White Jesus: What's up with that? - with Father James Martin

(soft piano music) Lemonade. - Thanks for listening to Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know. Listen to and follow Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know add free on Amazon Music or just ask Alexa. Alexa, play the podcast Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music. Also, with Amazon Music Unlimited, you can now listen to your favorite music, podcasts, and audio books, all in the Amazon Music app. Listen to Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music. If you watch this show regularly, you know two things about me. Number one, my age. So I'm 38. I'm 38. I am a 39 year old father of two. I'm 39 years old. I'm 39 years old. Just turned 40. I turned 40 today. I'm 40. We both turned 40 this year. Again, I'm 40 years old now. I'm 40 years old. As a 40 year old man. As a 40 year old adult man that's married with two children. Walk me through this just as a heterosexual man that's 40 years old. And number two, I'm a practicing Muslim. Growing up, when Christians would ask me if I'd accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I'd say Muslims love Jesus. And they wouldn't like the first part of that sentence. But I love Christians. Not only do our spiritual Venn diagrams overlap, they have been an important part of social justice movements. There was Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the anti-apartheid movement. The black church in the civil rights movement and some of the most radical social justice warriors have actually been Jesuit priests. One of them, Father Daniel Barrigan, went to prison in 1968 after seizing hundreds of draft records and setting them on fire with homemade napom to protest the Vietnam War. Father Barrigan was a huge influence on many priests that came after him. And one of them is this episode's guest, Father James Martin. Father Martin is probably the leading progressive voice in the Catholic church. You may have seen him show up on Colbert. He's got a podcast and for years, he has been vocal about his support for LGBTQ people and immigrants. So I sat down with Father Martin to talk about his new memoir, Work in Progress. And this new right-wing idea of toxic empathy. The fact that we've made that a negative, what Jesus was feeling as a negative is insane to me. How do you tell him that Jesus had the woke mind virus, essentially? Also, since he tries to make Catholicism accessible to a general audience, I had him give me the 101. Why do I have to call you Father? I don't even call my own dad, Father. And no, I didn't try to convert him, but I did open the door. You could be Muslim right now. Oh, really? Yeah, Father. OK, how would I do that? Hey, just because you've already ordered, doesn't mean you can't look at the menu. Hurry right away, lonely days, don't leave. Make your daddy glass, and ask for something. Last week, Chinese president Xi Jinping allegedly told Donald Trump that Putin might regret invading Ukraine. Now, other outlets are reporting that President Xi Jinping denies this conversation completely with over 1 million casualties for Russia and counting. I would be regretting it. Now, I read about this meeting on Ground News, which is today's sponsor of HMDK. Ground News is a platform that has helped our team be responsible consumers of the news. It shows a breakdown of all the publications reporting on a certain story, including the typical factuality of each publication, in which way they tend to lean politically. We can't eliminate bias. We all have them, right? But we can factor it in as we analyze an event or an issue. Take it from me. If we talk about my personal bias, I am always going to be questioning the veracity of a Donald Trump claim. But I have to withhold judgment for now based off the publications reporting. No one is sure what actually was discussed between these two men. But if I had to guess, it was probably the Sheen Influencer trip. Never forget, let's cut through the noise together. Go to GroundNews.com/housen to subscribe and get 40% off the unlimited access vantage plan. The same one that we use right here at HMDK. Go to GroundNews.com/housen today. Why, Jesus, what's up with that? So let me tell you something, I've been to the Holy Land to Israel probably about four or five times. And I was taking some pilgrims of busload of pilgrims through Nazareth. And there was a group of maybe 50 school kids, 14 years old. They were coming from a girl's school, clearly Catholic, you know, schoolgirls, and you know, form and stuff. And the women were dark skinned, long, dark hair, 14 years old. And one of the pilgrims in our bus pointed out the window and said, there's Mary. And I was like, that's it, you know, she's in Palestine. She's 14. She's long dark hair. That's probably what she looked like, not blonde hair and blue eyes. So it was very powerful. But yeah, that Jesus was from the Middle East. And so he would have looked like we assume, you know, Middle East people today. Why in the European churches and in the Western churches, they haven't updated the casting photo. Is it the backlash? You don't want to go through the whole little mermaid thing? No, you know, I think, you know, Europeans, you know, particularly in the Renaissance, understood Jesus as a kind of type, right? And they looked around and saw what they considered to be beautiful. Of course, he would have been most beautiful. The most Mary would have been the most beautiful. And back then, the most beautiful was considered the whitest with the blonde hair and all that. And I think that's kind of stuck with us. I'll tell you, I worked in East Africa with refugees in Nairobi for a while. And we had some Ugandan artists who were painting pictures of Jesus as white. And I said, why are you painting pictures of Jesus as white? Because we were helping them start like handicrafts in a handicraft shop. And they were like, well, that's who Jesus is. So even they had been taught, Jesus is white, right? And that's just kind of the sort of cultural overlay. Getting back to his Nazareth roots is really important to remember who he was and the context that he grew up in. Yeah, so in part of that is recovering what he probably looked like. Father, the reason why I wanted to sit down with you is because I'm struggling to make sense of this current moment that we're living in where essentially basic decency has become a partisan issue. Agreed. I don't know if you saw the 2024 book, show them the cover real quick here, Austin. This is called toxic empathy, how progressives exploit Christian compassion. Have you seen this book? No, but I've heard of toxic empathy. Empathy somehow somehow has become a bad thing, which is insane because this is what Jesus was feeling like constantly. So let me, can I share something with you? Yes. So in the Gospels, when Jesus sees someone who's suffering, what we read as a translation from the Greek is his heart was moved with pity. I'm not sure if you've heard that before, but that's, so that's the English translation. His heart was moved with pity. The Greek word that's used is Splanknon, which means his guts. Okay, so that was the seat of the emotions in the Hellenistic world back then. So in other words, what is it saying? He saw upset, he feels it in his guts. Like he's so moved, right? And that's, what is that? That's empathy, compassion, sympathy, right? And so the fact that we've made that a negative, what Jesus was feeling as a negative is insane to me, and really un-Christian. The framing here, from what I understand