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REACTION: Why Catholics Should Not Become Orthodox Video: Why Some Catholics Are Still Looking East
Reaction and Response to "Why Roman Catholics Should Not Become Orthodox?"
What if the hunger for stability isn’t nostalgia, but a compass? Cloud of Witnesses discussion panel today is made up of John St John, James St Simon, Mario Andrew, and Jeremy Jeremiah. The panel reacts to a pro-Catholic video that warns against becoming Orthodox and use it to surface the deeper questions: where does authority live, how does doctrine truly develop, and what keeps worship both beautiful and trustworthy?
We react to a polemical Roman Catholic video urging Catholics not to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy and test its claims about apostolic unity, papal authority, doctrinal development, and universality. Along the way we share personal stories, weigh history against worship, and ask what sustains faith without constant change.
• claims about Peter, Rome and Antioch
• first among equals versus universal jurisdiction
• councils as the arbiter of faith
• slowness as protection against novelty
• filioque and changes to the Creed
• Marian dogmas and the limits of development
• beauty and recognition in unchanging liturgy
• ethnicity, national churches and real unity
• pastoral gaps, weak catechesis and frustration
• how to speak to Catholics considering Orthodoxy
We start with apostolic unity and the claim that Peter’s office guarantees visible communion. From there, we trace how Orthodoxy understands primacy as “first among equals,” rooted in the shared authority of the apostles and the ecumenical councils. The conversation tests historical flashpoints—Peter in Antioch, Chalcedon weighing Leo’s Tome, and moments when Rome’s stance faltered—asking whether unity requires a single final arbiter or a conciliar process that takes time to mature. Rather than papering over differences, we probe them: is slow consensus a weakness, or a safeguard against novelty?
Doctrinal development takes center stage as we compare clarifications in the West with what the East calls faithful continuity. We wrestle with the filioque’s addition to the Creed, later Marian dogmas, and the principle that the symbol of faith should not be amended. Along the way, we get personal: stories of Catholics who feel adrift amid liturgical inconsistency, the draw of Orthodox worship that “feels” ancient because it is, and the complicated mix of ethnicity and universality that outsiders often misread. Beneath jurisdictions, we argue, stands a single sacramental life held together by councils, shared prayer, and a reluctance to innovate.
If you’ve ever wondered why some Catholics look East, or how Orthodoxy claims to hold the line without a papal office, this conversation gives you history, theology, and lived experience in equal measure. Listen, reflect, and tell us where you stand—what convinces you most: authority, continuity, or the beauty that calls you home?
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Please leave a comment with your thoughts!
Heresy back then, and it's heresy now.
SPEAKER_01:We haven't changed. We haven't innovated. We haven't made these great strides like Vatican II, like the Novus Ordo.
SPEAKER_02:The differences in our understandings of things like original sin controversies uh were not ended by a singular uh judgment or ruling of the pontiff of Rome.
SPEAKER_04:Just because you say it's ancient doesn't mean it's true. Right. And I I heard somebody else say um heresies are just as old as the truth. That's great. And they're infiltrating the church. You need to have people outside of that who are still part of the church who can say we don't condone what that nation is doing in the name of God, in the name of the Orthodox Church.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I I agree with everything that he said.
SPEAKER_04:That's a great self-bit for you. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Welcome to Cloud of Witnesses. My name is Jeremy Jeremiah. We've got a really great episode for you today. This is a first for Cloud of Witnesses. This video that we're going to be reacting to is from the Catholic perspective, and it's a video, I believe, about why Roman Catholics should not become Orthodox. Those are fighting words, if you ask me. And I think we might maybe get into some of that. Over on the Keys, we got Mario Andrew. Thank you for joining us, brother. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_03:Hey, well.
SPEAKER_01:By the way, is uh currently an MBA student studying. That's really proud of you, Mario.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you, brother.
SPEAKER_01:We got James St. Simon sitting in a new location in the studio, which might throw some people off, but looking good as usual. And back on Cloud of Witnesses, it's been a long time. We've got John joining us. Those of you that are Cloud of Witnesses, longtime listeners, you may know John from a lot of things, a lot of voices, a lot of episodes. John, thank you for joining us today. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Why Catholics shouldn't consider converting to Orthodoxy. For some Catholics, especially those frustrated by confusion, irreverent liturgy, or the modern direction of the church.
