November 27, 2024 • 44 mins
In this special episode I dive into the case of Father Carlos Martins, a well-known priest and exorcist, who is currently under investigation for alleged inappropriate conduct involving minors during a St. Jude Relic tour in Illinois. I discusses the investigation, how it broke, how it developed, and the subsequent media narrative, and use the opportunity to question the integrity of some in Catholic media, especially independent sources like The Pillar. The episode also covers reactions from various quarters, including a strange tweet from Mel Gibson and comments on the reporting methods of different Catholic news outlets. Be careful about rushing to judgment.
LINKS
Notes From the Field sign-up: https://catholicadventurer.com/newsletter-landing
Catholic News Agency Article: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/260667/illinois-diocese-halts-st-jude-relic-tour-amid-incident-involving-priest-students
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
And cue that microphone.
Welcome everybody.
Welcome to this special episodeof the Catholic Experience.
I am your host.
I am your host, the CatholicAdventure, and I thank you very, very
much for joining me this evening.
It is Tuesday, November 26thin the year of our Lord, 2024.
(00:31):
Thank you again for joining me.
Let's fade that music to a little bit,a little bit lower, a little bit lower.
Today we're talking about the curiouscase of Father Carlos Martins.
I hope I'm pronouncing his name right.
Father Carlos Martins was recently,um, or is under investigation.
Hmm, I wonder why.
It's not what you think.
Also, this show isn'treally what you think.
(00:52):
This episode isn't really what you think.
I want to talk a little bit aboutintegrity in Catholic media.
I'm gonna talk a littlebit about integrity.
Now, now that we've gone, now that we'vegone rogue, let me turn the music off.
I'm talking about integrity inCatholic media, because there is none.
Well, there is in some.
There is some integrity in Catholicmedia, but it's sorely lacking
(01:16):
Integrity in independent Catholicmedia specifically is a problem.
So we're going to talk about the FatherMartin's story, what's going on, what
has happened, and where it's going.
Okay, let me just turn off my monitor.
Wow, I've got seven peopleviewing this already?
Do I have like seven windowsof my live stream player open?
(01:38):
Is that why it says I have seven viewers?
I can't believe it.
I have a funny feeling I've got likeseven live stream windows open, like
one, you know, my website is somewherein the background, and maybe Twitter
is somewhere in the background, maybethat's why, maybe I'm being, maybe I'm
being counted as a viewer seven times?
I've never had seven live viewers,that's like unbelievable to me.
(01:59):
So this story broke a couple ofnights ago, I was damn near ready
to participate in it myself.
I was this close to writinga blog post about it.
And, what's the story?
Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonnatell you that in just a second.
I was very close to writinga blog post about it.
And I mean damn close.
(02:20):
Just at the last minute, I thought,Something smells wrong here.
Something smells very wrong.
So I'm gonna get thison the screen if I can.
It was published by ThePillar.
com And it basically reported that FatherMartins, do you know Father Martins?
I assume that you all do, maybe youdon't, maybe I should fill you in.
He is a priest and an exorcist.
(02:41):
He's pretty popular.
You might've seen him oninterviews all over the place.
He's been on Matt Fradd's show.
He's been on a few other shows.
He's been on a Christianpodcast, not even Catholic.
Okay.
So he's pretty popular.
He's what you might call a celebritypriest or a celebrity exorcist priest.
I was even considering featuring himon, uh, an episode of my podcast.
(03:06):
And then this story broke out, whichI'm going to read to you in a second.
And then we're going to go through theprogression of everything that happened.
Okay?
I think you can see this if I do that.
This is by the pillar.
This is the original story that broke.
St.
Jude Relic Tour suspendedover police investigation.
Understand too, folks, this mighthave gone through some editing since
(03:29):
I first read it, since it broke.
Because Father Martin's attorney,, issued a cease and desist letter,
so they might have edited it.
I didn't memorize it, so Idon't remember which parts might
be edited, but here it goes.
St.
Jude Relic tour suspendedover police investigation.
So Father Martins was taking the St.
Jude Relic on a tourthrough the United States.
(03:49):
It arrived at a parish inIllinois, where something happened.
We're not entirely sure whathappened, but something happened.
Police were involved, an investigationensued, and Father Martins was asked
to leave the parish and the diocese.
So here's the story.
A St.
Jude relic traversing the United Statescame to a stop this week while the priest
organizing the tour faces an Illinoispolice investigation over alleged
(04:13):
inappropriate conduct involving children.
For those of you who don't know who I'mtalking about, there's this picture.
Okay?
My, my opinion is seem and I'mjust gonna lay down my opinion.