is that liberals are taking your good faith, father, they're hijacking it. They're manipulating you, and that will ultimately somehow hurt you. Well, it's a nice, it's a nice way of looking at it, but it's false. I mean, I think that that approach is saying we shouldn't have empathy or sympathy or compassion because it's weak. I mean, that's, you know, that is, that's Nietzsche, right? That's Nietzsche and Christianity is a weak religion, right? Because what we should be a strong, right? And bootstraps and all that. And Nietzsche said that Christianity has duped people into thinking that weak virtues like compassion and sympathy and altruism are actually good. And that's unnatural. And Christianity is, obviously, is not about Nietzsche. It's about Jesus, Jesus, who is all compassion. And who's so compassionate that he's willing to suffer for other people and die on the cross. So Nietzsche's understanding of God is basically, God stands ten toes down on business and is kind of like my dad. - Nietzsche's understanding. - Where he's like, there's nothing you can do that will ever make me happy because guess what? You're not enough. - Nietzsche's understanding of Christianity, as I remember it, I think this is in the genealogy of morals, I think, is that it's a religion for losers. And what Christianity has done says Nietzsche is to convince people that weak things, right? Like empathy are actually good, and therefore it's unnatural. So this is the idea of the Superman, the ubermentch, you know, you want to be someone who's in charge, not someone who's altruistic and compassionate and empathetic. So it's a real perversion of, it's a perversion of the gospels. Last year, after Donald Trump's inauguration, there was a prayer service at the National Cathedral led by Bishop Mary Ann Edgar Buddy. And I want to play you a clip from the service. - I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger. For we will all want strangers in this land. The president obviously was not happy about the service. You can just tell from his general body language where he looks kind of upset or he has indigestion or he's gonna go to sleep. I couldn't tell and I still can't tell. But he did unload the clip on Truth Social. He said that the bishop was nasty, boring and uninspiring. What is the theological argument that would make someone like Donald Trump [BLANK_AUDIO] easy practicing Christian or many people that follow the evangelical base that follows Donald Trump's interpretation of Christianity say, you know what? Jesus wouldn't be cool with immigrants. He would not be cool with the poor, the impoverished, the destitute. Well, let's take away from Donald Trump. Let's say what would enable a person, anyone to say that Jesus is not in favor of the poor and the marginalized. I would say a person who is fundamentally misreading the gospels, or not reading the gospels, or deciding that it's just too hard. I mean, Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew in chapter 25, as you know, right? If you do it to the least of my brothers and sisters, right? And he talks about people who are poor and sick and struggling and hungry and imprisoned and strangers, right? This is widely understood to be, you know, refugees, aliens, migrants, right? Depending on what word you want to use. Then you do it to me, all right? So as you treat these people, as Bishop Buddy was saying, you know, who are important marginalized, you do it to me, you do it to Jesus. In addition to that, as she was saying in Exodus, God says to the people of Israel, you shall not oppress the alien for you were aliens yourself once in the land of Egypt. In other words, when the Jewish people were in exile, right? They were aliens, right? And so God's saying to them, you know, you were that yourself. So don't mistreat people who are refugees and migrants. So to say that Jesus is not interested in the poor and the struggling and the sick and the marginalized is to say that you know very little about the gospels. So it's basically, it's a misreading or just not reading the gospel. So that's basically what's happening. And people are very, you know, happy to do that and still call themselves Christian because it's hard, you know, Christianity is tough. What do you mean Christianity? Well, I mean to help people to give money to the poor and to, you know, house the homeless and to, you know, feed the hungry, it's tough. I mean, you know, all of us want to just kind of sit in our beds and be happy and, you know, pull up the covers and watch Netflix. But, you know, Christianity is kind of hard work. You look at the saints, like Mother Teresa, that's hard, you know, working with the poor and all that or Dorothy Day, the Catholic activist in New York City was working with the poor and, you know, protesting against war. That's hard work. And you get pushed back too. How did you, how did you, you know, I'm sure you've been doing this for many, many years. How do you explain this to people that attend your church that may feel a certain way about what the president is saying? But if you talk about the teachings of Jesus, how do you break it to them that, hey, Jesus was trying to provide sanctuary for people. He was compassionate. He was merciful. How do you tell them that Jesus had the woke mind virus, essentially? I think the way you pose it is a very good way of posing it, which is you're not, you don't talk about Donald Trump or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. You talk about Jesus and you let them see it, right? So Pope Francis, one of my favorite lines from Pope Francis is we're not meant to replace consciences. We're meant to inform consciences and form consciences. So what does that mean? So that means, you know, if we're out to dinner and you're asking me, what do I think about, um, you know, President Trump or whatnot and, and migrants and refugees. It's much better for me to talk about what Jesus says, right, than to critique President Trump, because it's better for you to kind of come to that understanding yourself. It's not that hard. It's not rocket science. I mean, Jesus is pretty clear. Take care of the poor, the sick, the stranger, right, those who are suffering. You don't have to have a PhD in New Testament studies to understand the stuff. So a lot of it's what we sometimes call invincible ignorance. People sometimes just don't want to hear it. They won't hear it. What does that mean? Invincible ignorance? It means they are refusing to hear it. You know, and Jesus says, you know, in the gospels, you know, there are some people are just they're going to be deaf to this. Nothing against deaf people, but this is a metaphor that Jesus uses in the gospels or blind to it. Again, nothing against blind people. This is the metaphor he uses, right, deaf and blind. They refuse to listen. And Jesus talks about going to different villages and preaching and people aren't listening to him. And he says, shake the dust off your feet. So you can only do so much with some people. I mean, really, look, Jesus loved the poor. That's one of the most basic things in the gospels. Jesus was all about compassion. Jesus was about mercy, about forgiveness. Those are hard things. So it's easier for people to just ignore it, right? As I'm sure in your religion too, there were things that are difficult that, you know, that sort of impinge upon peoples what they see as their freedom. And so it's hard. You know, I would imagine being, I'm not a Muslim, but I would imagine being a devout Muslim is difficult. And it's the same for Christians. Well, let's take