RADIOJanuary 01, 2024

How Christians should respond to PERSECUTION from Biden AND their own Church

Under the Biden administration, traditionalist Catholics and conservative Christians of all kinds have increasingly become targets of the government. And some churches themselves are also starting to turn on traditionalist Christians. So, how should people of faith respond to this increase in persecution from outside AND within the Church? Glenn speaks with former presidential speechwriters Alex Torres and Joshua Charles, who have co-authored a new book, "Persecuted from Within." They argue that modern-day Christians should learn from those who came before them. And they also discuss the recent removal of Catholic Bishop Joseph Strickland by the Pope and how bizarre it is that Joe Biden — our second Catholic president — is targeting Catholics.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Well, let me say hello to a couple of people. Alec Torres. He was the former speechwriter for President Trump, and my good friend and former co-author Joshua Charles. He's also a former White House speechwriter. And he is the coauthor of Original Argument. The Federalist case for the Constitution.

Adapted for the 20th century, which is something we put out. I don't even know.

Joshua, how long was that? 2008, '9?

JOSHUA: 2011. That was over 10 years ago, Glenn. Thank you for the opportunity, did a lot of things. Thank you.

GLENN: No, you're extraordinarily talented.

So, guys, tell me. And I guess, Alec, if you want to start, tell me about Persecuted From Within.

ALEC: Persecuted From Within is a book that is really rooted in something that Josh and I were noticing. That if you are good, faithful, traditional Catholic. Just good, faithful, traditional Christians.

All around you, people are -- you're under attack.

People don't like you.

The state doesn't like you.

And, frankly, we saw in our own church. A lot of people in our own church don't like us.

And they're trying to crush us.

So we wanted to know how to respond to that. We wanted to figure out, how do you act as a Christian. A good person of faith, in response to institutions that you love, persecuting you.

And we thought of a better way to do that, than to look at great historical figures. Really, monumental Christians from the past, who had to live under pretty terrible circumstances.

Frankly, circumstances, that are oftentimes worse than our own. And learn the lesson straight from them.

GLENN: You cover one of my favorite guys.

Fulton sheen. The archbishop from New York. Who I didn't know about, growing up.

I found out about it, probably in 2008.

And I think he was one of the greatest guys ever.

I don't think of him as persecuted.

But he's a part of the book. How do you look at him?

And what did you learn from him?

ALEC: Well, he was persecuted in a way that was a little hidden. What happened with him. It was his cardinal at the time.

It was -- this is an interpersonal dispute. Bishop Sheen was in charge of distributing charity to the poor. And Stulman gave him a bunch of things from the government to distribute to the poor. And when Stulman asked Sheen to pay for it, Sheen said no.

So you think that's a small matter.

But it actually made the cardinals livid against Sheen.

And he found revenge, moved him out of his position. Cut him off from his TV program. And sent him off to work at Rochester, where he was totally ill suited for his role. He had to do it. Because it was his boss essentially.

He was under the cardinal. He looked at this great figure.

Media personalities.

Invited to these big events at New York.

And, boom, pretty much a failure, when he was sent over to Rochester.

All because he refused to take money from the poor.

And give it to his boss.

GLENN: Joshua, you're having this persecution.

A lot of people are questioning the way their churches are behaving.

Because we're in a time of great change. And I think most of our churches have gotten fat and sassy.

And are too timid to take on the real gospel truth. And how it applies to our lives.

A lot of people and a lot of faiths are having this problem.

In the Catholic Church, you just had something up heard of happen here in Texas.

Where the pope got involved, and kicked somebody out.

VOICE: Yeah. Bishop Strickland, who is a friend of mine. Right before COVID, I was able to spend some time with Bishop Strictland, in what we Catholics call a Eucharistic adoration. Where we pray for what we believe is the body, blood, and soul of our Lord, our Eucharist.

And we did that for what's called a holy hour. And I will say, the bishop is the real deal. We went from dinner.

He wears his garments everywhere he goes. He's a humble, shepherd of the Lord. And I think in his reaction to the situation, we see how many of the things that Alec and I write about in this book, reacted. And we cover about 2000 years' worth of saints.