SPEAKER_01:Again, I find it fascinating that this is a Roman Catholic video, it seems like, and they're kind of just conceding right out the gate that Roman Catholics are frustrated and they're seeing what seems to be a changing of their liturgy, of their practice. I know a lot of Roman Catholics, and I've certainly heard them voicing similar frustrations. So I do find it interesting that they're starting on such a defensive position, it seems to me.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and you know, it's painful to hear that they're experiencing these things in their churches. Um, but the only way any of us outside of Catholicism would know that there's something going on inside is because the Roman Catholics are expressing their frustration and their, as this person is, the confusion, uh, the irreverent liturgies, or even something that we saw recently in Germany where they were presenting this kind of strange nativity scene that almost looked like a scene out of an alien movie. Yeah. Um, so there's uh a lot of um frustration coming from within the church that um we kind of understand when we see it from the outside. Um, but then again, it's coming from from them.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. Uh James, you were uh brought up Roman Catholic, correct?
SPEAKER_04:That's correct. Yeah, I grew up Roman Catholic, and um we were Catholics by name, we would attend mass, and my parents were seeking a connection to God through the church. Yeah, but they felt like something was missing. And you know, we weren't the only ones who were in that group of attending mass but feeling like there was really no connection. Um, but it it really comes down to we weren't really participating in the sacraments, and we didn't have the pastoral relationship with the priest that would, you know, encourage us to go to confession, right? You know, um that he would know us by name when we would come and partake of the body and blood of Christ. So there's a a little bit of a disconnect, I think, between some non-practicing, or I it's you know, a lot of just nominal Catholics. Yeah. Um, and I think that that disconnect leads to a lot of them leaving or becoming disillusioned or expressing frustration because they're confused.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. My heart breaks for our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, genuinely. John, you kind of were talking before about kind of a drawing of similarity and maybe a distinction to cradle Orthodox. You want to mention that or talk about that a little bit?
SPEAKER_02:Right. So in Orthodox culture, uh for the lack of a better word, I would say that I've encountered a lot of um Orthodox Christians uh who are also considerably, you could say, Orthodox by name, like James and his family were. Right. Um, but he many of them still have uh still a sense of piety towards the traditions. They still have a sense of piety towards the the liturgy and the sacraments, towards the priest. They still ask the priest blessing, they still have some relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01:That in the Roman Catholic in the West, the average layman in the Roman Catholic Church has become accustomed to uh growth, to change, to evolution, I would say to innovation. It's become kind of part and parcel to being a Roman Catholic in in 2026. Whereas I feel like in orthodoxy, and look, orthodoxy has its problems too, right? Anywhere you get human beings involved, there's gonna be issues, right? It's it's got some things we all need to work on. And yet with an Orthodoxy, what I think we've done very, very well, especially in contrast to our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, is that we haven't changed. We haven't innovated, we haven't made these great strides like Vatican II, like the Novus Ordo, these things that are in in you know, recent generations that the doing away with the Latin mass, you know, kind of slowly go kind of pushing that to the fringe, if they'll even keep it at all. That kind of change, thanks be to God, hasn't happened in Orthodoxy. Why?
SPEAKER_04:Well, I think it it's very difficult to change anything in the Orthodox Church because of the councils. There needs to be um agreement with all of the different um patriarchs of the church. The Catholic Church has developed their theology over time. It's the natural theology um allows for change. If anything, it almost encourages uh change. Um, and I think that's a source of frustration for many practicing Catholics. Sure. You know, nominal Catholics, they'll kind of go with it. And if anything, actually, they're part of the vehicle for change. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:They're more comfortable in the modern Catholic Church.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. Um whereas the practicing Catholics, they're the ones who are frustrated because it keeps evolving, and it's uh typically not evolving in the direction that you know traditional Catholics would want it to go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The traditions feel intact, but temptation is not the same as truth. I mean, I I agree with everything that he said.
SPEAKER_04:That's a great self bench for the city. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Right. The liturgy is beautiful, it does feel intact. What I want to say, gentlemen, and I want to hear your thoughts, that doesn't happen by accident. The Orthodox liturgy doesn't feel ancient and feel intact because that's our tactic. It feels that way because it is. What do you guys think?
SPEAKER_02:When we see something true and beautiful, it's the same reaction, the the same instantaneous response to recognition. Of recognition, yeah. I love that, John. That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. And all the reasons that he listed are many of the reasons I've heard other converts to orthodoxy, um, why they came to orthodoxy, you know, the the beauty, the reverence, um, the fact that it's unchanging um, because that's where strife is, that's where conflict is, that's where um controversy is. And there's so much of that in the church, um, in the Western church, that people are tired of it because they know that God is unchanging. Right. Um, right. They know that the Holy Spirit should be leading into truth, but then they wonder which truth. And that's much harder to figure out when there is this constant evolving truth that seems to change with the temperature of the culture.
