Ep.33 The Catholicism of Joe Biden

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Hi everybody, it's Steve Matthews here. Welcome to Radio Luke Seleucid episode 33.

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The title of today's episode is The Catholicism of Joe Biden. Now I wanted to say a big welcome to everyone and a happy Reformation Day.

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Today is October 31st, 2020. That's the day I'm recording this. And of course this is the 503rd anniversary of Martin Luther's heroic act of nailing his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg.

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And Martin Luther changed the world this day, 503 years ago. That was a huge event, and it's something that we ought always to keep in mind.

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And I'm more than happy to wish everyone a very happy Reformation Day. Well, today we're going to be talking some, on this

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Reformation Day, about an issue that I guess really is a pretty good tie -in for Reformation Day.

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We're going to be talking about the Catholicism of Joe Biden. You know, it's kind of interesting because when you read critiques of Joe Biden, you know, and I'm talking here critiques from conservatives, for example, you have a lot of conservatives point out the fact that, you know, he's mixed up with some pretty radical people.

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You know, that a lot of the Democrats and what have you that are behind the scenes that he's working with are very radical progressive people, even though Joe Biden himself seems like a pretty kind of mainstream -ish guy.

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At least that's the persona that he gives off. But there's a lot of talk about all the influence that the progressives have on him.

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But what I want to talk about today is not really the influence of the progressives. What I want to talk about is the influence of the

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Pope and of the Roman Catholic Church on Joe Biden. And this is something that's hardly ever discussed at all.

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Now, there was a story, of course, I shouldn't say of course, but there was a story. It's kind of a funny story about the first Roman Catholic who was ever a major party nominee on the

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Democratic ticket. The name of that gentleman was Al Smith. And Al Smith won the

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Democratic nomination in 1928. And he ran against Herbert Hoover and he lost.

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And at the time that he got his nomination, there were a lot of Americans who expressed some concern about the fact that there was a

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Roman Catholic for the first time heading up a major party presidential ticket. And there were a number of articles written and people were challenging

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Al Smith on various aspects of Roman Catholic doctrine. This was a new thing and it was kind of a big deal.

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And someone once came to Al Smith, at least this is the way the story goes, and they told him, well, you're being challenged on the basis of a lot of statements that are made in various papal encyclicals.

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And the story goes that Al Smith looked at this fellow and his response to him was, would somebody please tell me what the blank papal encyclical is?

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I'm not going to say the actual word that Al Smith used. This is a Christian radio program, so I'm not going to use the word that he actually used.

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But he said, would somebody please tell me what the blank papal encyclical is? Kind of a funny story.

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Now, I don't know if Al Smith was really that ignorant of it. I don't know if that's a true story or not. But that's the story anyway.

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And it's kind of a funny story. Of course, 32 years later, in 1960, another

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Roman Catholic headed up the Democratic Party ticket, and that was

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John Kennedy. Now, unlike Al Smith in 1928, John Kennedy won the election in 1960 against Richard Nixon, and he became

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America's first Roman Catholic president. Now, one of the interesting things in the lead up to the election in the fall of 1960,

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Kennedy made an appearance in September of that year, and he went to Texas, and he appeared before the

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Greater Houston Ministerial Association. This was a group of Protestant ministers. And his whole purpose for going there, he gave a speech, and there was a question and answer session afterward.

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But his whole purpose for going there was to assure these Protestants that they didn't have anything to fear from having a

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Roman Catholic president, that the Pope wasn't going to control him, and that he would not govern based upon his

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Roman Catholic faith, that what the church told him wasn't going to matter. Well, I'm a bit skeptical of what

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Kennedy said there, but that was the story that he gave out. And in fact, you can watch his speech.

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It's actually out there on YouTube, and I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes, just if you're interested, so you can take a look at it.

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Now, 60 years later, you know, from 1960, here we are in 2020, and we have another

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Roman Catholic Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden. But as I mentioned earlier, the thing that's interesting is that nobody seems to be much concerned about his

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Roman Catholicism. Unlike when Al Smith ran, and unlike when John Kennedy ran, really nobody is talking about Joe Biden's Roman Catholicism.

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And I think that that's a big mistake, because his Roman Catholicism, and as we're going to see here in just a minute, really informs his politics, it informs his economics, and the economics and politics of the

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Roman Catholic Church are at odds with the economics and politics of the historic

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United States. I mean, the United States historically has been a Protestant nation, and it was founded on Protestant ideas.

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And even if those weren't expressly spelled out in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, when you look at the structure of our government, when you look at the structure of our economy, they are informed by Scripture.

