Avoiding Babylon

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For 146 years, pope after pope warns Catholics about a secret society and almost nobody listens. So Leo XIII does something different: he frames the whole problem as a war between two cities, the City of God and the City of Man, and then names the modern structure he thinks finally gives the “city of man” real organization. That document is Humanum Genus, and we dig into what Leo actually argues, why he goes theological instead of just issuing another ban, and how his critique of naturalism and religious indifferentism maps onto the modern secular state.

We also slow down and do the unglamorous work: what is real history in Freemasonry’s development from medieval guilds to Enlightenment-era speculative lodges, and what is just romantic myth. We talk higher-degree esoteric influences, why the “all religions are equal” claim is not neutral, and why Leo ties these ideas to education, public life, and the replacement of Christian civilization with a functionally atheist public order.

Joshua Charles joins us to connect Humanum Genus to Monsignor George Dillon’s The War of Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization, a book Leo XIII endorsed and helped circulate. We unpack Charles’s “sola natura” summary, the Catholic claim that grace perfects nature, and why a society trained to violate conscience becomes easier to steer. Then, because we’re us, the conversation spills into current events, media narratives, and a late-show pivot through the Carmelo Anthony verdict and JD Vance explaining his conversion to Catholicism.

Subscribe for the rest of the encyclical series, share this with a friend who thinks “religion is private,” and leave a review if you want more deep dives like this. Where do you see the City of Man pressing hardest right now?
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A few viral clips and one Vatican appointment raise a bigger question than most Catholic media wants to touch: when Church communications tries to sound modern, does it end up teaching something else entirely? We dig into the resurfaced audio around a former EWTN executive tapped for a Vatican communications role, including her comments on supersessionism, Catholic-Jewish relations, and the claim that “all Jews should become Christians… is wrong.” For us, that line isn’t a hot take, it’s a doctrinal fault line, because Catholic theology can’t treat salvation, evangelization, and conversion as optional without changing the faith into something unrecognizable.

We also unpack the Phylos Project and the broader ecosystem of “dialogue” branding, Israel trips, and Catholic influencer pipelines that can nudge people toward a softer, more therapeutic version of Catholicism. The issue isn’t polite conversation or basic respect, it’s what gets quietly edited out: the uniqueness of Christ, the purpose of the Church, and the danger of confusing goodwill with agreement. We talk through why this messaging lands especially hard with the EWTN crowd, and why media-savvy appointments can calm headlines while pushing big changes underneath.

Then the conversation pivots to Washington, DC, where Monsignor Stephen Rossetti is removed from his exorcist role after warning that some UFO or UAP encounters may be demonic deception. We read his response, play what he actually said, and sort speculation from doctrine while asking why the backlash got so loud that the story spilled beyond Catholic news into mainstream outlets.

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Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
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Europe is declaring the Catholic faith “obsolete,” the Papal States are gone, and the Pope is effectively boxed into Rome. That’s the moment Leo XIII steps into, and instead of answering with another list of condemnations, he reaches back to a 13th-century friar and bets the future on Catholic intellectual formation. We walk through the history behind Aeterni Patris and why Leo thinks the real crisis of the modern world is a crisis of philosophy that spills out of universities into law, media, family life, and public morality.

We break down the four big currents shaping that era and, honestly, still shaping ours: Kantian subjectivism, Hegelian historicism, positivism, and materialism. Each one chips away at the idea that truth is knowable and stable, and we talk about what happens when seminaries and Catholic education absorb those habits instead of resisting them. From Perugia’s Thomist experiment to Leo’s push for the Leonine edition and a worldwide revival of Thomism, you’ll hear why St. Thomas Aquinas becomes the Church’s chosen model for thinking clearly about God, the human person, liberty, authority, and the moral order.

Then we make the jump to today: AI, advertising, “slop” content, and the uncomfortable question of what happens when powerful technology grows faster than moral reasoning. If you’ve been looking for a Catholic take on modern philosophy, Thomism, and AI ethics, this conversation is built for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves big ideas, and leave a review with the one modern assumption you think needs to be challenged first.
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Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
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The modern world keeps telling you the problem is politics, policy, or personality. We argue it’s deeper: bad philosophy becomes bad theology, then bad culture, and eventually a society that can’t even explain what truth, freedom, or the human person are. That’s why we go back to 1879 and Pope Leo XIII’s Aeterni Patris, written when the Church is politically cornered, mocked by the academies, and squeezed by hostile states across Europe. 

We walk through the real intellectual enemies Leo sees rising behind the scenes: Kantian subjectivism that cuts reason off from reality, Hegelian historicism that turns doctrine into something that “evolves,” positivism that treats only lab results as knowledge, and materialism that reduces mind and soul to chemistry. Then we track Leo’s response: recover the Catholic intellectual tradition with St. Thomas Aquinas at the center, rebuild seminaries and universities, and use philosophy as a bridge to faith rather than a replacement for it. 

From there we bring Leo’s warnings forward into the AI era. We talk about media saturation, the coming ad-driven “slop” economy, and why technology without moral formation doesn’t stay neutral for long. We also ask the uncomfortable question nobody wants to face: will pornography and artificial intimacy become the profit engine that pushes AI into every corner of life? 

If you want a grounded Catholic take on faith and reason, Thomism, modernism, Catholic education, and AI ethics, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What part of modern life do you think is most shaped by bad philosophy?
Support the show

Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!
Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1
https://www.avoidingbabylon.com
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100,000 subscribers is supposed to feel like a finish line. For us, it feels like turning on the camera, realizing the lighting is still bad, and choosing to fix it live anyway. This milestone stream is a behind-the-scenes look at how our Catholic podcast and livestream actually runs: the studio build, the sound and echo battles, why backlight matters, and how a “nice background” can still make you disappear on camera if you don’t shape the scene.

We also get real about the creator economy. Subscriber counts don’t mean what they used to, the YouTube algorithm can reward clips while long-form shows stay steady, and the X algorithm can hijack your feed if you pause on the wrong video for eight seconds. That pressure fuels the negativity cycle, especially in Catholic media, and we’re tired of it. We talk about why keeping day jobs gives us freedom to experiment, joke around, and focus on content that actually lasts.

So where do we go next? We want to keep at least one weekly deep-dive anchored in Catholic history: papal encyclicals, older councils like Trent, and even “faith in film” style episodes that start with real events like the French Revolution and the War in the Vendée. We share sponsor updates, a listener success story, and why we care more about real community than raw views.

If you like candid creator talk mixed with Catholic commentary and history, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
Support the show

Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!
Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1
https://www.avoidingbabylon.com
Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com
Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com
Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe
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