Joe Heschmeyer responds to Mike Gendron’s recent appearance on Allie Beth Stuckey’s podcast “Relatable,” addressing his numerous lies about the Roman Catholic Church.
Transcription:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery; I’m Joe Heschmeyer. Last week, Mike Gendron will an Ellie best show to talk as an ex-Catholic about what the Catholic church really believes. Now that’s a sketchy premise in general. It’s like calling somebody to find out what their ex is like as a way of finding out the truth about them, but it’s particularly a problem in the case of Mike Gendron. For one simple reason, he’s a liar. Now, if you’ve watched this channel, I try not to assume the worst about people. People are wrong a lot, but they’re usually not lying. They’re just mistaken. But in the case of Mike, I’m going to show you seven of the claims that he made. There are many others I want to show you, seven in particular that are just obvious outright lies. Now how about other lies and not false? Well, for one, I’m one of the ones who caught him lying.
Now, last year I called out several of his lies, many of them the same ones. He’s continuing to pedal and he can’t pretend that he didn’t see the video because he commented on it to let me know I’d gotten a number wrong, and sure enough, he was right. I had gotten a number wrong. I quickly owned it and corrected it publicly. Meanwhile, the log of lies in his own eyes has remained completely unchanged and he continues to pedal them without apology or correction or amendment, even though there’s no way he doesn’t know that they’re false. These are things he can’t help but know were untrue because I showed the evidence that the things he’s saying the Catholic church teaches are not in fact Catholic teaching. So he’s lying about not just small issues, it’s not just that we disagree Catholic with Protestants. He’s lying about what it is. The Catholic Church teaches on major issues like Mary and the Eucharist and how we get to heaven and the 10 Commandments, and he has no fewer than three lies that he tells Ellie ba, stucky about the Bible itself lies that don’t even make a lot of sense together. So let’s start with Mary. Is it true as he claims that the Catholic church invented the assumption of Mary in the year 1950? This is among all the many false claims he makes, probably the funniest one,
CLIP:
But yet the Catholic church esteems Mary as sinless, they teach the immaculate conception that she was conceived without sin and then they teach that she lived a life without sin. And so that was pronounced in 1854, the dogma of immaculate conception. Well, Catholics began asking the question, well, if Mary never sinned and sin is what causes death, where’s Mary? And so in 1950 they had to come up with another infallible dogma that Mary was miraculously assumed into heaven.
Joe:
Okay, I want to make sure you’re getting this timeline right because it’s pretty important. He starts with the true fact that in 1854 the dogma of the immaculate conception was dogmatically defined. And according to Mike, this causes for the first time after 1854 Catholics to begin to wonder what happened to Mary? Did she die at the end of her life? What happened to her body? All those questions apparently only come up after 1854 for the first time and the Catholic church is like, oh, we didn’t think about that. And so in 1950 they just invent the dogma of the assumption of Mary, which in Mike’s mind is that Mary never died and also is this uniquely Catholic thing from the 20th century. Now it isn’t like he’s just on the spot and just espoused out a bunch of stuff he has no idea about and just says Nonsense. No, this is a story he has told over and over again in prepared talks even with slots.
CLIP:
And then in 1950, Catholics began asking questions, wait a minute, if Mary never sinned, and sin is what causes death, where’s Mary? So they had to come up with another infallible dogma. Mary was miraculously assumed into heaven. These are Roman Catholic traditions that departed from the faith of the apostles
Joe:
As I pointed out last year. It doesn’t matter whether you claim that they started asking the question in 1950 as he says then, or 1854 as he seems to be saying now, either way, it’s absurdly nonsensical history. How do we know that? Well, let’s talk about a few things. Number one, the dog member. The assumption is not that Mary never died. He said at the end of Mary’s life, whether she died or not, that is an unsettled fact. You can take either of you as a Catholic that at the end of her life she’s taken up body and soul into heaven says nothing about whether or not she died. Second, the idea that Mary’s assumed into heaven at the end of her life is not something that was invented in 1950. It’s not something that Catholics invented after the immaculate conception or because of the immaculate conception.
Case in point, the Eastern Orthodox who haven’t been in union with the Catholic church for about a thousand years celebrate Mary’s dorm mission and assumption into heaven. On August 15th, the Coptic Church, which hasn’t been in union with us since about 4 51 ad celebrates it on August 22nd, the local church in Palestine has continuously celebrated the feast of the assumption of Mary on August 15th since the start of the five hundreds. The point there being unless his claim is that Pope Pius the 12th was a time traveler. Every word he said there is obviously a lie. And I say lie because I pointed all of that out to him last year and he’s continuing to tell the same literally impossible story that is an insanely obvious false presentation of history. No one who knows anything about church history would possibly agree with him. Here he cites to zero sources and yet he keeps spreading this nonsense and Protestants keep eating it up.