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They're based on what the Scripture teaches. The Scripture teaches something that John Robbins called constitutional capitalism.

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And that is, the Scriptures teach limited constitutional government and a capitalist free market economy.

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And Rome is opposed to both of those things. And what I'd like to do is take a look at some statements.

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And these are taken mostly from actually from Joe Biden's campaign website, interestingly enough.

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If you go out to Joe Biden's campaign website, there is, he's got sort of the page,

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I think it's called Vision, is what it's called. And if you go on that page, there are 49 separate links, they're like these tiles.

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And it'll say the Biden plan for this or the Biden plan for that. And one of these tiles there, it has the title, it's called the

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Biden plan for the Catholic community. And it's actually kind of interesting because when you look, if you look, do a word search and the word community on this page, you'll see a lot of different communities named.

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For instance, he's got a link there that's titled Biden's plan for the AAPI community.

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Now, when I saw that, I was like, what's the AAPI? I have no idea what that is. Well, if you click on the link, it tells you it's

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AAPI, it stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander. So the Asian American, Biden has a plan for the

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Asian American and Pacific Islander community. He also has a plan for the

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Indian American community. He has a plan for the Jewish community, for the Muslim American community, for the

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Latino community, for the Arab American community. And it seems like he's got a plan for just about every community, except,

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I suppose, if you're a Protestant. Apparently, that doesn't somehow fit into his thinking, which isn't surprising because, of course, the

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Democrats are really the party, sort of the anti -American party.

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And I wouldn't expect them to have a plan for the Protestant community.

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In fact, I guess, really, I should be happy that they don't have one because whatever plan they would have, I'm sure, would be quite disingenuous and it's not something that would be helpful.

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So if you happen to be a Protestant and you feel a little bit left out by the Joe Biden campaign, that's okay because there's really not a place for you, if you're an actual

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Bible -believing Protestant. I mean, if you're a real Christian, there's really no place for you in the

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Democratic Party. Christians should not be voting for Joe Biden because his ideas are very much anti -Christian.

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And we're going to hope to bring some of those ideas out to you here as we go through the statements on his website.

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So let's go back to the Biden plan for the Catholic community and let's read through what he has to say here.

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So he starts off, there's sort of the, I guess you might call it the introduction or the preamble, what have you.

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I'll just read from in here. Here's what he says, quote, I'm a practicing Catholic. I believe faith is a gift.

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And the first obligation we have is love your God. The second one is love your neighbor as yourself.

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Treat people with dignity. Everyone's entitled to dignity. That's a basic tenet of my household. That's what Vice President Joe Biden said.

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Well, I mean, he was right there at least on the first two. We are called to love the

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Lord our God with all our heart, and we're also called to love our neighbor as ourself. Those are the first, sort of the summary of the law of God.

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And Jesus himself talked about that, so I don't have a problem with it. Now he says, treat people with dignity.

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Everyone's entitled to dignity. I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean. I don't know if there's any statement in the scripture that says we have to treat people with dignity.

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It's kind of unclear, actually, what he means by that. But the preamble continues, and this isn't a quote from Biden.

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It's whoever the writer is of the document here. It says, Vice President Joe Biden believes that in America, no matter where you start in life, everyone should be able to live up to their

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God -given potential. He knows that we need to rebuild the middle class, and this time make sure everybody comes along, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.

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Now this, of course, this is one of the things that really jumps out at you if you're a

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Christian. You read this as it talks about sexual orientation. Yeah, and of course for the Democrats, you know, sexual orientation, you know, whether someone is heterosexual, or whether someone is homosexual, or someone has some sort of one of the many bizarre sorts of gender identities that they have come up with these days, that's just as fine as, say, biblical marriage, and that's a lie.

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You know, sexual orientation does matter, and in fact, I mean, if you look in the Old Testament, there were laws against homosexuality in the

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Old Testament, and up until fairly recently in the United States, there were also laws against homosexuality.

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I know Gordon Clark talks about this in some of his books, and he talks about that homosexuality was rightly suppressed, and of course

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Clark was right about that. There's no question about that, and that's something that, you know, it's not a, you know, the sinfulness of homosexuality is not something that really is up for debate, and I think you can make a very good argument from Scripture that not only is it sinful, but it ought also to be illegal, but I know that that's not, certainly not something that's taught by the

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Democrats, and even I think a lot of Republicans would be uncomfortable with the idea of outlawing homosexuality, but I think you can make a good case for that from the

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Scriptures. But anyway, Biden continues. He has his plan for the

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Catholic community broken down into sort of several subheadings, and let's just go through each one of these.