If folks don't like what I haveto say, that's just too damn
bad you ain't paying my bills.
I think he's a good priest.
He seems a good and holy priest.
He seems sincere, genuine.
(04:34):
He doesn't seem like a flake.
He seems very, very busy, very engaged.
He's a late ordination, and lateordinations are usually extremely devout.
Okay?
So my opinion of thisman is he's a good fella.
Do good fellas do wrong things?
Sure, that happens.
(04:55):
But, it, it happens more rarely, right?
It's, it's a little more seldom, so, yeah,good fellas do bad things, it happens,
but my opinion is, he's a good guy.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Okay.
The priest, Father Carlos Martins iswell known for The Exorcist Files, a
2003, sorry, 2023 podcast featuringdramatic audio portrayals of allegedly
(05:21):
demonic encounters, Martin, uh, demonicencounters Martins claims to have
experienced in ministry as an exorcist.
According to a statement fromQueen of the Apostles Parish in,
I think it's pronounced Illinois.
Martin was accused Thursday of anunspecified incident involving students,
(05:44):
which prompted Father Michael Lane,parish moderator, to contact the police.
So right away, you're getting an ideaof what he's being investigated for.
Did he touch a child?
Did he have, you know, , you know, aninappropriate relationship with a child?
Did he abuse a child?
Did this just happen here, or are these,is this a line of allegations and it
(06:07):
just now caught up with him at the timethat he happened to be at this parish?
But that's sort of the narrative youstart to spin in your imagination, right?
Mar, uh, Martins was confronted withthe information, Lane wrote, and we
informed the priest, him, or the priest.
We informed the priest.
That he must depart fromour parish and our diocese.
(06:30):
I want to point something out, my friends.
Do you see anything shady onthe screen in front of you?
Except for me.
Do you see anything shady?
The name Martins is not in quotes.
What is in quotes?
What came directly from thispriest, Father Lane, "was
confronted with information."
(06:51):
That's what's in quotes.
And also in quotes, "we informedthe priest...", Uh, stop.
What priest?
Wait a second.
We informed the priest.
What priest are you talking about?
Aren't we talking about Father Martin's?
You smelling what I'm cooking here?
We informed the priest that he mustdepart from our parish and our diocese.
(07:16):
End quote.
While Lane's statement did not providedetails about the allegation, It
also did not provide details aboutwho the allegation was against.
Let's point that out.
That's me saying for those of you catchingthe audio only, that's me saying that
the article doesn't say that here's,let's go back to the article again.
(07:37):
Sorry for the confusion.
While lanes statements did not providedetails about the allegations, the parish
priest aimed to assure parishioners thatall involved in this incident are safe.
The police investigation is still ongoing.
I was all ready to write about this,and I'll tell you very plainly why.
(08:01):
Because he's a popular priest, andbecause I wanted to say, here's what
we know, and this is all that we know.
So what we know is verylittle, almost nothing.
So don't rush to judgment,don't rush to conclusions.
And in that little blog post that I wrote,I put the details that I could find,
most of it was from Pillar, and thenscoured some socials and some new sites.
(08:24):
Again, very little information.
Most of it was from pillar andthen very little elsewhere.
Some, but very little elsewhere.
I was all set and ready to go thatnight, ready to click publish on that
post, but something kept nagging at me.
And I kept feeling somethingdoesn't feel right.
(08:44):
Something smells wrong.
In fact, I went back tothe post and I said that.
I said, I don't know, somethingsmells odd about this to me,
so don't rush to conclusions.
I went back to the post and wrote that.
And I'm thinking about it, and I'mthinking about it, and I was looking
(09:05):
at this face, Father Martin's face,and I, you know, and once you see
a face, you see a person, you know.
And I was like, I can't do this.
I can't do this because guilty or not,I'm not going to throw in whatever
he's guilty of or not guilty of.
I'm not, I'm just not going to throwin and whether intending to or not, I'm
(09:31):
not going to tear this man to pieces.
I won't be one of the peoplewho tears this man to pieces.
Not because I think he's a good priest,just because he's another human being.
He's a priest and he has done good work.
He does good work.
I'm sorry.
I am not going to descend onhim with the rest of the feeding
(09:52):
frenzy wolves in this business.
And then I turned itoff and I went to bed.
And in bed I thought about itand thought about it and I said
something just doesn't seem right.
Got out of bed, came back to thearticle, read it again, and some
of the things that I shared withyou, some of my thoughts that I
shared with you as I was reading it.
(10:12):
Were things that went through my mind.
These quotes don't seem right.
Nothing seems right.
Go to the statement by the priest.
And the letter that he issued.