the president out of the picture because that gets too politicized. What I'm trying to say is if Jesus were to return and he will return, say, he were to return to the tenderloin in San Francisco. And he helped some of the weakest, the unhoused people who struggled with addiction. The very same oligarchs that talk about the need to return to Christian values would have that same Jesus killed for being a communist with the woke mind virus. What is the protective shield they are using that allows them to still engage with the church but say those things? What a great question. I think a lot of it's human nature. I think some of it's sin. I mean, some of it's sinful. Like if you consciously say, I'm not going to help poor people. And even though I see it in the gospels, it is sinful. It's selfishness, right? That's the first thing. But I also think they're told that by some religious leaders. Like you don't have to buy all that stuff or Jesus was only speaking metaphorically or that doesn't apply to you or it shouldn't be the government that does it. There's all sorts of excuses. You know, and I'm sure I'm sure in your religion as well, there's people that use it and, you know, that kind of dance around things that they should really accept, right? So, no, we got the we got the wealth tax as a cut. We don't tie that we have the wealth tax. You know, how Elizabeth Warren was like we need to we've been doing that seven century. We've been doing that. But it's human nature. I mean, people are, you know, sometimes sinful. They're bad. And they choose to do bad things. And I think that we tend to think of bad things as just like, you know, stabbing someone in the stomach, which of course is bad. But there's also these sort of what we call sins of omission to, things that you don't do. Let me tell you something that really helped me. Yeah. One of my theology professors, a moral theology professor named Jim Keenan, said that in the gospels, sin for Jesus was located not where people are weak, but trying like, oh, my gosh, I keep gossiping. And it's where they are strong, but not bothering. So for Jesus, says this father, Jim Keenan, sin is a failure to bother to love. And I really find that helpful. They just don't bother. You know, they could, you know, if you're an oligarch, you could, you know, help the homeless or you could work for a more just society, but they don't bother. Right? They don't feel like it. It's laziness and it's, but it is sinfulness. And that's where Jesus locates sin. So in the parable of the good Samaritan, there's two guys that pass them by the guy that's by the side of the road who's beaten, you know, the parable, right? They don't bother. They could, but they just don't bother. The other guy, the Samaritan comes by from a hated ethnic group, by the way, right? And helps the guy. He bothers. And interestingly, the salvation of the beaten man depends upon the one whom he considers to be other, different, strange, foreign. And I always have to ask, I asked congregations, this upon whom does our salvation depend today? Who is other in our lives? The migrant, the refugee, the person who looks different from us, the LGBTQ person, right? Upon whom our salvation depends. So it's a really important question. You're talking about something that's also described as the kind of stubborn hardheartedness. Yes. To see that and go, yeah, I'm not buying it. Yeah. And I mean, I think in the Old Testament, you know, a stiff necked people, right? Yeah. Hard hearts. Yeah. That's, you know, I mean, it happened in Jesus' time. It happened in the Old Testament time. It's happening in our time when we see it all over the place. It's sin. Pope Leo has recently been putting Pete Hegseth on blast lately. And I want to set this up with the clip of our Secretary of Defense talking about the Iran War. And then I want to talk about it philosophically. Sure. Let's take a look. Our capabilities are better. Our will is better. Our troops are better. The providence of our Almighty God is there protecting those troops. And we're committed to this mission. Father, how do you analyze that? Do you think God is on our side with this one? God's on everyone's side. I mean, that's the problem with that kind of theology. God is not just on our side. God is on everyone's side. And if God is on anyone's side, you know, it's close to the God is close to the broken hearted. I mean, who would Jesus be close to? Would Jesus be closer to people who are waging war or closer to the people who are poor and struggling and suffering from the war? Now he'd love everybody, but he'd be siding with people who are suffering, right? So this idea that, you know, God's on our side is pretty un-Christian. Pope Leo was pretty strong. Pope Leo said God does not hear the prayers of people who are waging war. And that was pretty strong. And you know, Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. One of the things I find fascinating is that, you know, a lot of people talk about putting the Ten Commandments in the classrooms, right? I'm sure you've heard that, right? Yes. You know, what about the Beatitudes? Blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the poor, blessed are the me, blessed are those who mourn. I mean, where is that? So where is that in that commentary? Where is blessed are the peacemakers? So I think, you know, you have to You really do some gymnastics to say that God is on the side of people who are waging war. You're a practicing Catholic, I'm a practicing Muslim. I grew up around Christianity and Catholicism. I had a very surface level interaction and engagement with it. So I want to go through some of the basics with you. Is that cool? Feel free. Yeah. That's what I'm here for. How many times a day do Catholics have to pray? Well, they don't have to pray, but most pray, you know, like once a day, most Catholics would do something in the morning and maybe at night. It really depends. I mean, it's like from soup to nuts. You can go be very devout and pray for like an hour a day or pray not at all. So my grandmother was very, very devout practicing Muslim woman, an amazing person, amazing human being that I got to meet and spend time with until she passed. The stories that I would hear about her that she would pray not only five times a day, but then she'd also do night prayers. What's the Catholic equivalent of someone who went as hard in the paint as my grandmother? Gosh, I would say someone that goes to mass every day, that prays every day, that, you know, says the rosary and goes to adoration of the blessed sacrament where you sit in front of the sacrament. But you're not just saying, I really admire that tradition. I think that's wonderful. And I'm not saying that just to kind of pay attention. I mean, you are. No, I mean, it's really wonderful. You know, sometimes when I go running the park and I see the guys, you know, facing the right way, I think that's beautiful. So I wish there were a little bit more that in the Catholic world, where it was a little more kind of regular, you know what I mean? Like people go on Sundays, but I think that five times a day, it's beautiful because it kind of punctuates the day, which is lovely, unless we did that more. I'll tell you those guys that you see around New York City, they up my game. It's like when you go to not trying to name drop or brag, when you go to planet fitness and you see someone really getting after it, they're doing two 45s on the bench press. When I see the Syrian Bengali, West African dudes that are the food vendors that are the cab drivers literally