And Bishop Strictland has asked Catholics, he's asked them to pray for Pope Francis. He's asked them to not engage in reviling. But he's also spoken the truth, about some of the issues, that are going on in the church.

And, frankly, that's the sort of behavior that many of the saints engaged in, in this book.

One that comes to mind is St. Athanasius, who was the great bishop of Alexandria. He was reviled and booted from his dioceses, multiple times. He was exiled five times through Alexandria. There was one time, some soldiers coming to pick him up, that were being sent by the emperor, who was coordinating with some Aryan bishops. And he just barely made it out.

He basically covered his face. And went through a crowd and escaped. So there were some pretty harrowing stories.

And Athanasius, the phrase was (another language), Athanasius against the world.

And he found support in Rome, and in other parts of the world, particularly in the West.

But he stood firmly for the truth, unwaveringly. But to do so, he had to experience persecution within the family, as we say.

And that's one of the great lessons of these things, is that to follow Jesus, Jesus says we must take up our cross, and the cross includes not only being on a path from external enemies -- you know, pagans and heathens, and what not. But from members of the family, so to speak, within the church as well. As Jesus himself was. From Judas, to the denial of Peter. And many of the problems the apostles addressed in the early church. There's all sorts of issues, those issues have never changed.

But many of these great saints face, as Alex mentioned, challenges that many of us couldn't even imagine. I think we're in a very trying time period, don't get me wrong.

But many of. You know, Joan of arc, for example. She's covered in this book. She was a lay woman, and she was killed.

She was unjustly brought to a trial. Her canonical rights to appeal to the Pope, for example, were denied. And as a result, she was executed. But she went to her execution, faithful, praying to God.
And she remained a Catholic.

And so, you know, that's the great story of these saints. Is that they do things that are quite literally, otherworldly.

And I think that's what is so inspiring. Either the Christianity thing is a complete fraud, or it's otherworldly.

And it actually gives its followers something that they could never give themselves. That's this peace. And the fortitude in the face of extraordinary persecution.

And the same, by engaging in this. By suffering in it.

They find the humility that ultimately takes us to heaven, frankly.

GLENN: I was just talking to Megyn Kelly.

And, you know, I don't just -- I could be wrong.

But I don't think that you guys wrote this, because of the persecution that's going on right now.

I have a feeling that you're thinking, that it's going to get much, much worse.

I could be wrong. And I would love to hear your opinion on it.

VOICE: I think so, yeah.

VOICE: Yeah, definitely.

GLENN: So Megyn and I were talking about what's coming. They put Donald Trump in Jail, or whatever.

There is a -- there is going to be a moment, where people have had enough.

And when that happens, persecution and the government will just come down hard.

So what is the -- what is the -- the things that we can pull from your book, that tells us what to do. And what not to do.

VOICE: I think in -- when we're facing -- you know, a lot of institutions turning against us, perhaps most terrifyingly our government in America. Because the amount of power it has. We've seen attacks by religious people, especially Catholics.

Even in the last few weeks, frankly.

It's holding on to truth. Especially the truth of our faith, matters more than anything else.

That gives strength, that can overcome any of these difficulties.

When other people are crumbling or being manipulated, or fallen to the wayside, it's our faith that allows us to be able to get through, even great difficulties and circumstances, we really never had to experience in our generations. And make it through in the end.

Time and time again, when it looked like their circumstance -- they themselves were imprisoned or martyred or, you know, shut up and away from the public fear. Would have their rights to speak, their liberties taken away from them.

They really did cling to their faith.

And God saw them through.

That's what is so wonderful about these stories.

You think looking at the history of persecution as great Christians would be a depressing subject.

But in a way, it's actually quite inspiring.

Seeing, their strength and how we can imitate that. And you can see how God is always with his people. When you're faithful to God, God is faithful in greater abundance, than we ever could imagine.

GLENN: What do you guys think we're facing? Especially as Catholics. You guys are -- we have a Catholic president. Only the second time in history.

The last time we had one, and the first one was JFK.

And now, we have a -- a Catholic president, who seems to be going after the Catholics. It's bizarre.