Now I get it. Not everybody knows about church history. Maybe you’ve never seen all of the old Christian art celebrating the assumption like this piece from 1376 or any of the numerous other depictions of Mary being assumed into heaven that are well before 1950, well before 1854. By the way, let’s just point out that the Coptic and Orthodox churches don’t celebrate the immaculate conception and still believe in the assumption of Mary. So the idea this all a reaction to the immaculate conception is literally demonstrably untrue. But look, if you don’t know anything about Eastern Christianity, if you don’t know anything about church history, if you don’t know anything about liturgical art or devotional art in general, hopefully if you’re Catholic or ex-Catholic or aware of Catholicism, you at least know about the rosary. So let’s talk about the glorious mysteries of the rosary. The first glorious mystery is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The second is his ascension into heaven. The third is the assent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. You know what the fourth is? The assumption of Mary and it always has been. It wasn’t until 1950 all those old ladies prayed in the pews, all the medieval peasants praying throughout all the centuries and Mike’s imaginary what happened? They just get to the fourth glorious mystery and they’re like, dang, road closed ahead. We’ve only got three glorious mysteries. I can’t wait till the church publishes a sequel. I’m really looking forward to finding out where this series ends. What in the world are you talking about Mike Genin, the idea that people were just what? Getting through 60% of the glorious mysteries and then being like, I guess we’ll have to wait 800 more years until the church defines what happens next. So yeah, I think we can safely conclude that this claim is pretty demonstrably false. No less absurd though is Mike Jenn’s claim that Catholics literally believe that Jesus leaves heaven at every mass. Now, to frame this Ali best Stuckey who is not Catholic, ask Mike about Catholic views on the Eucharist and she doesn’t get Catholic doctrine quite right, but you can tell she’s trying in response Mike gives, we’ll call it an effort, but really a pretty blatant lie.
CLIP:
Talk about that, why that’s important to Catholic doctrine and why we don’t believe
It. It’s really amazing the imprimatur of the Catholic church has given on this statement. When the priest speaks the words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens and brings Christ down from his throne to power greater than saints and angels. He speaks in low Christ omnipotent. God bows his head in humble submission to the priest’s command, and so that’s what the Catholic church believes. The priest calls Jesus down from heaven through the quote, miracle of transubstantiation. The wafer becomes his physical body and blood, soul and divinity.
Joe:
What are some clues that Mike is lying here? Well, for starters, he quotes some passage from memory verbatim. He’s used it enough times that he can quote it on the spot just like that, and he claims this is Catholic teaching, but he introduces it in this really weird way, kind of indirect way. He doesn’t say pope, so-and-so said this or X ecumenical counsel said that this paragraph of the catechism says this. No, he doesn’t do any of that. He says the imprimatur of the Catholic church is on this statement. That’s not how imper madders work. But then he says, because of that, that’s what the Catholic church believes. Now you should know two things. Number one, this is not the first time he’s done this. On the comments to my post, he quoted verbatim the same thing, but strangely also forgot to mention what it was he was quoting.
What pope is this? What church council, what catechism? He doesn’t tell us. Why might he not tell us? I want to suggest two reasons. Well, number one, it’s not true. The idea that Jesus leaves heaven at every mass is explicitly denied by the Catholic church over and over and over again and has been for centuries. So for instance, Pope St. Paul six explicitly says that while Christ is present corporeally, this is not in the manner in which bodies are in a place that he’s not what’s called locally present, that at Amast Jesus doesn’t bodily leave heaven and come down to earth. And this is not some new idea from Paul the six he is quoting basically verbatim St. Thomas Aquinas who says the same thing back in the 12 hundreds. Christ’s body is not in this sacrament as in a place. Well, why not? Well, as Mike Jenner is quick to note, if anyone actually believed the fake Catholic teaching he claims the Catholic church teaches, that would be ridiculous, that would be very stupid, and we can actually agree with him. If anyone was dumb enough to believe the thing he claims, we believed that would create some real logical and philosophical problems.
CLIP:
So what do we say to Catholics? It’s got to be a false Christ by the authority of scripture because in Acts 3 21, we see that Jesus must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything. In Hebrews 9 28, we read He will return a second time and not to deal with sin.
Joe:
Look, we can absolutely agree If the pretend view that Mike says is the Catholic view was really the Catholic view, it would mean that every mass triggered the second coming of Christ, that the apocalypse starts anytime mass happens and Christ returns to judge the living in the dead. He is bodily returning to earth and his local presence, he’s leaving heaven. Now of course, St Thomas Aquinas will point out that’s only the first of the many absurdities. If you understood his presence to be like that what’s called local presence in theology, then it would mean that Christ physically leaves heaven to go to mass in Cincinnati, meaning can’t also be in Jerusalem. Now, Aquinas doesn’t use Cincinnati because it doesn’t exist yet, but you get the idea. It would mean there could only be one mass on one particular altar anywhere in the world where the sacrament was.