pulling over, I've seen during a snow storm, they'll open, crack the door open. They'll get down in prey, whether it's the afternoon prayer, late afternoon prayer, sunset prayer, even the night prayer, and I've always been wowed me to really at that level of dedication me too. I mean, on their on their rugs or their prayer mats, yeah, and forgive me, and they're facing mecca, right? I think that's beautiful. And I wish Catholics did a little bit more of that. But so I think that's one of my favorite parts of Islam. I really, truly, and you see it in New York, I mean, not everyone who's watching this is in New York, but you see that in New York a lot. And then it reminds me to be the same, like how, how devoted am I, you know, to my prayer? Do I do that five times a day? Do you guys face the Vatican? No. Oh, no. What do you face? Nothing. I mean, we imagine, you know, God's with us anywhere, but yeah, I think if we faced anywhere it would be Jerusalem. So Muslims and Catholics both have heaven and hell, but you guys have purgatory. What is purgatory? Yeah, purgatory is always made sense to me. It's a time of preparation to meet God. I've always thought that when we die, we're probably not ready, right, to meet God. So it's a kind of a time of, you know, purification or kind of preparation. It's like a waiting area kind of, yeah, I think it kind of makes sense. I mean, maybe asking for forgiveness for you. I mean, no one knows. No one's come back and told us, right? But a kind of forgiveness for your sins and reconciling yourself to what you've done. So it kind of makes sense. Like, does it have a time on it or what's it like? I don't know, but that's kind of made sense to me. So it's like the spiritual version of the airport, essentially. Probably not as awful as the airport. So like the hospital waiting room or like that seen in Beetlejuice. Maybe not exactly like that, but yeah, just, you know, hanging out and waiting. I would say a time of judgment and reflection, you know, so it's like being called into the teacher's office and saying like, let's look at what you've done over the past semester. You know, some things are good, some things are not so good. So, so, so purgatory is almost like over time before you, you go see the pearly gates, you, you do get an extra, you get extra time on the test now to get ready before the test because we believe in that test, you, you believe in the test meaning what? I do. People talk about, sorry, father. Yeah. People talk about day judgment all the time. Being judged, cancel culture. I'm like, brother, do I believe in cancel culture in one way? Yeah. Hey, I want everyone to see all the I messages, the WhatsApp's, drop the files. Day of judgment is, you will stand before God and he will see everything. Yeah. There is no to leave that, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's no tools, clear history. Father, with all due respect. That's true. I am speaking to you as a Muslim. We are PlayStation 3. Don't know that reference. You are PlayStation 2. Our Jewish brothers and sisters are PlayStation 1. Now, of course, those of us that came from the Vedas, Hindus, they predate that. Or what I would consider Atari or the early, I mean, they are way BCE. I say that to say, there's many of the things in your software program I've already downloaded into my operating system, except it. Okay. I think I'm following you. Meaning there's stuff that we agree on, right? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry to be so dead. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I was jumping around between, you know, PlayStation video game analogies. Let me just get funky with it and say what it is. We are the children of Abraham. Correct. Mohammed was a descendant of Abraham. Correct, right? So was Jesus. Yeah. No, I mean, it's the same God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. We're cousins. Yes. Yeah. And that the Jewish people, I think in, there's a Vatican document that talks about them, which I love as our elder brothers and sisters in the faith, which is true. I mean, they're the people that covenant sure. Absolutely. What's the deal with saints? What do you want to know? They're not gods, but you pray to them. We ask for their prayers. So here's how I say it to people. So would you ever ask for someone to pray for you? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it depends. Well, I was just thinking about some of the people I work with. I was like, I don't need you to know. Well, like someone, you know who you really love and who you trust and who you think is holy. Oh, dude. I mean, for me, I've never, I've never been afraid of catching a blessing. Right. I'll accept a prayer from anyone from any faith. Okay. The next jump is then why wouldn't you ask for someone in heaven for their prayers? That's what the saints are. The saints are two things there are patrons. We call them so they pray for us, right, from their post in heaven, just like someone would pray for us on earth. And there are companions. There are examples. And it's basically one of my favorite lines is the saints show us what it means to be Christian in this particular way. So, you know, someone like Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day, the Catholic activist or Saint Francis of a C.C. I mean, we can't be exactly like them, but they're kind of examples for us to live our lives as Christians and they pray for us from their posts in heaven. So yeah, it's a big part of being Catholic. So we don't pray to them. They're not God, but we ask for their prayers and we look for their examples to help us. Is it true they've performed three miracles? So in order to be canonized these days, now in the past, you know, just sort of being with Jesus, that was enough, like Saint Peter, Saint Mary Magdalene. And then what happened was the church realized that it needed to impose some sort of rules on this because, you know, just to make sure the bar was pretty high. So you have to lead a life of outstanding holiness, right? And then you're sort of approved for people to pray to you. And then one miracle attributed to prayers to you and then two miracles. You become blessed and then two miracles you become a saint. So yeah, too. What type of miracles are we talking about here? Obviously it's healing miracles. And you know, people might roll their eyes and say, that's baloney. But yeah, I mean, basically you have people who were having curable illnesses and they, their families would pray to the saint and they're cured and there's no other explanation. And the church attributes that to the prayers of that saint. It's a kind of sign that they're in heaven and they're doing their job. I think it's kind of beautiful because otherwise, I mean, if there were no standards. You don't have to hard sell me here, by the way. Okay. Well, that's good. It's crazy. You're things happen on planet earth. Donald Trump is president. So sure. Miracles can happen. Mm hmm. No comment. Things beyond logic can happen. Mm hmm. Yeah. No, I mean, I believe in that that, you know, the supernatural. That's part of that's part of belief in God. I don't even call my own dad father. You don't have to. It's just kind of traditional. But, you know, there's lots of sort of examples of that in like, you know, Abba and Rabbi. And, you know, I just like to teach your father. It's just kind of a sign of respect, but you don't have to. Why do Catholics make it so hard to convert to Catholicism? One of our team members is thinking of accepting Catholicism. He has to take all these classes. It's a