SPEAKER_00:The first reason Catholics should not convert is apostolic unity. Christ established one church with a visible center of unity in Peter and his successors. The Catholic Church has preserved that visible unity for two thousand years.
SPEAKER_04:Hold on, can we talk about Peter and his successors? Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, is it is it just me, or wasn't Peter also an Antioch?
SPEAKER_01:He sure was. So to put that on a fine point, Roman Catholics like to say that Peter founded Rome as if he only founded Rome, but we know it's a historical fact. Peter also founded Antioch. Everyone in this room right now is an Antiochian Orthodox Christian, thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_04:Continue, James. Well, you know, if if his first point is uh apostolic succession primarily through Peter, well, I I believe Peter established the the Church of Antioch as its bishop before Rome. Correct.
SPEAKER_01:Can I say also he says it right in the video? He says to Peter and his successors. Because as we all know, gentlemen, Orthodox are more than happy, certainly historically, to say that Rome was the first among equals, right? A historically impactful statement, right? We would likely even say that today, right? And yet it wasn't just to Peter. It wasn't only to Peter. People often talk about the keys of the kingdom, yes, but if you continue to read on, all the other apostles were also giving, given the same gifts to bind and to loose and to forgive sins, not just to Peter.
SPEAKER_00:Orthodoxy, while apostolic and sacramental, is divided into national churches with no universally binding authority.
SPEAKER_01:There is no sorry, we gotta we gotta this is this one blows me away. And I'll be honest, I can understand why a person off the street, someone who doesn't know what excuse me, doesn't know any better, because I get this question from friends and family. Jeremy, are you Greek Orthodox? Are you, you know, are you Ukrainian Orthodox? You know, what are you? And what I always like to say is, I'm just Orthodox. I'm just Orthodox. I was chrismated into the church in a Greek Orthodox church. I'm currently at an Antiochian parish. I've attended Bulgarian Orthodox churches before, uh, OCA, you name it. That's the thing. Just because there are different national churches, and we don't need to get into all the history right now, it's still the same Orthodox church. And yes, there is a unifying mechanism. James, you talked about it. It's the ecumenical councils.
SPEAKER_04:Right. Um, and I think it it does require you to specify Eastern Orthodox just because there are other um churches that have the word Orthodox in their name, but we have to differentiate ourselves, like you know, the Oriental Orthodox and um, you know, others in the common. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:It's true. That is true. Second is papal authority. Many Catholics struggle with how popes act, but the solution to misuse is not rejection of the office Christ established. Without a pope, orthodoxy has no final arbiter. Disagreements can and do remain unresolved for centuries. It's it's simply not true.
SPEAKER_01:It it's I hate to say it, but this he's saying this in a as a polemic, right? He's he's not, this is a straw man, he's not steel manning orthodoxy. And I hope anyone listening to this right now understands that. This is not the the Orthodox position because one, there is an arbiter, and it is the councils, and we continue to have local councils, local synods, even larger uh synods that have some binding authority for certain things. However, I will speak to it, I'm not afraid to speak to it. It is true in orthodoxy, you might have longer periods of time where the church is working out how to state something or if to state something at all. And quite frankly, as a former Protestant, as a former very legalistic and box-oriented, category-oriented Christian, I'm happy with that. I'm comfortable with that. I like that there's not a ton of actual doctrine and dogma in Orthodoxy, but rather you have the practice of the church emulating the saints of the church for 2,000 years. And it's it's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, um, several points that he made was that uh Orthodoxy doesn't have a universally binding authority. Um but in the first thousand years, that's exactly you see exactly um how anything binding, any dogmatic statement was hashed out, was distributed, was declared and proclaimed, and it was over a period of time. Even the ecumenical councils didn't take a single fiat declaration to settle. It took several years at a time, each and every one of them. Controversies uh were not ended by a singular uh judgment or ruling of the pontiff of Rome. Um even the writings of great popes like Saint Leo the Great, yeah. Um the Council of Chalcedon had to deliberate for at least two weeks to determine whether it was in line with previous councils, such as the Council of Nicaea. They did not simply say it's over because the Pope said so. Um and the other thing too is that um there have been periods where uh even popes were confused, like Pope St. Liberius at uh during the semi-Aryan crisis, uh was persecuted by the semi-Aryan Emperor uh into rejecting the Nicene faith to adopt the Semi-Aryan faith. But it was under pressure, he didn't have any real convictions about it, but he still stumbled, and this led to the expulsion of St. Athanasius the Great from the Empire. And this was just for a sh very short period, but at least three church fathers talk about this as a great scandal that happened that crept into the church at Rome. That Rome in some ways defected.