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Now, the first of the subheadings that he has here in this section, it says this, quote, build an economy where everyone comes along and we protect the least of these.

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And as you read through this particular section, one of the things that he highlights is minimum wages.

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Now, minimum wage laws have long been an integral part of Roman Catholic economics. In his book

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Ecclesiastical Megalomania, John Robbins noted, quote, the Roman Catholic priest

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John A. Ryan, 1869 to 1945, who has been called the foremost academician of the

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American Catholic social movement and derogatorily nicknamed the Right Reverend New Dealer, published his first book in 1906,

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A Living Wage, Its Ethical and Economic Aspects. It was a sustained argument for a legally mandated minimum wage, which we have had nationally since the 1930s, end quote.

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That's on page 83 from Ecclesiastical Megalomania. And in a footnote on that same page,

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Robbins adds this, he says, quote, the deleterious effect of legally mandated minimum wages is one of the few ideas on which most economists are agreed, end quote.

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So minimum wages have seriously negative economic consequences, but the

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Roman Catholic Church has been pushing the idea of a minimum wage at least since 1906.

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And there are a number of problems with minimum wages, maybe the first of which is that it causes unemployment.

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Minimum wages cause unemployment. Now that might seem a little strange at first, but if you think about it, if somebody, say an employee, maybe a new employee, maybe somebody who's never had a job before first starts working, you know, that person is probably going to have fairly limited productive ability.

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Maybe that person can only produce goods and services equal to maybe, say $7 an hour.

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So if you come along as the government and you say, oh, well, we're going to make it illegal for you to hire this particular person to work for $7 an hour, we're going to mandate that you hire this person, pay him $15 an hour.

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Well, what do you think is going to happen? Is that employer going to hire anybody? Probably not.

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If he's going to hire some low -skill employees, maybe some entry -level employees, he's going to hire as few as he possibly can.

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And he's going to make sure to trim his costs such that he can try to make a profit.

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Now, one of the things that happens with minimum wage laws is not only do they create unemployment because it reduces the number of people who get hired, but minimum wage laws also encourage automation.

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For instance, you might have seen some things, oh, I don't know, in the last few years when some of these, you know, there's been talk about raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour in some places, some localities.

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I don't know if it's states, but I know some cities, I think, have done this. But there have been and there are ongoing experiments to create like burger -flipping robots and doing things, you know, fast food restaurants, for instance, that hire a lot of low -wage employees.

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They're doing everything they can to try to automate. So, I mean, you know, the higher you raise the minimum wage, the more attractive automation becomes.

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I mean, and you could end up with a case where, you know, it kind of becomes like gas stations. You know, I'm old enough,

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I remember as a kid that they used to have gas station attendants, you know, you'd pull up and a gas station would come out and he'd pump your gas, he'd clean your windshield, he'd check the oil level in your engine, this sort of thing.

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Well, when was the last time you saw that? I mean, it's probably been 40 years since they had gas station attendants.

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Everything is self -service now. And I think some of that, you wouldn't be surprised if you go back and you look at it, this probably has something to do with minimum wage laws.

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But, I mean, the, you know, the gas station attendant has disappeared. I mean, you could very well see that happen to the fast food worker or probably people in other types of positions.

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If you raise minimum wages high enough, that is going to happen. It's going to happen.

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Now, just to give you another example sort of minimum wages, there was an article that I have that quotes the

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Bishop of San Diego, a fellow by the name of Robert McElroy, and he argues this.

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He says, quote, for Catholic social teaching, the surest pathway to economic justice is the provision of meaningful and sustainable work for all men and women capable of work.

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Work is thus a profoundly sacred reality. It protects human dignity, even as it spiritually riches that dignity.

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If we truly earn our work co -creators with God, don't we think that that deserves at least $15 an hour?

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McElroy asked in his first of three endorsements of an increase in the minimum wage to that level, end quote.

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Now, I think it's kind of funny here because, of course, McElroy talks about that when we work, we're co -creators with God.

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Well, if we're co -creators with God, my goodness, $15 an hour seems like an awfully low salary, right?

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I mean, if we're doing the Lord's work, I mean, why not make it $150 an hour or $1 ,000 an hour?

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I mean, my goodness, if we're co -creators with God, I think it deserves at least $1 ,000 an hour. It's kind of a silly argument.

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Basically, the reason that we're paid, that people are paid what they are, is based on the value of what they produce.

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And if someone doesn't produce more than $15 an hour of profit for a company or $15 and doesn't generate $15 of revenue for a company, then to ask a company to pay that person $15 an hour is really, you're asking the company to take a hit.

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And, of course, that's one of the hidden implications of minimum wage laws is you want to impose costs on business.