very, very long process. But you could be Muslim right now. Oh, really? Yeah. Father. Okay. How would I do that? Or, I would one do that. You just say there is only one God, but God, Muhammad is the last final messenger, Lai Lai Lai Lai Lai. Okay. Now you're Muslim. Mm hmm. You go direct. You know how radio had went direct to the fans and they're like, here's the album. No record label. No middle man. Right. Boom. So Islam is a spiritual version of just go direct, go direct to God. Download vertically. No, that's interesting. I didn't know that. No. You should not know that father. There's two billion Muslims on earth. We're a quarter of the planet. I don't know. I don't know everything. There you go. No, I think the idea is you want to prepare the people for what they're getting themselves into. You know, you want to give them a sense of the history and the. beliefs and it's funny, we're talking, I don't know when this will come out, but we're talking right after the Easter season, which is when we accepted all these people into the church. Yeah, it's a long process. I think people are happy when they sort of understand it more. Why do Catholics have to confess their sins to priests instead of straight up to God? You can confess them straight up to God. I think it's a lot different if you say them out loud to a person. That's my experience. It's one thing, it's fine, I often talk about my sins to God and other people do that. It's quite different like sitting as we are now, which is often the way the confession happens. I think it makes you take more responsibility for your sins. I think saying them out loud is a big deal. And also I think hearing the words of absolution and forgiveness is a big deal for people. So you can feel forgiven by God and of course you are forgiven by God. But when you hear that, it's quite different. I mean, so the words of absolution, right, you know, I forgive you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's really powerful for people, it kind of changed lives. They feel forgiven. One of my favorite lines about confession is that confession is not about how bad you are but how good God is. And when people experience that forgiving love, it's really, it's really life changing. And to hear it from a person is different. Are you really supposed to do it every week? If you're conscious of mortal sin, you're supposed to do it, you know, pretty frequently. But I mean, if you don't sin, you don't go to confession. So not every week, not for everybody. I mean, I go pretty frequently. What if someone admits to doing something illegal? Well, that's usually what they're, I mean, illegal or immoral. That's usually what they're confessing. But is there a spirituality, hypocritic oath that you have? Oh, yes. Completely. Have all the seal of the confessional. You don't say anything because that would defeat the whole purpose. We might encourage people like you need to make amends or turn yourself in, but you can't, I can't tell on the person. Really? Oh, absolutely not. Yeah, absolutely not. Because otherwise people wouldn't come in. No, it's, are you serious? Absolutely. It's the seal of the confessional. And in fact, if I'm right, I may be wrong. I think priests get excommunicated for breaking the seal. So if you came in and said, I did XYZ and I went out and tweeted it, I think I'd get excommunicated. No, because I'm saying if I was dexter streaming now on Paramount Plus, the original Showtime series, not part of the larger Paramount conglomerate, and dexter came in and said, I've killed 17 plus people just in this season alone. You couldn't call the cops? No, I couldn't. What? No. Now, I might say you need to call the cops before you're forgiven. Yeah. But no, you can't because you're just, that's seal of the confessional. Absolute. That's one of the things that I think people really trust priests with, right, that we're not going to do that. And so therefore, people are much more disclosive. I mean, they'll tell you everything. But also, let's, let's be honest, murderers are not generally going to confession. They're generally not that, that bent. So I'm not having a lot of murderers or, you know, like mass murderers come into the confessions. I mean, you do have politicians though. Have I had a politician? I don't think so. Yeah. I've had a lot of business people. But yeah, I mean, all sorts of things. It's a common, it is a common trope though, when TV shows are in movies. Oh, sure. There's always the mob boss who goes in, goes in and confesses to fathers. So good to see you. And there's the Montgomery Cliff to movie. I confess where, you know, he has to, he hears a murder that's going to happen. But in the echoes and shadows of the ancient city of Quebec, Canada, walks a man who knows the whole terrifying truth, but can never tell all the strange things his ears have heard. For he is sworn to silence. Yeah. But usually it's, it's kind of mundane things, gossip and, you know, being mean to people, you know, which is, you know, which is a burden for people. And then a lot of times when people are away for a long time, it's very healing to come back and say, and here, welcome back. You're forgiven. Welcome back. There's something very unique about the Catholic faith and its connection to the Levant. What is your faith's connection to that entire? Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel? What is your connection to that region? Well, initially it's the connection in the Old Testament, you know, the people of Israel, right? A part of the, the salvation history is through them, right, in the Old Testament. And even more so for us as Christians, this is where Jesus grew up in Nazareth and Galilee, right? And this is where he's from. Theologians, I really love this, have something called the scandal of particularity. Have you heard this before? No. The fact that God chose to become human in a particular time, in a particular place with a particular person. So it's really strange when you think about it because when you think about, we're talking about philosophy. You know, the Greek God is, you know, thought-thinking thought, Aristotle and all this. And, you know, God is kind of very abstract. And then you have God in this very particular time and particular place in Nazareth, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. And so that's why that place is so important for us because this is the place where Jesus, you know, had his life death and resurrection. I think you can't, I was writing a book on Jesus a couple years ago and a friend of mine said, you can't write a book on Jesus without going to the place. They sometimes call the Holy Land the fifth gospel because it sort of opens it up. And a friend of mine said, it's like going to, let's, if we're friends, right, if I go to your house, I understand you a lot better, or if I go to your parents house, I understand you a lot better. So that's part of the importance of place. Have you read Ten of Hisee Coats? His latest book? Yes, yes. Not the latest one, no. Well, one of the things he says about visiting the Holy Land, you must walk the land. And he talks about obviously visiting the Holy Land and then also him visiting the land in which his ancestors were originally enslaved. So he actually touched and walked on that very soil. That was a part of the transatlantic slave trade. But I still think about this, which moved me so much about his writing, which is you have to take it out of the theoretical, you must walk the land. And I've gotten into even petty arguments with the friends about this. I'm like, we