VOICE: Well, Glenn, this is a topic I've been pondering for really since COVID. I came into the Catholic Church in July 2019. And then so my first Easter was in 2020. And, you know, we -- we know that was a somewhat eventful year. And masses around the world were canceled for Easter. And what I discovered in the church fathers and in many of these great saints. Is this articulation, that I said before, that persecution comes not only from the outside, but from within.

And as we all know, those of us who have any family issues, which I'm sure all of us.

That's the hardest thing to deal with.

That's exactly what the saints dealt with. And, frankly, President Biden. I hope he repents.

I hope he comes back to a faith. He's clearly violating it.

And, frankly, we have many shepherds who aren't calling him on it.

And they will be held to a very high standard. On the day of justice.

We Catholics believe that every single one of us, wants to answer what we did, and what we failed to do, to Jesus Christ on the day of judgment.

And the people who have the highest standard for behavior, will be bishops, will be priests, and will be the pope.

And the pope has to go to confession.

The bishops have to go to confession. And to the extent, that they failed to amend their conduct before they died, they will have to answer to the biggest boss.

And so -- but what we saw with all these saints, is that the subtitle of the book is called how the saints endured crises in the church.

And I will say, that there is this idea that there's this Judas element within the church. Throughout its entire history.

Throughout its entire history.

It can't go away.

It will be resolved. But when Jesus comes back.

Jesus warned about it. The apostles warned about it.

Some have called it the antichurch.

And it's basically the dark side of the church.

And these saints exhibit an astounding level of humility, when they're faced with this kind of persecution.

So, for example, I joked with some of my White House colleagues. That the thing that sucks about being Catholic. Is we can't complain about suffering.

What I meant, there's this idea of the Catholic faith, of redemptive suffering. The idea is that through his cross. Prior to the Lord's cross and his death and resurrection. Suffering was basically meaningless. It was futile.

It was the affect of the fall. And what not. But after the cross. Every single human being, if they follow Christ, can join their suffering, and it becomes fruitful. It becomes fruitful for the salvation of others.

It becomes fruitful for the salvation of their own soul.

So it's futile and meaningless, which suffering oftentimes feels like.

Through Christ and his suffering, becomes meaningful.

And that's what so many of these things show. Stephen Colbert, I don't think he's the most -- the paradigm of the orthodox Catholic, per se.

But he has a beautiful line in an interview with Anderson Cooper, where Anderson Cooper was mentioning all these horrible tragedies that happened to him. And he basically said, how did you get through it?

And Stephen Colbert basically said, in the Catholic faith, God does it too. And that's essentially what you see in the lives of all these saints with affirmations. And St. Thomas Moore.

They were laymen. They were priests. They were bishops. They were monks and nuns.

They come from all sorts of walks of life. Sometimes they're having to criticize popes.

Sometimes they are having to be persecuted by their bishops or their cardinals, that Alex talked about.

Sometimes, they're literally being executed.

Or like Joan of Arc, or they're being exiled from diocese and on the run, like St. Appearnatius.

So they're dealing with all these things, but they know that they can join their sufferings to Christ. And these things. To say, we believe are in Heaven, praying for all of us. Reaping that the most possible fruit that human beings can ever reap, for the salvation of the world. And that's what their suffering did, by joining into Christ.

GLENN: Joshua, thank you so much.

Alex, the same.

The name of the book is Persecuted From Within. Written for Catholics. But I don't think it's probably just for Catholics.

It is for everybody. And I think we all need to look at how we are going to behave, in times of persecution.

Because I do believe it is coming. Again, persecuted from within.

Thank you so much, guys, God bless.

EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Explains His FIERY Rejection of Spending Bill

According to the media, there’s a big fight going on between Republicans over the House’s new slimmed-down continuing resolution spending bill. Some, including President-elect Donald Trump, wanted the bill to pass. But others, like Texas Representative Chip Roy, argued that it still wasn’t ready. However, is the Republican “unity coalition” really crumbling, like the media claims? Rep. Chip Roy joins Glenn to explain what’s really going on. He argues that he IS trying to give Trump and DOGE a 100-day “runway” to fix the country. But he makes the case that, by increasing the debt ceiling by $5 trillion without agreeing on other cuts, this bill gives bad actors the ability to be an “obstacle” to Trump’s agenda further down the line. Plus, he reveals to Glenn that he believes some of these bad actors LEAKED false information about his stance to Mar-a-Lago.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN:

I think we have a great opportunity today. To show you how to have a -- tough conversation, with friends, friends. Where you deeply disagree on something.