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You want to interfere in the free market, and that's, of course, one of the big goals of the

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Roman Catholic Church is constantly interfering in the economy. And they openly talk about that.

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In fact, a lot of Roman Catholic officials use that term, interference. And, of course, Joe Biden, as a good

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Roman Catholic, wants to interfere in the economy with a $15 an hour minimum wage. So let's go on to the next header there in the

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Biden plan for the Catholic community. He says this, quote, respect the dignity of work and give workers back the power to earn what they're worth, end quote.

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Now, here Biden attacks capitalism and promotes unionism. Here's a quote from this, quote,

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Joe will start by strengthening unions and helping workers bargain successfully for what they deserve. His plan will check the abuse of corporate power over labor and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws, end quote.

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Now, this type of language from Roman Catholic officials goes back to the late 19th century. Again, in ecclesiastical megalomania,

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John Robbins quoted Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore. And James Gibbons believed that the labor movement and state intervention, both of these things

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Biden supports, he supports the labor movement and state intervention, were, quote, the most efficacious means, almost the only means, to combat individual and corporate monopolies in their heartless avarice, which through greed of gain piteously grinds not only the men, but even the women and children in various employments, end quote.

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So when Biden talks as he does here, I mean, again, this particular statement of Biden that he's going to strengthen unions and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws and things of this sort,

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I mean, he's really just drawing on Roman Catholic social teaching going back to the end of the 19th, early 20th century.

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I mean, this is Roman Catholic stuff. In fact, a great deal of the labor movement in the

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United States is promoted by the Roman Catholic Church. The unionism and really some of the deleterious effects of unionism, that is has historically been promoted by Rome.

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Now, the fourth header there in Biden's plan for the

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Catholic community, he says this, quote, ensure that affordable quality health care is a right for all

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Americans, end quote. Now, health care, of course, is not a right that one can get from the scriptures, but it is a right according to Rome.

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And Biden's statement has longstanding support from the Roman church state. In a December 1st, 2013 interview with NBC, then

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York claimed the U .S. bishops have supported universal health care since 1919.

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Now, there's a fact -checking organization called PolitiFact, and they actually did a fact check on this.

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Sorry, I had to get a little drink of coffee there. PolitiFact did a fact check on Timothy Dolan's statement, and what it found out, big drumroll here, is

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan was telling the truth. And PolitiFact cited that there was a document that was produced in 1919.

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It was called the Bishop's Program of Social Reconstruction, and it was put out under the leadership of John A.

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Ryan. Now, John A. Ryan, you might remember from something we said just a few minutes ago, John A. Ryan is the same guy who supported minimum wage.

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He wrote that book in 1906. Well, 13 years later in 1919, he comes back and he heads up this

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U .S. bishops. This was the precursor organization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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I think they were just called the United States bishops at the time.

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But anyway, he headed up this group of U .S. bishops, and they put out this document called the

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Bishop's Program of Social Reconstruction. And in that document put out in 1919, they pushed for nationalized health care.

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And of course, this is what we got under Obama. And on his website, Joe Biden wants to expand

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Obamacare. It's kind of funny now. Obamacare, the official name for Obamacare is the Affordable Care Act.

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And a couple years ago, I did some tax preparation. And I remember in our training, we were told, we're not supposed to call it

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Obamacare. It's called the Affordable Care Act. But the problem is, is whenever you would ask people questions about the

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Affordable Care Act, they'd look at you with this odd look on their face. And then you'd say, it's Obamacare.

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Oh, yeah, I've heard of that. So nationalized health care in the United States, even though it's officially called the

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Affordable Care Act, which it's not really affordable, but it's officially called the Affordable Care Act, but it's popularly known as Obamacare.

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So Obamacare is really an offshoot of what was really inspired by the

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Roman Church state, by the socialism of the Roman Church state. And of course, as a good son of Rome, Joe Biden wants to expand that.

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He wants to make it even bigger than what it is. And I think that if he really had his way, you'd end up with full national health care in the

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United States. Now, going on to the next subsection here in Biden's plan for the

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Roman Catholic community, he says this, quote, pursue a humane immigration policy that keeps families together, strengthens our economy and secures the border.

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Now, here Biden goes all out in supporting the post program of mass taxpayer subsidized immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement.

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In fact, you know, this entire section, if you read through it on immigration, it may as well have been written by the

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U .S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And for all I know, it very well could have been written by the U .S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, because, you know,

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I mean, when you look through it, I mean, it's everything that the U .S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has ever asked for in any of their press releases or statements or official policy papers.