SPEAKER_01:And yet, and yet, John, what happened? Did the church fall to pieces? No, no, exactly right. What happened?
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. In fact, it was settled over several decades, a period of several decades of persecution, of right confession amongst the saints, the confessor saints. Um and over time, yeah, it was settled uh in councils locally, ecumenically. Um, all these different controversies, again, they took time.
SPEAKER_04:Looking through history, we have seen what happens when one person has control, how easily they can be made a political puppet, and they can be used not for the glory of God, but for the glory of man, or even for the glory of Rome.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. Even emperors uh during the Byzantine period, uh all the way from, you know, the 300s to the fall of Constantinople, um, were constantly kept in check by the church, by the synods, by the bishops, by their spiritual fathers. The patriarchs of Constantinople would, in some ways, morally keep the emperor in check. The emperor himself didn't necessarily have the power to change tradition or or the faith or to and they tried sometimes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Well, and we even saw it in during the Soviet Union, right? When you see one nation is, you know, politically making these moves and they're influencing the church and they're infiltrating the church. You need to have people outside of that who are still part of the church, right, who can say we don't condone what that nation is doing in the name of God, in the name of the Orthodox Church. Right. If it's coming from one place that is above all other places, then what can you say? Rome is Rome.
SPEAKER_01:It's happening right now, James, with what's going on in Ukraine. You that's a it's a brilliant point. Thank you. What's the the the controversy, the struggles of the Ukrainians and what's happening to the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine? The rest of Christendom, of Orthodoxy, is able to inform and help guide and provide wisdom to an area. When you're in that, you're in the fog of war. Good luck. And and you know, Lord have mercy upon them, you know, for what they're going through. But that's that's a fantastic point.
SPEAKER_00:Third is doctrinal development. The Catholic Church does not invent new doctrine, but she defines and clarifies what was always believed when controversy arises, such as the Trinity, the canon of scripture, and Marian dogmas.
SPEAKER_04:Just, you know, one, yes, two, yes, three, hmm? What happened there? You know, where Immaculate Conception that was developed later, and it's actually quite different from what the Antonycian fathers and even the Cappadocian uh fathers say about Mary. It's it's it's quite different.
SPEAKER_01:It's absolutely a development. There's no way around it. Um, and you know, you have something also, what was it, in 1884, I believe, is when the Infallibility of the Pope was instantiated. You have, I mean, the obvious one, guys, we don't got to belabor it because it gets talked about a lot, even on Cloud of Witnesses. If you don't call the filioque a development of doctrine, I don't know what a development of doctrine is. Because historically the filioque was added to the creed unilaterally in the West. And then the doctrine to explain the filioque and to account for the filioque and to justify the filioque brought in the doctrines that now support it. And so that you have this, you know, dual, you know, procession, uh, which is I'm sorry, it's a development that is not this the doctrine is not the practice and belief of the Orthodox West and East going back to the first thousand years of the church, as you mentioned, John.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, starting with the Filioque, of course, that is absolutely a development. And one of the biggest ways to prove that is to go directly to the Eighth Ecumenical Council, which is known as the Phocian Synod, not the uh robber council that came before it that was rejected even by the Latins. Um Pope John VIII, who is the Pope in St. Photius' generation, uh was absolutely in support of rejecting the filioque. He has a whole letter. It's called they number it as letter 350 of Pope John VIII, uh, I believe, to the synod in Constantinople, um, rejecting the Filioque, rejecting any iota of an addition to the creed, to this, they called it the symbol of faith. And he even went as far as to say anybody who so far as sub so much as supports this addition or the doctrines implied by it are part of the um have their portion with Judas Iscariot and says that they will be condemned, eternally condemned if they tamper with the creed. Such a strong condemnation from the Roman pontiff at the time. Right. And I could name several popes before that who would make it very clear. Well, you cannot change this symbol of faith that was established at Nicaea and Constantinople over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it depends on who's Pope at the time. Yeah, right. Because then you can kind of pick and choose. Yeah. And and that's how you can rationalize. Well, the doctrine's not developed because somebody at some point in history said it so we can cherry pick Saint Augustine, we can cherry pick Tertullian and even Origen and say, well, it's it's as old as you know, the second century. Yeah, but it was heresy back then, and it's heresy now. Just because you say it's ancient doesn't mean it's true. Right. And I I heard somebody else say um heresies are just as old as the truth. That's great.