got to do this in person. You must walk the land. They're like, what are you talking about? We can do this meeting over zoom. But I'm like, no, it's deeper than that. But it is true. I do believe you have to do my life. Change my life. I'm going to, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no. You have to change my life to be able to stand and say, Jesus saw this with his eyes, just to see the sea of galleys, still the sea of galleys, still in the same place, to say that Jesus saw this is shocking. I'll tell you a funny story. There's a parable that he has about somewhere that goes out to sew and there's he sewed on rocky ground and fertile ground and thorny ground, right? And there's a place in Israel on the sea of galleys called the Bay of Parables, where Jesus supposedly preached these parables. And there's not that many places for him to preach. It's kind of small, right? And I went to this bay and, you know, he would have gone out into a boat to preach to people because sound travels over water. You kind of get that when you're there. It's a sort of bowl-shaped amphitheater sort of depression on the seashore anyway, long story short, where there where he preached the parables. And I'm all with a friend of mine, there wasn't like an amusement park or something. And what do I see around me? Rocky ground, thorny ground, and fertile ground. So there it is. Like, so when he's preaching the parables, he's saying it falls on rocky ground like that or thorny ground like that. It really just grounded Jesus. You have to actually see what he says. You say, like, this is it and this is what he means by those things. So yeah. So that's why it's so important for us, that place and for other religions as well. So what was very moving is up until his dying days, Pope Francis would face time, children and people that would attend the churches in Gaza. Even now, Pope Leo, I don't know if you saw this recently, addressed Christians in Lebanon with an Islamic legum on Easter, peace be with you. This was very different than our president's message to Islam on Easter. Now there are many wars and conflicts happening around the world. Why has the Catholic church taken such a strong position in both of these popes respectively, have taken so much time to connect with the people who attend church in the Levant? Oh, gosh. I would say this is most of the popes and certainly back to Paul VI, you know, who went to Israel for the first time. A couple reasons. One, it's an important place for us, right? As I was saying, two, the people there are kind of beleaguered and need help, right? Just in general. And three, there are Catholics there, right? So it's part of their flock. So they're reaching out to people who are in their flock as well. I think it's beautiful. I also think there's a kind of inculturation that goes on, you know, speaking in people's language. It's important that the church needs to come to people and speak their language. I would say to people, Jesus met people where they were when he leaves Nazareth and he goes to the Sea of Galilee to call the fishermen, like he goes to where they are. And then when he's there, I don't know if you know what he says to them, he says, coming after me and I will make you fishers of people, right? So he's speaking to them in their language. I'm not going to talk to you like a carpenter, like what I am. I'm going to talk to you like the fisherman would talk. So the Pope is meeting people where they are, which is what the church is supposed to do and they're supposed to be like Jesus. Like I said, for me, witnessing what the Pope does in the modern era, obviously there've been many popes, but not reading it in a history book, seeing how they engage with world politics in that way, and also understanding that these are deeply contentious issues and they're not afraid of putting themselves out there. - Yeah, it was amazing. I always found that before Pope Francis was going with a call apostolic pilgrimage or a visit, papal visit, people would say, "How is he gonna navigate this?" You know, Israel or Palestine or Lebanon or Kenya or Sudan or wherever. I don't know exactly all the places he went, but they'd say, "Oh, he's not gonna be able "to negotiate this and it's too complicated." You know, he always just was with the poor, preach the gospel and people were kind of amazed. I think if you stick to the gospel and stick to proclaiming Jesus' message of love, mercy and compassion, you're fine. And that's what the popes have done and will always do. Yeah, it's wonderful to see people who are able to do that above politics. Because you notice Pope Leo only rarely mentions the name of President Trump when he's asked. Otherwise, it's just preaching the gospel. - Let's talk about young people coming back to religion. - Yeah, there was an article recently in the Washington Post about Gen Z people in New York City flooding to a Catholic church. Now, one of our producers Annie actually went there and I had to confirm with her, it wasn't a cult. It wasn't a multi-level marketing scam. It was a legit, active church packed with young people, St. Joseph's in the village. - Yeah. - Do you think Israel church going is gonna make a comeback and do you think it could be a possible solution to the loneliness epidemic that we're living through right now? - Oh, another great question. I think it's a response to the loneliness epidemic. I think people are looking for not only God, I think there's a natural desire for God in our lives, general, but people are also looking for community. I think post COVID and all the social media stuff, they're seeking God first, they're seeking community, they're seeking identity. Yeah, so I think it's great. I mean, I hear about it all over, not just that one place, which is a wonderful church. It's amazing. And it's kind of unexpected. - Oh, Father, I've been seeing this for a long time. Have you? - Yeah, I'm telling you, Father, being straight edge is the new counterculture. - What does straight edge mean? - Straight edge means just like buttoned up, you know, straight and narrow, following the path, square bear, goober, put together. - I think it's more, it's interesting. That's the new counterculture. - That's interesting. I think it's attracting all sorts of people though, right? So, and it's not just a certain type of person, but it's a person who is like longing for something more. A friend of mine described it to me as post-secular, which I like. So there's kind of post-religious, like a doughnut religion. And now, this generation is experiencing secularity as something that is wanting. It doesn't do it for them. Now, I think that makes a lot of sense to me, but yeah, they want. As Santa Gustin said, our hearts are restless until they rest in you, Lord. And there's this kind of natural desire for God. I really believe that. There's a natural desire in all of us for God. And this is what this, I think, we see playing out. - You have a new memoir, and it's titled "Work in Progress." So, funny enough, your last position before you joined the priesthood was a position in HR. Now, do you think your role is basically HR for God? In what way? - Well, you are a spiritual intermediary. People come to you, they're crying in your office, and you ultimately go, hey, I gotta report this to a higher power. - That's really interesting. I've never made that connection, but yes, now that you say it, maybe HR for God. 