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And in fact, really, this whole section, you know, that Biden's plan for the Catholic community, for all

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I know, it very well may have been written in consultation with the U .S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were the case.

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There's nothing that says that, but if you just read through header, you know, subheader after subheading after subheading, you'll see how much really what

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Biden is saying echoes the official statements of the Roman Catholic Church. And of course, he does that here with immigration.

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You know, his plan is to push DACA, and that is to the idea of creating a pathway for people who were brought here as children who are not

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American citizens. He wants to reward illegal immigrants with a pathway to citizenship. He wants to expand temporary protected status.

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In other words, basically, all you have to do is get in the United States, and Joe Biden wants to keep you here. And not only does he want to keep you here, but he wants to shower you with fabulous cash and prizes.

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You know, that's what the Pope teaches. That's what the U .S. Conference of Catholic Bishops teach. And of course, that's what Joe Biden teaches.

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Now, it's kind of funny because Joe Biden in here, he talks also about border security and all of this, but that's just eyewash.

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I mean, it's window dressing, it's nonsense. The idea here is to bring in as many migrants, refugees, asylees, immigrants, what have you, and have them all vote for the

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Democrats. I mean, that's how the Democrats build their constituency. They bring people in, they shower them with massive amounts of U .S.

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taxpayer money, and as a quid pro quo, then they get their votes. You know, that's how that immigration scam works.

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And nowhere in here is the interest of the American people really in view. As I said, he makes some noises to pretend like they're going to increase border security and things of this sort, but that's not going to happen.

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You know, that's not going to happen. The idea here is to flood the country with as many Roman Catholic voting migrants,

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Democrat, I should say, voting migrants, and preferably Roman Catholics as possible. That's the whole idea behind this.

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The next subheader here, he says, quote, serve as stewards of our creation and protect our planet against climate change, end quote.

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Now, this is really interesting here, this one. Biden begins by saying this under that subheader about climate change.

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He says this, quote, in his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis directed the global community to raise awareness about the growing climate change crisis, end quote.

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Now, this really caught my eye. When, you know, at the beginning of this podcast,

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I told you there's that story about Al Smith, who when he was challenged on some statements in the papal encyclical, his response was, well, would somebody please tell me what a papal encyclical is?

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You know, he claimed not even to know what a papal encyclical was. Well, here we have Joe Biden. Al Smith ran in 1928, so that was, what, 92 years ago?

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So fast forward from 1928 to 2020, and here we have Joe Biden, he's quoting

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Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si. I think it's kind of interesting how much more brazen, how much more open

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Roman Catholics have when they have become, or Roman Catholic presidential candidates have become, inciting

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Rome. You know, John F. Kennedy could not have done that in 1960. He would never have been elected had he quoted a papal encyclical as part of his campaign program.

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I was going to say as part of his website, but of course, I don't think they had websites back in 1960. But if they had had a website, doubtless

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Kennedy would have, if they had the internet, I should say, Kennedy would have had a website, and I'm sure he would have had some policy positions out there, and I'm pretty sure that he would not have directly quoted the

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Pope or a papal encyclical. Now, one of the things that's interesting too in Laudato Si, and that was

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Laudato Si, that's the 2015 encyclical by Pope Francis. Essentially, Laudato Si, I think it's probably helpful to say this, it's essentially

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Rome's Green New Deal. Maybe you remember the Green New Deal that got rolled out by the

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Democrats. I think it was Ocasio -Cortez, she was the one that was driving this, and it just has all this economy killing, just nonsense in it.

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I mean, if you actually were to try to impose the Green New Deal, it would destroy the economy.

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I mean, it would send us all back to essentially pre -industrial civilization, or something kind of close to that.

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And maybe that's really the idea. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that's kind of the idea behind it.

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They want basically to create this two -tier society where you have a very few wealthy lords of the manor and you have a bunch of serfs.

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And one of the ways that you can get there the fastest would be by implementing the Green New Deal. It would be an absolute disaster for the

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United States of America and for any country that did implement that. But Laudato Si is essentially

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Rome's version of the Green New Deal. Now, one of the interesting features in Laudato Si is that Francis favorably quoted one of his predecessors,

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Benedict XVI, who called for world government. Let me read you this quote from Laudato Si.

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Quote, to manage the global economy, to revive economies hit by the crisis, to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result, to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace, to guarantee the protection of the environment.

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Let me go back and read that again. To guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration. For all this, drum roll, there is an urgent need for a true world political authority.

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As my predecessor, blessed John XXIII, indicated some years ago.

