scripture, tradition and the Magisterium which is like the Pope in the Cardinals when they speak ex-cathedra. So they so like, so. But Tim Gordon and a lot of other people who believe similar to that, who who want these exact, exact answers Like how should family life be? They'll read things like Ephesians 5, 522, 522, 523. They'll read 1st Peter, 3, 1, and there's there's a few other places in, in, I think, I'm not sure as Galatians and Corinthians, like. There's other places where we're Either in St Paul's epistles or Peter's epistles.
Speaker 1:We're told that the husband is, that the wife should be submissive to the husband, and they read that and they're like okay, face value, that's what it says, that's how it needs to be looked out. And similar to like okay, somebody tells me I have to have money muscle in game, I'm gonna live it out. And I think a lot of men are susceptible to that because a lot of them want clear direction. Right, that's our furlough. I know a lot of men that were in trouble like in towards the high school, like they'll go into the army because they want clear direction.
Speaker 1:Yep, so like, similarly, like a lot of young men are now entered into marriage and never got clear direction of how to be a good husband and father. So they're getting very clear direction from guys like Tim Gordon because they're not getting clear direction from the church at the moment because we are all over the place. So so I just thought that was like that's important to bring up, because I think Couples need to have a very discerning spirit about where they're at with what they're, what they're following, what they're believing. Is it of the Lord versus like a response, a fear response, because I don't know how I'm supposed to be doing things.
Speaker 2:I think fear response is such an important term. Like it like to, to really bring that to prayer, to bring that to to heart, like it. Am I acting out of fear? Am I over correcting things of?
Speaker 3:the culture.
Speaker 2:Am I over correcting things of my upbringing? Am I over correcting even mistakes I've made in the past? You know you had talked about like seeing poor marriages and like you know how many women make you know make jokes about their husband and how incapable they are of doing things around the house or incapable they are absent-minded or absent they are, or they're nagging and they're over controlling of how the husband behaves in the house and the husband just goes along with it.
Speaker 1:Or, you know, like the right, the husband also becomes emasculated by that. So, like I can, I can sympathize with young men who have seen their dads be Emasculated in the home because, like they're and like we've talked about it in, in a sense of like when you've said you had a high vent to load and then I try helping around the house, and then you'd be like, well, that's not the right way to do it, so then I guess I don't know how to do it, or just gonna whatever, like that whole thing. You can see where that's, you can see where it could lead if you don't end up like having actual, actual conversations and actually loving each other.
Speaker 1:Sorry, not sorry, but like because because, yes, so like, I can see where that leads and I can see how that it could be detrimental to somebody watching that and being like no, the husband should be respected. Look what the Bible says like if waste needs to be submissive, so like but don't.
Speaker 2:But then to that same token, like, yeah, you can see where that spiral can lead when Things are disordered in the home, but when you over correct, then you are still disordering things and you like.
Speaker 2:We need to be careful to see where those Overcorrections can lead as well, because you know if, if we're returning to this 1950s style of Living where, like, husband works nine to five, he's the sole provider and he comes home and he expects dinner to be ready on the table and his wife is always wearing a dress and like all these these things, that like, again we say, and there's a little bit of like, that's not really what people want and like, but it is. It's that's coming back. There's a reason why that culture, that way of life has also been Shifted because, there had to have been some disorder there to want to move away from right.
Speaker 2:So the pendulum just keeps swinging and to over correct could lead to More disorder in your home. And I think you put you hit the nail on the head when you said well, like, if you love one another new, then you love and respect each other and you communicate. And I think that this over literalization of reading scripture, without relying on tradition and adjusarium and, you know, discernment with the Holy Spirit, that, like that, that's gonna cause unrest in your home and unhappiness and and yeah and could be really dangerous. It's not loving and respecting.
Speaker 1:I think the most dangerous thing, though, is that we are and specifically young men are very I'm not young anymore. I would be kicked out of young adult groups, not on 35.
Speaker 2:Too old, not vertus.
Speaker 1:But no.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of what one of the issues is that a lot of young men are being overly influenced by a lot of content creators because there's so much content out there and they're only and their confirmation bias is only gonna allow them to see the things that confirm what they believe of how they should be implementing this.
Speaker 1:So my example is that I know Tim Gordon goes super hard on the suffusions five thing right In the maryl de and I know most people don't like him. I get that. But I also do trust Matt Fradd and Matt Fradd has said a few times he's had him on a show before. He said a lot of times that like I think Tim Gordon has a special needs kid right and he said that he's never seen a more loving and caring and gentle father and the way he is with his wife as well, just super loving and gentle. And I don't think that like well, we're never gonna see that on this side of the screen right, cause he's gonna put the stuff out there that's gonna get clicks, that's gonna get like that, maybe it's even it's formative for the young guys, like however he wants to spin it, but like we're never gonna see the full life of people that are influencing us.