SPEAKER_00:Process, leaving important questions unsettled. Fourth is mission and universality. Catholicism is truly universal across nations, cultures, and rites, united in one faith and sacramental life. Orthodoxy is frequently tied to ethnicity and nationality, which can unintentionally limit Catholicity. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Look at the issue. Let's just talk about Saint Gregory Palomos. You know, you have Byzantine Catholics who are, you know, Eastern Rite Catholics who are practicing orthodoxy, basically. They don't even say the filioque in the creed, and they venerate Saint Gregory Palamas, who very famously condemned Rome.
SPEAKER_02:They're consistently inconsistent and consistently contradicting themselves. Yeah, well said. That's ultimately what I mean. Yeah. Across time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense. Um, but what's funny is um, because I I adore my Catholic friends who uh when I told them I was converting to Orthodoxy were very happy for me. It was a very different response from my Catholic friends to my my Protestant friends and Mario Andrew is is laughing because he he's seen the difference in in response. Where uh when my wife and I announced, you know, we're we're converting to Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholics applauded and they were, I'm so happy for you. Um it was almost like the cat like the other Orthodox who say, Welcome home, in in the same way, they they greeted it with that kind of warmth. Wow. Um and you know, I I don't feel so bad also when I when I meet another Catholic, um I almost greet them with the same understanding of like we're part of the same family. Sure. Uh in um in the high church uh tradition. Um and in that we we share a similar ancestry. We do, we do. And you your heart breaks for their own struggle, and you can see he hit the nail on the head. There is confusion, right? But there wouldn't be confusion without that lack of consistency. Right. Um if if they were as united as and universal as he makes it seem, then why would he begin the video with Catholic confusion?
SPEAKER_00:Finally, many Catholics drawn to orthodoxy are not rejecting Catholic doctrine. They are rejecting bad liturgy, weak catechesis or a thousand leaders, huh?
SPEAKER_03:They're not reje they're they are rejecting bad liturgy, weak catechises, catechesis, excuse me, or poor leadership. The answer to those problems is renewal, not departure.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I'm sorry. I kind of feel like is that what you say to people when the Titanic's going down? Hey guys, don't jump off and get in a lifeboat, but just try to renew the Titanic here. I don't know. I mean, look, James, you said it yourself. I agree. I've got a lot of Roman Catholic friends uh and some family. I love and respect them, and I understand their desire to want to quote unquote fix Roman Catholicism. But I feel like I say to my Protestant brothers and sisters, I'm not sure the boat can be unsunk. I I feel like it's going down, you know, at the mast, and I don't know what to say. Um, other than those problems that it just pointed to itself are extremely serious problems. And thanks be to God, it hasn't happened in the Orthodox Church.
SPEAKER_04:You know, if their doctrines were were um consistent, yeah, as John was saying, um then if there would be you wouldn't have those glitches, right? I mean the fact that there are glitches means that there is there's an error somewhere in the code. Um and you know, you kind of take that code up to the ladder and you find out what's going on there. Um and so the they're frustrated by the lack of consistency in how the doctrine is uh interpreted. But we've we pointed out how Vatican II really opened the gates for confusion, it opened the the what's possible, and so you can't really argue whether or not that's okay. That's still open to interpretation because, well, there's concession for that, depending on which pope you want to point to, right? Um, and when you have multiple popes that contradict, who's to say that which pope is correct? Because they were all speaking um as the the voice of the Holy Spirit, the vicar of Christ. Whereas if you point to a church father who we're not gonna say all the church fathers agreed on every point, right? You can at least point to a canon of of you know the councils, and you can say, although they were saying this, this is what the church decided was the doctrine of the Orthodox Church. Right. And anyone who says differently, they are in disagreement with the church. Right. Doesn't necessarily mean that they're anathema, right? Because maybe we hadn't figured it out by then. But for the most part, we try to stay consistent by saying they all say this, but the church says has agreed that this is the correct interpretation.
SPEAKER_01:What has been believed everywhere by all, exactly, which is what we hold. Any father can say all kinds of things, including what we would just call there's a very healthy understanding in orthodoxy of pious opinion. And that's okay. And it's not always going to be consistent with what the church has taught on a whole over time. I love what you had said earlier, John. Sometimes, and I think this is the way God works, it takes time. It's a very Western mindset, which is how this video opened up. Kind of like we saw we can solve problems quickly, right? We can adjust and you know, this very Western uh notion of almost like take a pill, get let's get an executive decree from the Pope, fix that problem, and we can move on with life. In Orthodoxy, yeah, we sit with things sometimes for decades, um, if not longer, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so the question would I be what that I want to ask is what would you tell somebody that's Catholic, like the case for orthodoxy and why they should become Orthodox? What would your answer be?