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So that is Francis, the current Pope, quoting Benedict XVI, who was his immediate predecessor, who himself was quoting

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John XXIII from back, that was probably a quote from back in maybe the 1960s or so, when

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John XXIII was Pope. But going back at least to, so I mean, you have here at least three

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Popes positively talking about world government. And one of the reasons for world government is for the protection of the environment.

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He also mentions to regulate migration as well. So we need world government both to impose the

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Green New Deal and also to impose max taxpayer subsidized immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement.

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That's why we need, those are a couple of reasons why we need world government. So, I mean, if you've got

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Joe Biden here positively quoting the papal encyclical Laudato Si, which says explicitly, and it doesn't imply it, it says explicitly that we need world government to protect the environment.

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I think it's reasonable to question, you know, does Joe Biden believe in world government?

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And I would have to say, yeah, he probably does. He probably does. You know, and this is one of the things that's absolutely fascinating to me is just how open the

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Roman Catholic Church is about world government. And yet almost nobody knows about it. You know, you watch,

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I mean, if you're like me, you know, I watch a lot of say alternate media, you know, people that aren't, you know, independent journalists and such like that aren't connected with, you know, the mainstream media, you know, the mainstream

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TV networks or the major newspapers or news magazines, things of this sort.

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Yeah, I watch a lot of YouTubers, a lot of bloggers, a lot of podcasters and things. And you see a lot of these guys, you know, they will rightfully criticize, you know, globalists, they'll rightfully criticize, you know, people like the, you know, the

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Rothschilds or George Soros or the Rockefellers or the Council on Foreign Relations or the

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Trilateral Commission or the UN and some of these other globalist type individuals or organizations.

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But they almost never, never, never mentioned the Pope. And that's absolutely fascinating.

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It's like they have a complete blind spot for this. And yet, I mean, you've got the

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Pope out there. You've got Pope after Pope after Pope after Pope coming out and saying, yeah, we think world government, we think that's just awesome.

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We think that's the most amazing thing there is. There is no bigger promoter of globalism than the

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Roman Catholic Church. What the Roman Catholic Church is trying to do is to create on a worldwide scale what it created in Europe during the

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Middle Ages. In Europe during the Middle Ages, you didn't have independent sovereign nations.

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You had the Roman Catholic Church basically bossing everybody around. And it wasn't until the Reformation came along and subsequent to that 30 years war where basically

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Rome had the sword knocked out of its hands to a large degree. It was the

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Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that eliminated Roman Catholic political control over large portions of Europe.

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That is, the portions of Europe where the Reformation was dominant. It ended it. Rome could no longer dominate

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England. Rome could no longer dominate the Netherlands or other countries.

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And that was a result of the Treaty of Westphalia that was signed in 1648. It created what we now know as the

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Westphalian World Order. Almost nobody knows this because hardly anybody talks about it.

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But the current world order that we have, the idea that the national government is to be the highest level of government and that one sovereign nation doesn't have any business interfering in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation, what that is, that's the

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Westphalian World Order in a nutshell. Now most people would say, well, that's just common sense. Well, actually it isn't. It took the

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Reformation and a 30 years war to establish those ideas. Because in most of human history, most nations, most organizations have been dominated.

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The primary organizing principle, I should say, of international politics has been empire.

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You think back in the Bible. You had the Egyptians. You had the Egyptian empire. You had the

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Assyrian empire. You had the Babylonian empire. And of course, in the New Testament, you have the

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Roman empire. And I haven't even mentioned the Greek empire, the empire that really existed between the

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Old Testament and the New Testament. The whole Bible chronicles these massive international empires.

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And then you had Israel as a small independent nation.

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And now's not really the time to get into the whole thing about globalism versus the

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Westphalian World Order, but I at least wanted to mention that. And what you're seeing, you hear sometimes about this conflict between the

37:06

New World Order, or you hear a lot about the New World Order. Well, the New World Order is geopolitical

37:13

Romanism. That's what that is. The Westphalian World Order is geopolitical

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Protestantism. The Westphalian World Order is biblical and scriptural.

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The New World Order is really ultimately a creature of the Roman Catholic Church.

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And these two systems don't go together. But here you have a Roman Catholic Joe Biden praising a document in which the

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Pope calls for world government. And that's not surprising. I mean, you would expect that.

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And so I mean, again, you have to really ask yourself, is Joe Biden a globalist?

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Yeah, yeah, I think he is. And not just for this reason, either. I mean, you can find other statements of his that are very much globalist in nature.

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And if he is elected president, he's going to push the United States in the direction of reduced national sovereignty and increased globalism.

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That's what's going to happen. So anyway, I just wanted to wrap this up.

38:12

I guess we're going on. It's been over half an hour here, so I wanted to just make a few closing points here for you today.