But you know that their intent is good. They know my intent is good. Or our intent is good.

And we actually have the same end goal, but we disagree on the path. And we're going to walk away friends.

Chip Roy is joining us today. And, Chip, I love you. And I always will. And I agree with your, we've got to cut spending. We have to. But Liz Wheeler is with me. And we've been talking about it all morning. It's the -- the -- the -- the system of DOGE and Trump, the call-out to the world, in saying, you've got to surrender the Capitol. You know, the bad guys are in and about to take all the money.

Surround, and tell them, come out with your hands up. And that happened. And we scored a massive win, in an entirely new way.

Ask then you stood on principle, one we both agree with.

And it failed!

And so here's -- here's what Liz and I were talking about. Here's what we want to say to you.

And then get your response.

LIZ: Hi, Congressman Roy, this is the way I see it. I want your take on it. I love you. I think you're one of the best members of Congress. I disagree with you on the process that's happening. And I think that is the difference. The process. We elected Donald Trump to be a disruptor. Because Republican members of Congress for decades have been telling they're fiscal conservatives. They want to decrease the debt SEAL. It hasn't happened.

It hasn't -- it hasn't been done. And so Donald Trump comes in with Elon Musk, and uses this DOGE process to first identify these pieces of garbage in the first 1500-page bill. And take those things to the people. We took them to members of Congress. Congress said, okay. We'll listen to you.

So that new process was very effective.

And my question to you is: Once that process was proved to be effective. Which I think is exciting and wonderful.

How do we bridge this divide, with you, to say, okay.

Let's put some faith in this new process. And trust Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the Dow Jones process, to eventually address the debt ceiling, but get this done right now?

GLENN: And not blind trust. Chip.

CHIP: So appreciate you guys. Appreciate being on the show. Particular order. I have to go through a couple of things.

GLENN: Yep.

CHIP: Number one, it's important to remember that my job and my duty is to the Constitution, to God, and the people I represent. I told them, when I came to Washington, I would not -- I would not let the credit card and the debt ceiling and the borrowing of the United States without the spending restraints necessary to offset it.

GLENN: Okay.

CHIP: Right now, all we have are promises and ideas and notions. What I know, that neither of you respectfully no, and that none of your listeners respectfully no are the people that are in the room, that I was in with yesterday. And the day before, who are recalcitrant.

And do not want to do the spending cuts that we need to do.

That I believe the president and the DOGE guys. And everybody want to do.

My job, is to force that through the meat grinder. To demand that we do our damn job. Okay?

GLENN: Okay. So hang on. Okay. So wait. Wait. You're right. You're right. You're right. Go ahead.

CHIP: Number thee, when we were going through the bill, I'm glad the bill dropped from 1,550 pages to 116 pages. Three-quarters of Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it, have been out there spreading false facts that we supported a bad bill and didn't like the better bill.

That's not true. But let's be Lear. The 1400 pages that were cut out. It's a panacea.

There were some good stuff in there. There were some bad stuff in there. There was a lot of disinformation.

There wasn't a $70,000 pay raise. There was a 3,000-dollar pay raise.

I didn't support any pay raise. I didn't support a lot of the stuff in there.

But there's a lot of misinformation. And here's the thing: The 116 pages that were left, and I opposed violently the first bill. I was leading the charge on fighting and killing the first bill.

GLENN: And I love you.

LIZ: The second bill for 116 pages. Turned off -- turned off the pay go requirement. That we slash 1.7 trillion automatically.

And added a 5 trillion that are increase.

My view was, I could not support that, without a clear understanding of what cuts we would get, in mandatory spending next year. And undo any of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The undoing of the student loans. The undoing of the crap with the food stamps.

And everything else. I yield back.

GLENN: Okay. I yield back.

Chip, you're not in a hostile room. We love you. And we agree with your end goals. It's our end goal too. We didn't make that promise that you made to the people that voted for you. So we have more wiggle room here.