Speaker 2:Like how has this actually lived in your home?
Speaker 1:So like and that goes for the, for the man's fear thing, all the way to this like we can't just take certain things as like, okay, this must be true, this is face value, yes, face value without really again discerning like, how does this implement into my life? Well, cause, I know I've seen and have heard a lot of men now saying things, like younger men, the saying like, well, the dad can't be a second mommy, he shouldn't be helping with the diapers and stuff, which is to me like mind blowing, because our generation of millennials are the most involved with their kids right above us. That like I hear from the parents all the time, like my husband never helped with a diaper. And like now we're going backwards to that again because we're hearing from influencers saying like, though, the husband shouldn't be doing any of this stuff, he has to work and every other job is the wife's job, and but like I think he might be saying that, but I wonder if he's actually living it like that. He probably isn't.
Speaker 2:Right, but I think when you have a sphere of influence and you have to be very careful of what you say, because you have to have the forethought to think of. How can this be received by younger, impressionable people?
Speaker 3:right.
Speaker 2:Who don't have experience necessarily as much experience necessarily, and like the just even, like the ability to take in information and filter it with counterintimation, like just relational living, especially if it's people that haven't been in relationships, right, they're like looking for help and how to be in a relationship, and then they're getting these very strict rules, and I think that when you have that level of influence, you have to be cognizant of that.
Speaker 2:So if you're not living, if you're living this in a very, in a much more nuanced way within your home, if there's some level of flexibility to it, or if there's some like just interpersonal dynamics of this is how I am as a person. I am a man, but I'm also like Tim Gordon and this is my wife, who is a woman, but also Stephanie Gordon and like this is how we have come to live this and it's in a much more joyful, loving, gentle manner than what I'm portraying Then I think that you need to be careful and make sure that you're also sharing some of that, just because, like these people can pick out this information and then just stick to that.
Speaker 1:Well, cause my fear would be that, if we don't start becoming a little bit more vocal about this, that there's gonna be a Catholic red pill or a Catholic manna sphere, If there isn't already one, where a lot of these young men are going to and like they're creating their own communities because they want their own mentors, because they want their own kinds of marriage, cause they wanna be counter cultural and they end up doing more harm than good because of that.
Speaker 2:Right and again, like going back to that line from Ruslan about like yes, like you're seeing, you are seeing real problems, but like really discern if your solution is the solution to the problem. Right, like to be careful of that.
Speaker 1:And like, and I think, yeah, it's hard also because I know a lot of the people that are starting to sway in this direction don't like JP2, don't like theology to the body, and I wouldn't say like they don't like it's not I'm not saying they don't like Catholic morality, but like they're super skeptical about NFP right. They're super skeptical about the mutual submission in Ephesians 5.21. And I just wanna address that one more time. I know I'm addressing another episode, but the way it's written in Greek the word submission is in it's when St Paul writes, I think it's how does he say it now Spouses be mutual to one another or be submissive to one another out of reference for Christ.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as in the Lord.
Speaker 1:As in the Lord, whatever, not whatever, sorry, lord, whatever. When he says submission, like spouses submit to one another, that's the word of the word appears. Then in the next line he says wives submit to your husbands. The word submission, the word submit, doesn't appear in the original Greek in that line. Submit to your husbands, it's why. And to you, wives, as to your husbands, as to the Lord, whatever, so like, the word submit comes from 5.21, so you can't separate the two verses so like.
Speaker 2:If you believe that- Because 5.22 is like a carry on from 5.21.
Speaker 1:So like, if you believe that wives must submit to their husbands, then you also believe in the mutual submission. Just saying you can't separate the two. But, like they, there's people who openly reject JP2's teaching on the mutual submission and so, like, there's a lot of like. I don't know how to connect the dots theologically, but I think that more people need to start taking this more seriously and about trying to lead young men, because young men are seeking. That's why Red Pill is such a big deal. Young men are seeking and then, once they get married, they're continuing to seek. Like they want specific answers and they don't wanna hear you need to go to healing conferences. They don't wanna hear that you need to. You know, like they don't care about the wounds of their past. Not that they don't care, but they don't think that they need to spend time letting God work in it. They just wanna. All right, I know what happened poorly in my past life or in my childhood or whatever, and I wanna correct that by living it differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, we were talking to a friend tonight about like having this conversation and he's a big advocate of healing ministry and so it was interesting to hear from him. But I think that this wave of young men are again. They're not unaware that there's problems, but they want to bypass that healing work and just get to the fixing.