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You know, in Revelation chapter 2, Jesus admonished the church at Ephesus.

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He told them, you have left your first love. And I wonder sometimes if the same thing can't be said of the

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American Protestant Church. You know, it's almost as if we've forgotten our calling to contend earnestly for the faith.

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And in place of that, we've instead tried to seek a place at the table of acceptable public opinion.

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Now, this, of course, was the goal of the neo -evangelicals in the years after World War 2. After World War 2, when the neo -evangelicals started organizing, what they wanted to do they lost influence.

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They lost cultural power. And they willingly laid aside those teachings that they thought would be unpopular in a larger

39:13

American society. So they said, oh, you know, we don't want to criticize the Roman Catholic Church, because what we want to do is we want to reach out to broader society, and we want to bring people in with, you know,

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I guess it's that old saying, you catch more flies with honey, right?

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So I mean, what they wanted to do is they wanted to kind of set aside all those kind of awkward and offensive doctrines, you know, and things such as criticism of the

39:38

Roman Catholic Church, you know, identifying the Pope as the Antichrist, or identifying

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Rome as the Babylonian harlot. You don't want to do that. Oh my gosh, you know, that's socially unacceptable.

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That's embarrassing. And so they eliminated that. And not only did the neo -evangelicals eliminate criticism of Rome, but they actually positively reached out to Rome.

39:59

You think about the most famous evangelist in the post -World War II period was

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Billy Graham. And of course, Billy Graham was a big -time ecumenist. He invited

40:10

Roman Catholic priests to his crusades, and he would send people, you know, and the crusades would send those people back to Rome.

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And that's an enormous betrayal of the Lord Jesus Christ, what Billy Graham did there. But he did that, and he became very popular.

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I mean, he was without question the most popular, the most famous evangelist, certainly in the second half of the 20th century.

40:39

There's no doubt about that. And the thing is, that didn't start with Billy Graham, and it didn't really even start with the neo -evangelicals after World War II.

40:48

This was something that goes back into the 1800s. And back in the 1800s, there were

40:54

American liberal Protestants. They were seeking co -belligerence with Rome, at least as far back as the 1880s.

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John Robbins talks about this in his book Ecclesiastical Megalomania. And now we're at the point, you know, after well over 100 years of this growing co -belligerence with the

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Roman Catholic Church, we're now at the point where no one…

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Ask yourself this, when was the last time you heard any preacher, any

41:22

Christian teacher, anybody criticize the politics or the economics of the

41:28

Roman Catholic Church? When was the last time you ever heard anybody say, you know, Joe Biden, you know, his ideas are pretty dangerous.

41:37

And in fact, his Roman Catholicism, in his own words, I mean, we've gone through here, we've looked at Joe Biden in his own words on his own campaign website, and we can see how point after point after point, the things that he advocates as a

41:53

Roman Catholic, and he specifically cites his Roman Catholicism as the inspiration for all of this, is at odds with what's good for the

42:00

United States of America and what the Bible teaches. But yet nobody calls him out on this.

42:08

You know, you hear a lot of people saying, as I mentioned earlier, they say, oh, well, Joe Biden, you know, he's in the hip pocket of the progressives.

42:15

Well, I think, you know, the secular progressives do have a lot of influence on him. But, you know, people focus all their attention on the progressives, and they forget about the fact that there is a tremendous amount of Roman Catholic influence on Joe Biden's thinking.

42:32

In fact, there was an article that I found, this was kind of interesting, this goes back a little ways, this goes back to 2014.

42:40

I'm going to read this to you here anyway. The headline in the article says, Joe Biden defends

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Pope Francis on economics as a practicing Catholic. In the sub -headline, it reads, on Wednesday, the

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Obama administration's most prominent Catholic slammed one of the Pope's most prominent American conservative detractors.

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As a practicing Catholic, bless me, Father, for he has sinned. And what this was is when

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Pope Francis became Pope, and this was back in 2013, toward the end of 2013, he wrote this, it's called an apostolic exhortation.

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And it was called, oh, Evangelii Gaudium.

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Yeah, it was Evangelii Gaudium, which is, it's a Latin, that's a Latin title, it means the joy of the gospel.

43:28

And in that exhortation, Pope Francis was actually very critical of capitalism, and a lot of people were upset.

43:38

And let me just read a little bit from this article to you. This is an article, it's actually from Buzzfeed. Vice President Biden, and of course, this was in 2013, so he was vice president under Barack Obama, says,

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Vice President Biden went out of his way at a speech to the United Auto Workers Union Wednesday to take on one of Pope Francis' strongest critics.