Nobody was named.
Just nothing seemed right about this.
And so I was at peace to leave it alone.
And let's see what truth comes out.
(10:34):
Next day I went to Catholic News Agency.
Nothing there.
And I said, Well, if, if, If he's guilty,not guilty, but if these allegations
are what the Pillar, whether the Pillarintended to do this or not, the Pillar
did, inadvertently or on purpose, paintthis story, not through its words,
(10:56):
but through its omissions, through thecrafting of the rhetoric, as far as
I'm concerned, And I just felt likeThe pillar painted this story that if
that's, if the story is true, if thepainting is at all accurate to the facts
and to the reality, we would have seenthat on National Catholic Register.
(11:17):
We would have seen thaton Catholic News Agency.
We would have seen that in Secular News.
Next day, there was nothing.
This was, I think Boy,I'm really losing my mind.
I think this was, uh, the 25th,so what is that, yesterday?
Here's what we have yesterday.
Father Carlos Martins, through hisattorney has sent a cease and desist
(11:39):
letter to the pillar, alleging defamation.
Now, I should give credit where it's due.
This comes from Christine Niles, who I donot like, do not respect, do not trust.
We'll get to her in just a second, butI will say this, she's, she's active.
She's active.
She tries to do her job.
I just don't believe she does it honestly.
She may not even, she may noteven realize she's not doing it
(12:00):
honestly, but I will say this.
She tries to do her job.
She's active.
She's in it to win it.
She deserves credit for that.
So I didn't want to read this withoutfirst giving Christine Niles credit.
Breaking father Carlos Martins throughhis attorney has desist letter to
the pillar alleging defamation.
(12:23):
This misinformation is so obviouslydamaging to Father Martin's personal and
professional character and reputation byimplying that Father Martin's behavior
mirrors other instances of clergy abuse.
And that's exactly right.
That's exactly how I took it.
I took it as an implication thathis behavior mirrors or mimics
(12:45):
priest abuse behavior that wehave all come to know and loathe.
Back to it.
By implying that Father Martin'sbehavior mirrors other instances of
clergy abuse, a deplorable allusion,it is, and it is a deplorable allusion,
that in no way reflects the facts.
(13:06):
In addition to being defamatory, thesestatements may also constitute a violation
of canon law, which protects a priest,a priest's good name and reputation.
Boy, that's, that's actuallykind of laughable because they,
the diocese are breaking thatcode of canon law all the time.
If there is the hint of a whiffof an echo of an allegation.
(13:31):
Many, not all, many diocese will dragtheir priests through the coals in public.
Not all, but many, manydiocese will do that.
They will not protecttheir priests at all.
Not all, but many.
In fact, I will even say it's probablythe minority, but a minority of, of
(13:52):
all the diocese in America, that'sstill a lot of, a lot of places.
All right.
Anyway, back to the subject.
Okay.
So, Father Martin's attorneyissues this cease and desist.
I do feel like the story on thepillar went through some round of
modification because I do feel likeit's a little bit less, I don't know.
(14:16):
I just felt like there werethings in there that I caught the
first time that I didn't catchthe second time that I read it.
So maybe there was some modifications.
Maybe the modification was minor.
Maybe it was a modificationto the subtitle.
Maybe it was a modification to theheadline, but I do feel like something
changed, it was like the Matrix, you know?
Every time, when you experience déjà vu, that means something changed, that
(14:37):
means the Matrix changed something.
I felt like the Matrix changedsomething there, but I could be wrong.
Let me tell you a few thingsabout the Pillar, and to be
honest, I have very little to say.
My impression of the pillar isthat it's a normal, legitimate,
independent Catholic news site.
(15:00):
However, my intuition is alittle upset by the pillar and
I cannot put my finger on why.
I feel like in the past, the pillarmade waves with some story that it
reported some way that I don't remember.
I feel like the pillar really disappointedme in the past, not that I was a, an
(15:21):
active reader of the brand, but I, inmy, I just feel like in my intuition
somewhere in there is a memory thatpillar let me down or pillar disappointed
me or pillar got me upset about hisreporting and I stopped trusting it
instantly and I, I don't know what it was.
I don't recall.
Anyway.
(15:42):
But it's not, um, uh, a church militant,it's not, uh, LifeSite News, and no
offense to those of you who liked ChurchMilitant or who like LifeSite News, in
my opinion, you can save your, you canrescue your Catholicity from the pit
of despair by never looking at LifeSiteNews again, because it is a radical rag.
(16:04):
Their reporting is so incrediblydishonest, it might as well just have
the word fairy tale over its title.
Their reporting is so dishonest,it's incredible to me.