'Cause HR kind of is like that. They go, I hear you, I receive what you're saying, and you are right to feel that way. I don't know if I can do anything about that right now, per se, but I will report this. - That's actually very good. - Yes, I think being a representative for God is a nice thing to do. You pointed to a specific quote that helped you decide to join the priesthood, and I'd love for you to read it back to us. - Sure. - This is from Thomas Merton's, "No Man is an Island." Let's take a look. - Sure. Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stop to think about them, are just the opposite of what we are made for. It's not a great quote. That changed my life. - It's a really beautiful idea. Very follow your bliss, find your passion, find your joy in things, very eat, pray love. So I have, I'm of two minds about this. 'Cause I was rocking with this quote for a little bit. On one hand, it's very beautiful. Hey, you wanna do improv? Take that improv class. What are you doing? Working at KPMG, follow your bliss. There's another part of me that feels, there is a little bit of the Western privilege to it. Many people in the world can't do that. - That's true. - You know, if you're in a particular part of the world, and you say I was born to be an astronaut, that may not be the reality under which you live in. How do you think about that? - Yeah, that's a very good point that not everyone can kind of fulfill their vocation. But for me, the most important part is the first part about being, who do you want to be? Who is God calling you to be, right? And the vocation to become the person you're called to be, is much more important than what you're doing. And so that's what, when I was in the corporate world, the reason it spoke to me, I mean, it doesn't have to speak to everybody, is that I felt like I was just in the wrong place. What am I doing basically? That's what that question is asking of people. And it asked that of me when I was working for G.E. Like, what are you doing? You're not meant for this. How do you help people find happiness and dignity and work that maybe isn't what they're meant to do? - Yeah, and I talk about that in the book because not everyone is doing their dream job, right? I worked as a factory worker on an assembly line, right? And people were not, this was not their dream job. I think one of the ways is to see dignity in all work. All work is dignified. Another way is to sort of appreciate the people that you're working with. And another way is to kind of take pride in what you're producing, right? But no, not every job is a person's dream job. But go ahead. - No, no, go ahead. - No, but vocation is a lot deeper. Vocation means to be called who is God calling you to be? Who am I? We say in the Catholic church. I think you're like this. Who am I and who's am I, right? So am I like work just this tool in this, or Cog in this company? Is that my, who I am or am I God's? - You write about the death of your college roommate, Brad, dying suddenly in a car crash, and you stopped going to mass. And when you told a friend about this, she said instead of being angry at God about Brad and what happened to him, she had been thanking God for Brad's life. How much of religion is just choosing the optimistic or grateful POV that your friend had articulated to you? - You know, I didn't look at it that way. Like let's look at it from an optimistic point of view. I looked at it in a different way. So our friend, Brad, had died in a car accident along with someone else, another friend. And I had stopped going to church because I was angry at God for basically killing my friend. That's how I saw God. And I mentioned it to this young woman, Jackie, who was a fellow college student. And that's what she said. I've been spending the last couple of months thanking God for Brad's life. What that did to me was say, I can be in a relationship with the God that I don't understand. That was the shift for me. Not like look on the bright side of life, you know, quote, "anti-python." But I want to be in a relationship with the God, even if I don't understand God. So that was the shift. So that was the move to I think of more adult spirituality because we can't understand God, right? We look at all the wars and the suffering and the famine and the violence and illnesses. So that was the shift for me. How have you made sense of that? Why is there suffering? There's no satisfactory answer to that question. So I mean, if I could explain that, you know, like I'm better than all the theologians in saints. And so it is ultimately a mystery, right? Theologians talk about the inconsistent triad. So God's all powerful, God's all loving, and there's suffering. One of those things doesn't make sense because of God's all loving, then maybe God's not all powerful 'cause He can't stop suffering. And if God's all powerful, maybe He's not all loving because He doesn't stop suffering. So there's no real satisfactory answer. For me, it's mysterious. I think that there are perspectives to look at, which is that God is with us in our suffering. God is close to the brokenhearted. My mom died about a month ago and I felt God's presence and not in some strange mystical way, but, you know, through friends and family and the mass and the church, right? There's God who's present to me. And then the other thing to understand is that Jesus understands suffering. So Jesus suffered on the cross on good variety, but also He led a human life. It's most likely that Mary's husband Joseph dies before Jesus is public ministry. So he knows what that does. Like, He knew what illness looks like. He understands you. And I think that's very comforting to people. But why is there suffering? There's no satisfactory answer for that. You can't say to a family whose child is, you know, suffering from cancer. This is why this is happening. So it is a mystery. Do you believe we have a soul? Absolutely. Of course. What made you believe that? (laughs) I think that's what a great question. What made me believe it? That's like saying what makes me believe the grass is green. because it kind of is. I see people's beauty. I believe that every person is a beloved child of God, right? So I believe that sort of theologically and spiritually, but I believe that just from interacting with people, everyone has a soul. Not everyone else believes that. Well, this leads to my other question, which is, I've carried, you know, I'm a practicing Muslim, but the reason why I'm here with you, fathers, I love all faiths, I love all people. And do I really believe? Do I feel it in my heart? Yeah, but I also don't know. Why can't more people be more chill about it and be like, I do believe, but honestly, bro, I don't know. Why isn't that a full sentence? Human nature. I mean, people like to be confident and they don't like uncertainty, they don't like gray, they want black and white. I'm right. You're wrong. It's, it's just, I think it's just human nature. It's very hard for you to say, I don't know. Or it's a mystery. Because it's, it takes some humility to say that. All I know is everyone who absolutely says, I know, not very chill. In the gospel of John, whenever someone says, I know, they don't. Or I see, they don't. Right. So it's a little bit of a warning to people, you know. Okay. Why did Jesus have to die? I mean, we already have a story of sacrifice, faith, obedience to God. We already got that with Abraham. I mean, the story of Abraham, it's about going hard in the paint. That is hard in the paint. Because God was basically like, do you believe in me? Sacrifice your son. That was the original. If he wanted to, he would. That was that mean. And then I love how God was like, no, come on, come on. I