You couldn’t have the Eucharist in multiple Tabernacles. You couldn’t have the mass in multiple places. This would of course be an absurdity and seemingly you couldn’t have Christ present in more than one host if you’re going to follow that logic. The way he’s presenting the argument, right? What he’s describing is a logical absurdity, which why the church has always denied that. In fact, if you want a technical term for what we believe happens, it’s transubstantiation. The fourth ladder in council describes it that way. St. Thomas Aquinas describes it that way. It’s described that way for centuries. Why does that matter? Because location or place isn’t part of substance. It’s an accident. Now again, I understand if ordinary people aren’t familiar with this, but don’t lie and say the Catholic teaching is that not only the substance but also the accidents of Christ are present in the Eucharist because that is 180 degrees wrong.
The whole point of saying this mode and not another mode is to say we don’t believe Christ is physically leaving heaven for the Eucharist. That is absurd. He is denying something we deny. The problem is he’s claiming we believe the thing that we explicitly don’t. So why is he claiming that? Well, it all comes back to that mysterious quote that he for some reason isn’t citing the source of. Now you might’ve guessed now why he’s not citing it, because it’s not church teaching, it’s not church doctrine. It’s not coming from a pope or a church council or a catechism or anything authoritative. It’s coming from a popular book called The Faith of Millions by a priest named Father John O’Brien written in 1938. The reason he claims its official church teaching is because it has the imprimatur of the bishop of Fort Wayne. Now, prior to this, I had not realized Catholics believe in the infallibility of the bishop of Fort Wayne and all of his priests, but apparently in Mike Jen’s imaginarium, that’s how this works.
So let’s say a few things. Number one, it is possible for a Catholic priest to say something wrong. It is possible to say something wrong even in a book that has been read and nobody caught the mistake. And so it has the imprimatur and the nihill obste. That is not a denial of church teaching. It doesn’t automatically make something Catholic teaching just because an editor didn’t catch something. But third, if you actually read the book, and I don’t think he has read the book, the reason I say that is there’s a lot of anti-Catholic books out there that quote that one line out of context, and I hope for his sake he hasn’t read it because if you have read it, you’ll realize this isn’t just a total perversion of Catholic teaching. It’s a total perversion even of this book. So for instance, this line from the book, it’s not actually from the chapter on the Eucharist.
It’s from a chapter talking about the priesthood and talking about it in really poetic sort of terms. If you read the book, you’ll find in the chapter on the Eucharist, the priest actually makes clear he doesn’t literally think Jesus is leaving heaven. That Christ’s mode of presence in the Eucharist is not extended in such a way as to occupy space that Christ isn’t spatially or dimensionally present in the Eucharist locally present in other words. And then he quotes favorably another priest who he says that what God has done, the body of Jesus means that it is ceased to be extended when we’re talking about the Eucharist and all at once is freed from the fers which bound it to place. It is not so much that it is in many places at once as that it is no longer under the ordinary laws of space at all.
Now you can say that’s a good or bad explanation of Christ’s mode of presence in the Eucharist, but the point is it’s explicitly denying the thing that my gender is claiming that this book teaches and therefore the Catholic church teaches. So does Jesus leave heaven for the Eucharist? Of course that’s false. Catholics do not believe that at all. Speaking of heaven, what about the idea that Catholics don’t think you can go directly to heaven? Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard this claim before. To be honest, I don’t think I’d ever heard this claim myself, but Mike Jenen claims this is what he believed when he was a Catholic.
CLIP:
And I’ll never forget every time I got on a plane Monday morning, I always had this great fear. If the plane goes down, will I end up in purgatory or hell? Because heaven wasn’t an option. Why? Why? Because even the popes believe they have to spend time in purgatory. Oh really? Yeah. When the last couple of Popes died, they had other cardinals come in and perform the sacrifice of the mass for the purpose of getting the Holy Fathers out of a place called purgatory. Is
That the repose of the soul? Is that what that
Means? Right. They were offering sacrifices for the sins of the popes. And so yeah, there was not an option to go to heaven directly. You had to go through the purging fire of purgatory.
Joe:
As with the last point, we can find some common ground Catholics and Protestants can agree that Mike Jenn’s vision of the Eucharist is dumb. We can also agree that he should be worried about that plane going down and it’s not because of purgatory, it’s much worse than that. Revelation 21 verse eight warns that all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death, they will not enter heaven. An unrepentant liar is damned forever. So that’s the problem. And hopefully Catholics and Protestants alike can say, yeah, we believe in Revelation 21 verse eight. We don’t want to affirm lying as something that a Christian can or should do, but we can go beyond that. What about Mike’s claim that not only he but actually the whole Catholic church including the popes teach that nobody goes directly to heaven?