43:58

Quote, a couple of weeks ago, Ken Langone, who I don't know, a billionaire founder of Home Depot, predicted that the

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Pope, Pope Francis' critique of income inequality will be, quote, a hurdle for very wealthy Catholic donors who seem to think hurt feelings trump the teachings of the

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Bible, end quote, Biden said, referring to a December interview with the Home Depot founder.

44:20

And Langone had some critical things to say about Pope Francis, and it goes on to say that Biden appeared amazed by the comments as a

44:28

Democrat pushing the Obama administration's income equality message. So I see there's more socialism.

44:34

As the most prominent Catholic on the president's team, Biden seemed to be personally offended by the comments. And here's

44:39

Biden again, quote, as a practicing Catholic, bless me, Father, for he has sinned, end quote. Biden said, he paused, quote,

44:46

I mean, come on, come on, what are we talking about today? End quote. Yeah, there it is.

44:52

Come on, man. Isn't that what Joe Biden always says out on the campaign? He's like, come on, man. So I guess he's been saying that at least since 2013,

45:01

I suppose probably a lot sooner. And the article goes on to say, it's not the first time

45:07

Biden has embraced Francis, a pope who has energized the left in America despite his adherence to the church's positions on social issues, while alienating some on the right with his economic views.

45:17

President Obama set to meet with Francis at the Vatican in March, and the president said he's, quote, hugely impressed, end quote, with the pontiff.

45:28

So anyway, you know, so you have Biden going back and he's defending Pope Francis' leftism, his socialism, his anti -capitalism, going back to at least 2013.

45:45

So, I mean, Biden has a long track record of supporting this type of thing, and he supports it based on, as he tells us, based on his

45:53

Catholic faith. I mean, that is integral to what he believes. You know, the truth of the matter is the

46:00

Roman Catholic Church is opposed in its teaching to the very principles of the

46:05

American Republic. It always has been, it always will be. You know, the American Republic is founded on substantially

46:15

Christian ideas. You know, the idea of constitutional capitalism. You know, that is the economic, the political and economic expression of Christianity is constitutional capitalism, limited constitutional government, and economic liberty.

46:31

And Rome opposes both of these. And because Rome opposed both of these, to the extent that any one

46:39

Roman Catholic, you know, follows the teaching of the Church and doesn't think for himself, essentially he's become a, become opposed to the

46:52

United States of America and to our way of life. And when you read to our institutions, to our constitution, to our system of economics, and when you read what

47:01

Joe Biden says, you can see very clearly his Roman Catholicism puts him at odds with our constitution. It puts him at odds with our belief in private property.

47:10

And for these reasons, he has no business being anywhere near the White House. Now, there are some

47:17

Roman Catholics who inconsistently do support capitalism, and I think they're sincere when they say that.

47:23

Joe Biden is definitely not one of them. Joe Biden is actually a pretty doctrinaire

47:28

Roman Catholic when it comes to politics and economics. And again, he has no business being anywhere near the

47:36

White House, because very obviously the Church's teaching have a great deal of influence with him.

47:43

And if he does become president, there's no question about the that the current

47:48

Pope and the Roman Catholic Church in general is going to have a big effect on the kinds of policies that he implements.

47:57

Well, that about wraps everything up for today. I wanted to say thanks for listening. I really do appreciate that. This is actually kind of a first for me.

48:04

If you're listening to the podcast, you can't tell what I'm actually doing. For the very first time, I'm doing a live stream on Twitter.

48:10

For all I know, maybe nobody will be watching, but that's probably okay since I'm just kind of practicing here anyway today on the live streaming.

48:18

I'm not even sure how the audio is going to come out on that. Maybe it'll be unlistenable. I don't know, but hopefully the podcast will at least be listenable.

48:25

So anyway, thanks very much for listening. I really do appreciate that. I'm going to go ahead and get this posted out to my blog.

48:30

I'm also going to get it posted to Thorn Crown Ministries' website. And one thing, if you do, if you find this podcast helpful, if you find it interesting, if you find it helps clarify some things for you and you appreciate the work that I do, you may want to think about donating to support the work of Radio Luke's Lucid.

48:51

I'm going to have on the blog, I have a little donation box on there. If you want to, you can donate through Stripe and appreciate any donation, any support you might give.

49:03

So please consider doing that. And as I go, I just want to leave with this thought. Happy Reformation Day once again.

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It's the 503rd anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, when the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ once again was shined forth into the world, and that's something that we all can celebrate.

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And I wish you all a blessed Lord's Day. And until next time, may the Spirit of truth guide you in all truth as you read and study