wouldn't make you do that. That's quite the story. I just wanted to see if you're a real one. It's quite the story. Resonates with me. Prefigures, you know, the son dying, right? Of course, you know, the father and the son in terms of Jesus and the father. Why does Jesus have to die? There's lots of lots of ways of explaining that. One is called atonement theology that Jesus had to die to, in a sense, propitiate a God who needed to have, in a sense, payment for sins, right? Jesus dies for our sins. He redeems our sins. I mean, the way I look at it is this that Jesus comes into the world as pure love, pure good. God, right? You know, the Son of God. And the world rejects him. And that's kind of inevitable. Right? And so if he's going to continue to be who he is and continue to preach this message of love and mercy and compassion, it's going to happen and it does happen. So he accepts that. Which I think is quite beautiful. He accepts that as part of his mission. That's how I like to say it. And then of course, that's not the end of the story. Of course, the resurrection is the end of the story. That's the most important part of the whole story. Let me ask you a question. Let's allow to ask you a question. Please. Why do you like being a Muslim? It helps me make sense of a world that I feel is doesn't make sense and doesn't feel just. And the things around me that feel wrong and unjust and unfair and the paradoxes of life, meaning why is it that I'm born to die? Why is it that every if I'm lucky, everyone I know and love will either perish, die of illness or leave me? These are very painful things that feel wrong, unfair, or I can't make sense of. It's pretty cool to have like a direct download with the higher power and being. And here's what super dope, by the way, what's super fire about Islam, particularly is unlike Buddhism, which like works for like, Gwyneth Paltrow and really rich people that live in the Hamptons where they all have become Indian. Islam has reconciled both the practical unjust world, like 10 toes down. Here's how you actually live in reality. You donate this much as a God is like this. You pray this many times a day. This is why it's five times a day. There's five sunrise after it's like down to like a really beautiful lived reality science. It also super reconciles with the super dope spiritual world. We already rock with Genesis, Old Testament and New Testament. We already mess with the scrolls and we got Judaism and Buddha and Hinduism. They're all accepted as prophets. So I've downloaded all the other video game systems as well. So I got all the spiritual woo woo stuff and I know how to kind of litigate and walk through like reality. And what's hard about it for you? What's hard about it? Father, let me tell you something. 30 days of Ramadan, no food or water. The water part is really, really hard, but to quote one of my favorite authors who is a Christian Lebanese mathematician, Nassim Taled, from the Levant. Taled talks about in both Christian faith, but he also, because he grew up in Lebanon, he grew up around Muslims too, is that you have to have skin in the game. That if you don't feel the pain of anything, then nothing really matters. And I kind of like that because everything that I love, that I deeply love my children, marriage, being faithful to my wife, being loving and kind, even though I'm feeling angry at the time, you have to pay a price for it. Sure. And having some sort of actual real skin in the game that you have lived and sacrificed for matters. Otherwise, it's all esoteric and not real. So that's the only hard part. The hard part is like, you know, five times a day is tough, Father, but it's also kind of dope when I do it because because I'm tapped in. I'm tapped in. I'm super duper tapped in. It's interesting. It sounds like you're talking about a relationship, so it would be like a family or a wife, like you have to make certain sacrifices that makes it because you value it. One more question, because I'm just dined enough. What's your image of God? Was that being clear though? And what's your image of God? I don't have an image of it, which was also super fire about Islam. Shout out to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and the Prophet, Jesus, peace be upon him. Shout out to Prophet Muhammad, being like, look, I know what's going to happen. You guys are going to turn, you're going to turn the prophets into a casting season. No pictures of me, but I will let you do calligraphy. There is beauty in everything. So you guys get on your flower tip, do that. Flowers go for it. The beauty of nature, go for it. Don't give Muhammad a six pack and don't do all that. I think that's super cool. So when I have an image of God, I don't even think of God, which is super duper fire. I'm using fire colloquial fire means it's like super awesome. I got that because, because I don't associate him with other beings, that being said, let me just say this as well. People that lose their mind over drawing the drawing stuff, I condemn. I'm not cool with that. Let people draw whoever they want to draw, but I do think it is really cool that it reconciled that. Oh, I also think it's super cool that in Islam, that one of the first things that the prophet did was he freed Balaal and then had Balaal was a slave. He had Balaal lead the first prayer on top of the Kaaba, which was built by Abraham. So it reconciled a lot of the the great sins of like colonialism. I'm Indian by product of colonialism. America, transatlantic slave trade, it already just circumvented that. Like one of the second or third believers was black. He led the prophet in prayer, just super fire. Then the prophets last sermon, super ahead of its time. That was super fire too of like, I'm about to die. Here's how I feel about the wealth tax here. I feel there's no Arab better than another Arab. Like he dealt with sexism, racism, finances. It was awesome. It was awesome. So then for me living in 2026, I was like, man, this dude lived like in a Bedouin society in Saudi Arabia in the seventh century. And kind of was dropping these bars that Bernie Sanders, you know, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the kind of modern progressive movement. They're kind of behind. But we kind of had this. Super cool. I thought it was just really cool. So it really, really worked with me. Then, furthermore, it's simplicity of like, so father, people would be like, oh, you met with a Catholic priest. I'd be like, yeah, but father Martin's kind of Muslim. Like, it's so chill. It's kind of a secret where I'm like, he's kind of Muslim. And I love that. I love that we kind of are like low-key with it. Like, hey, you don't actually don't be Muslim. But I know you want it. Like, I like the tease of it. Super cool. It's nice to see you so alive with your faith. It really is. Okay. Oh, it is. It is. I don't know if I articulated what it means to me. So those are the top singles. That's beautiful. Yeah, I mean, it obviously animates you and inspires you. So God bless you. Oh, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And then, and then I had, I grew up, I'm very lucky to grow up around iconic American Muslims, Muhammad Ali, giant, Hakeem Lajwan, giant. People that became beacons of what it could be in the world. So yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, father, thank you so much for being a part of this. This was my beautiful conversation. And I'm sorry for going on a TED Talk at the end. Tons of fun. Thank you. This was so fun. Yeah. Don't leave. Make your daddy go. I'm not your dad.