Well, this is of course a lie and is lie explicitly denied by the catechism of the Catholic church in paragraph 10 22. It distinguishes between those saints who enter heaven immediately and those who enter heaven through purification purgatory. And this is not some new distinction either. In the next paragraph it quotes Benedict to 12 back in the year 1336, making the same distinction to be sure as Catholics, we believe some people go to purgatory, but it is an utter lie to believe that we think that all of the saints go to purgatory because explicitly we don’t. This is yet another false teaching by Mike Jenen. Alright, let’s shift gears here a little bit and talk about the 10 Commandments. Is it true that the Catholic Church removed one of the 10 Commandments? That’s what Mike claims.
CLIP:
You said that they removed the second commandment from their catechism and turned the last commandment into two, right? I don’t think I realized that. Can you explain that?
Yeah, just open any catechism of the Catholic church and you’ll see the traditional 10 commandments on one side of the page and then the Roman Catholic Commandments and you’ll see a blank space where the second commandment is and then you go down and you see they created two commandments for the last one. They’ll shall not covet a neighbor’s goods or their neighbor’s wife. They turn that into two
So they can say that it’s the 10 commandments still. So they have to split up.
Joe:
You’re not going to believe this, but Mike Jenen is actually lying. Again, we didn’t rip out the second commandment and leave a blank space rather. This lie is just a major part of his shtick. In fact, if you look at the thumbnail for the video, you’ll notice it’s the 10 Commandments with the Protestant numbering and the Pope in front of them with the question Catholic commandments. So to get the true story, I once again want to appeal to Protestants This time I’m going to appeal to some Lutherans. Now, if you can ignore the fact that this Lutheran pastor Brian Wolf Mueller is recording this video while driving, I keep waiting for the truck behind him to slam into him. It was nerve wracking. If you can avoid getting distracted by that, here’s a quick breakdown of the fact that there’s multiple ways of numbering the 10 Commandments and this is nothing new.
CLIP:
Now there’s four different divisions that different churches have used. There’s the Roman Catholic numbering, there’s the Lutheran numbering, there’s the Jewish numbering, and there’s the numbering that the Reformed or evangelicals or other protests that I’d suppose it’s aside from the Lutheran, it’d be the Protestant numbering. And that also happens to be the same as the Eastern Orthodox numbering. Now that point is slightly ironic. So
Joe:
Why are there four ways of numbering the 10 Commandments and why is it ironic that evangelicals follow the Eastern Orthodox numbering? Well, the first thing you should know is that the 10 Commandments are not numbered in the Bible, meaning any set of numbers you apply are a manmade addition to make sense of how there are 10 commandments. The second thing you should know is that the Bible doesn’t actually call them the 10 Commandments, rather they’re called the 10 words. Here’s another Lutheran pastor Chad Bird who explains the importance of that difference
CLIP:
Because in the Bible they’re never called the 10 Commandments. They’re always called the 10 words. And the first of these words in the Jewish reckoning is actually God’s way of reminding his people who he is, who they are and what he’s done for them. This becomes the foundation upon which all of the other commands and prohibitions are built.
Joe:
Yeah, let’s start there. The beginning of Exodus 20, God spoke all these words saying, I’m the Lord, dear God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now, if you’re looking for commandments, nothing is commanded there in verse two, but if you’re looking for words that certainly seems like a word of the Lord and indeed the one that kind of underscores everything else he’s going to say. And so Paul Finkelman, who is a law professor and legal historian talks about how Jews typically treat this as the first word, the first commandment. Meanwhile, Catholics and Lutherans treat this as part of the first commandment along with the instructions not to worship other gods or engage in idolatry which all flow from this thing. He is our God and we are his people, excuse me. Non Lutheran protestants tend to actually remove this part of the 10 Commandments entirely treating it simply as a preparatory statement.
So if I made a little chart, if you’re watching the video form of this in Exodus 20, we have Exodus two in both the Jewish, Catholic and Lutheran numbering. It’s not in the Protestant numbering. Jews consider verse two to be the first commandment verses three to six to be the second commandment. Catholics and Lutherans consider verses two to six to all be the first commandment. It’s all there, it’s just numbered differently. Protestants remove part of the 10 commandments, they remove verse two and then begin verse three as the first commandment and then treat verses four to six as the second commandment. So there’s a few things to notice here. First, you’ll notice we did not get rid of the prohibitation against idolatry. That’s verses four to six. The only difference is for us, it’s in the first commandment for evangelicals, it’s in the second commandment.
The catechism talks about this in paragraphs 21, 29 to 21, 32. The idea that we’re like, oh no, idolatry is cool. That’s not in our 10 commandments is just outright fiction. It’s ... Read more on Catholic.com