Speaker 3:Like.
Speaker 2:I just wanna live the way I'm supposed to live.
Speaker 1:Yes, ooh, that's such a good point. Keep going. Well, my point, the point sorry, I just thought of this, but like, imagine if we were trying, because I think we live out Ephesians 5 very well and I think we would live it out in a way that more traditional Indian people would be like oh yeah, that's the way it should be lived out. But if we tried living that out before we went through all our healing stuff early in our marriage, it would be a disaster of a marriage Totally because, like we weren't in a point where we could live that, but like so, because there's just so much healing that had to happen. And I think it's very silly to think that because you follow the rules, you're suddenly gonna be healed.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right, like I think, because you're healed now you can follow the rules well.
Speaker 2:And I think that there's a difference between like blind obedience and obedience out of love and respect, Right? So, like our obedience to the Lord, like, is it? You know? Are we following these guidelines blindly because somebody is saying this is what God wants, so you're like, okay, I'm gonna do that. Or are you really like understanding, Are you loving and respecting the way that God has called marriage to be and therefore I'm going to do my best to be obedient in it, Like within the rules? Right? So you know, you talked about earlier in our marriage if we were living a certain way, like we have one of our earliest episodes, actually a response to Stephanie Gordon's book on marital debt and how, like there really is a thing, but it's not a thing in the way a lot of people are using that term and saying it needs to be lived. So you could link that in the show notes too, giving you a little bit more work.
Speaker 2:But but, like, if we had pointed to like earlier in our marriage, it would have come up as a topic of like, well, marital debt means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, imagine that.
Speaker 2:This needs to happen because marital debt and it's like okay, but if you're ever using like your headship, as husband, or like the marital debt card as like well, it has to happen, then you're, then you're wrong, like it's not being done, right, right, no, and that yeah, and that would never happen.
Speaker 1:Like, yeah, if I had been introduced to these thoughts, in this kind of thinking, before we went through our whole healing journey, I could see that our marriage would have been externally, it could have looked the same, like we could have the same pictures on the wall of all the saints and be very culturally Catholic and outwardly devout, but our marriage would not be where it is because we wouldn't have been free to follow the commands of the church and the precepts of the church and all that. Well, because there's still be so much of us that we were holding in shadows and hiding and not fully expressing and yeah, so I, as we're talking, I'm like, yeah, healing needs to happen first and I think a lot more, there needs to be a lot more.
Speaker 2:Well, there needs to be a lot of pruning of selfishness too, right?
Speaker 3:Like yeah, because.
Speaker 2:I think that there would have been a lot of self-serving in the way we would have tried to live these out because that's the way it's better for me in a marriage. If this is the way it's best for a marriage, then that's going to benefit me Versus. If this is what's best for a marriage, that will benefit you and that shift in perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry. No, I was thinking, though, should I say there needs to be more male men making content. Male men, male men making male men content. There needs to be more men making content, sorry.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is our male man today as president.
Speaker 1:This is why it can't be me. It can't be me but like should, because I know people think this and that's truthfully. The solution is to everyone get off social media, just throw all this away. Don't let your kids go on phones. But like we're not at the point where anyone's going to do that right now. Like maybe our kids won't go on phones, but like that's a whole, like Generation Z is on their phones and like they are consuming all this. So who are they listening to? And I think there needs to be. I've said like there needs to be a Catholic Jaco willing. There needs to be a Catholic, david Gargans.
Speaker 2:Or it could be them and they could also just become Catholic.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they're they're hard to brand too much, but still so. Like I just think we need to pray for similar like you. Would you pray for saints to come up? Like I think there needs to be. Like Father Mike Schmitz isn't enough. Like we need more people to be able to start speaking to these areas, not just in marriage but like all overall masculinity, so that men can start finding or feeling like they have good people to follow and trusted people to follow. So that they can start being the men God created in the B, so that they can be good husbands, good fathers and be able to love their wives.
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker 1:Cool 50 minutes. All right we did it, we did it.
Speaker 2:So have conversations on this topic at home, either with your spouse, with your fiance, with your kids with your kids if you're watching any of this nonsense. If you're a teen or someone in college, your youth minister. Yeah, our college kids just give us a call, anyways, but let us know what you think.
Speaker 1:Leave comments like oh, you're doing the thing, you're doing the thing, you're doing the thing.
Speaker 2:I am, can I do it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you always do it. Comment like subscribe, because I'm on the YouTube's rate.
Speaker 2:Leave reviews. Do all the things. Get your fingers working.
Speaker 1:See you in the next episode. Bye.