SPEAKER_04:That's a tough question because there are different types of of Catholics. And kind of to John's point that he made, it they talked about how there are um orthodoxy is tied to kind of nationalism. But part of what was so hard about deciding between Catholicism and Orthodoxy was my Mexican heritage. Yeah. Because Mexicans are nationalistically Catholic. Right. You know, it's it's in our blood. My my great great-grandfather fought in La Cristiada, the war to um to preserve Catholicism against an atheistic government. Wow. So it's it's in our DNA to be Catholic. Um, and that was a very difficult thing for me. So what I would say is ultimately what it came down to me uh was the theology. When you get into the doctrines of the faith, when you get into the the differences in our understandings of things like original sin, um when you understand the the you know transubstantiation and and the differences in even how our priests and and their priests look at holiness, yeah. Um if you just compare them side by side. Uh we've we've been in in you know in-person debates at our cigar nights where we've talked about this, and I have heard Catholics who are devout, pious people who reject Western theology.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And and part of it is they they weren't even aware, like this is Catholic theology. And they're like, I don't agree with that. I'm like, well, maybe you need to look into that a little bit further because that is what Catholicism teaches. Um, and that forces them to look into where this theology came from, when it was developed. And I think a lot of them would find that they align more with orthodoxy when it comes to their theology, and they think that that is what the Catholic Church has continued, but it it hasn't. It has changed, it has evolved. And Protestantism came out of the evolution of Western theology. Yep. Um, so I would say that, but that's to somebody who is inquiring, because I also know a lot of very pious Catholics who are devout, who love the Lord and and love their church and love their priest. And to them, um if it doesn't come up, I wouldn't even tell them anything, to be honest.
SPEAKER_03:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:Um because for them, it's not about doctrine, it's about loving the Lord, participating in the sacraments and and seeking them, seeking him with their whole heart. And they don't bother with their theology. And I think sometimes their piety is even is even stronger than than the theologians in the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. So well said, James. Well said. It really just depends. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I love that. I love that. Um my response, Mario Andrew, to answer your question. What I would say to a Roman Catholic why they should become Orthodox is I like to say Orthodoxy is Roman Catholicism the way it's supposed to be. It's it's the Roman Catholic Church unchanged. It's the Roman Catholic practice historically. And you know, I I always go back to the idea that in the in the West, there was innovation. And what happened as an account of that? The Protestant Reformation, and even the Roman Catholic Church had its own reformation, right? With with its response to the Reformation. And they did reform a lot during that time. They conceded there was problems. And so, what I would want to just challenge are Roman Catholic brothers and sisters who are inquiring, I agree, who might be not satisfied to stay where they're at, come to the East where reformation was never needed. A reformation was never called upon because the church hadn't fallen into such grave error, thanks be to God, and hasn't yet to this day. And we believe with the promise of Scripture, Christ's words himself, that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Awesome. Amen. Yeah. Mario, Andrew, any any final thoughts before we end this uh episode?
SPEAKER_03:No, thank you. Thank you for I would just say you're wrong. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I don't even have to explain myself without display. No, thank you for answering. Yeah. No, this was great.
SPEAKER_01:That was great. Thanks, John. Thank you, James St. Simon. Thank you for listening this long to Cloud of Witnesses. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. We look to uh see you on the next one. God bless you. Remember, in the comments, let us know what we got right. And most importantly, and I know our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters will. Let us know what we got wrong. And we love you. We do. We do. God bless. See you in the next one. Bye-bye. I don't. I don't love them. Those mouth breeders. Just mouth breeders. Gentlemen, you guys ready to jump right? Oh, there is a special reason why John is here tonight. After we record what we're doing right now, we are actually going to be recording a short story. John is going to be doing the audiobook version of a short story written by James St. Simon himself. And we're very, very excited. This is something in the works with Cloud Witnesses right now. We are going to be actually producing our first short film, a feature short film based on this short story. We don't want to say too much about it right now, but it's uh brilliant work. We were excited about it. John will likely be doing a lot of the vocals as well, uh, the voiceovers in that uh short film. So a lot to come still here, and we are excited that you guys are joining us.