But you say -- I think our big difference is, you say, I know the guys in the room.

You're right. You do. And we -- we ceded that earlier today on the show.

You are -- one of us is wrong on trust.

I don't trust any of the weasels in Washington.

But I think Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have earned enough trust, to get a grace period, here for the first -- maybe the first year.

Or at least six months.

To turn the economy around, and also reduce the size of the government.

And totally flip this thing.

And I know, as somebody who is -- you know, run a company, mainly into a ground. But run a company, and have to switch it, in the middle, and totally reshuffle. That -- that actually costs money, while you're doing it, to bridge the gap.

Because you have to fill up holes while you're filling in the gap.

You don't trust the people in the room. Neither do we.

But we do trust the system that worked on Wednesday with DOGE and Donald Trump.

Where do we disagree?

Can you give them --

CHIP: We don't disagree. And yesterday morning, I was making that precise argument in a room full of conservatives and then a follow-up room with people who will call it, less conservatives.

GLENN: Republican. Yes.

CHIP: And so we were making this argument. And then someone infamously. Something leaked out of the room, somehow out to Mar-a-Lago. That I was being resistant. Because I was negotiating trying to get the agreement to achieve the objective that you just said. I was trying to get, okay. In fact, yesterday morning, I made the argument to a group of conservatives. We need to give the president runway. We need to give him his first 100 days. We need to appreciate JD, and Vivek, and all the people -- and everybody involved. For the president to achieve the objective.

But to get there. We have to make sure that the guys in the room, that are an obstacle to that, don't have the ability to block it.

Because information flow matters. And when those guys tell the president, they can't achieve X.

Then the president will not achieve X. Our job was to force and demand, guys, we need actual understanding of what the cuts will be.

And because otherwise, we're asking us to accept a 5 trillion-dollar limit in our credit card increase. In exchange for nothing!

Literally, in exchange for nothing, but -- but hope.

So our job was to force that change.

Unfortunately, while I was trying to make the argument that we needed something in order to get the votes, someone leaked that down to Mar-a-Lago, and the president reacted.

But now I have to now manage that.

GLENN: Right. I know. I know.

CHIP: They're trying to enforce change in town.

GLENN: So hang on.

We have to leave this. Because I'm going to run against the clock.

I could talk to you all day about this. You were in a meeting this morning about J.D. Vance. Can you tell us anything about that meeting?

CHIP: That meeting happened, because despite what happened yesterday, I'm trying to get this done. Last night, talking to JD, we worked to get this meeting done. We had some good progress this morning.

But there still remains people concerned about spending. That we can work out, what agreement we can reach. On what spending cuts. We can actually get next year, in exchange for giving the vote on a debt ceiling increase.

So it remains fluid. Progress was made. But we have to keep working on it.

And I left that meeting to talk to you. Soil get an update in a minute.

GLENN: Thank you for that, by the way.

I hear there is a new bill that may be coming today.

Is that the one you're talking about?

Or is this another bill that could be another nightmare?

CHIP: Despite other people leaking crap, I refused. I can't say, because it's not been decided by the speaker.

And it's not right to talk about things they're talking about in private meetings.

GLENN: Yeah, but it's -- it's this speaker. I mean, is he really the speaker anymore, Chip, really?

CHIP: We need to hear what bill we need to get forward. And I can't talk about the private meetings. But, look, I'm going to keep fighting for what I promised people that I represent.

I'm going to fight to cut spending. I am going to represent article one.

I'm going to support the president's agenda, but we've got to do that together.

GLENN: Okay.

Chip, thank you.

I think we can -- I think we agree, but I await to see what that means to you. Because we may just have to agree to disagree on this.

But I love you. And I still want you to replace Cornyn.

CHIP: The short version is, for inflation's sake, we cannot increase the debt ceiling $5 trillion without knowing what we're getting for it.

And I don't think anybody should disagree with that.

GLENN: But you don't disagree that Elon Musk and Trump and Vivek are serious about gutting the system.

CHIP: I believe that is their objective. I believe there are obstacles to that objective. And I need to know the sincerity of how we deal with those obstacles, both structural, and human. And we have to figure that out. And that's my job.