One day they are going toget sued out of existence.
I said that about, said that aboutChurch Militant and it happened,
and I'm saying that about LifeSiteNews, and it's going to happen.
One day they're going to be suedout of existence because they
(16:25):
are so flagrantly dishonest andso careful about how they do it.
I'm sorry, there's evil behind that brand.
So no offense to those ofyou who like those sites.
Truly, no offense.
I used to read LifeSite News all the time.
Every day I was on LifeSite News.
Every single day.
(16:46):
This is years ago.
They, they might have beenfairly new at the time.
I, I don't remember.
But anyhow, but over time I waslike, this stuff ain't right.
And I lost my love for them very quickly.
Well, not very quickly, but gradually.
So my point is, I can relate.
If you're someone who likes life sidenews, I can relate because I used to
really, I used to really enjoy themuntil I started seeing through the haze
(17:10):
of, of their magic spells, the spellthat they cast over people's minds.
And I have a mind for rhetoric.
I have a mind for the truth.
And I've said this a hundred times.
I am an extremely stupid person.
And I say that flippantly, but I mean it.
But I have one or two superpowers.
Only one or two.
(17:31):
I have about a thousand passions, and Ihave no gift or skill for any of them.
Any of those thousand passions.
But one of my one or two superpowersthat I have is I can spot the truth
and I can see it when it's hidden andthat means I can tell a lie even when
it's well disguised as the truth.
And I have a knack for rhetoric.
(17:51):
I can see what people do and why they'redoing it and how they phrase things and
Believe it or reject it, it's up to you.
But I am telling you that is my superpowerand I know bullshit when I see it.
I don't care.
I don't care how much whipped creamand cherries you put on that you're
not gonna slap bullshit in a ball, handit to me, and tell me it's ice cream.
You'll fool every living human beingon the planet before you ever fool me.
(18:15):
And it's not because I'm a genius.
I only have one or two superpowersout of the thousands of things
that I wish I could be goodat, that I have a passion for.
So this is not me being proud,this is me being humble.
But it's me being confident.
I'm awful at 998 things, absolutelyawful, absolutely incompetent.
You But there's one or two things that I'mvery, very good at and that's one of them.
(18:37):
So believe it or don'tbelieve it, that's up to you.
Anyway, my opinion of the, of thepillar is shaky going into this.
Going into this, it was already shaky.
After this, I am telling you, youbest stay away from the pillar.
Stay away from the pillar.
It's not life site news.
Let me be clear.
It is not life site news.
It's definitely much morelegitimate than a life site news
(18:59):
or a church militant or whatever.
It's definitely much morelegitimate than that.
But I'm going to point out acouple of other things that
bugged me about the pillar.
Here we go back to it.
I really have to make this quick.
This is already going longer than Iexpected there's a next phase to this.
Because there's a next phase and there isan order in which it should be presented.
(19:21):
Oh, I remember where it is.
Hey, while I'm looking for this,did you guys know I do a newsletter?
It's called Notes from the Field, andI really want you to subscribe to it.
It's free.
I just sent out the next one today,and I just launched a, um, a newsletter
subscriber exclusive podcast seriescalled The Scripture Sessions, where I
(19:44):
read a couple of verses of Scripture.
I share my.
Analysis, and I share my reflection on it.
Sign up for notes from the field.
It is free.
Go to the link in my bio.
You're going to see apanel there to sign up.
You're going to see a panel ora link there to take you to my
website to sign up, or go tomy website, catholicadventurer.
com.
(20:06):
What a moron.
Go to catholicadventurer.
com and you'll be greetedwith a pop up window there.
All I need is your, your, allI need is your email address.
It's going to ask you for yourfirst name so that I, you know,
it's nice to know a first name.
Um, it's not like I'm goingto memorize you guys, but it's
nice to know a first name.
All you really need to put in there isyour email address when you're done.
It's free, there's a lot ofgreat stuff in the newsletter.
(20:27):
If you don't sign up, you're missing out.
Alright.
Let me see now.
Here it is son of a gun.
Yeah
sorry about it
Following I Assume thisis what it seems to me.
Oh, yeah, loy.
Okay So this was the next action thatI found that I found You By the Pillar.
(20:48):
It was a post on Twitter.
Or on X.
It says, Lawyers for a priest accusedof an, quote, incident, end quote.
So, so far, they're putting incident inquotes because it was called an incident.
Originally, by the priest of the parish,it was referred to as an incident.
Okay, so that's thefirst thing to point out.
(21:09):
Second thing, it doesn'tname Father Martins.
Now it just says, Lawyers for apriest accused of an incident.
That's it.
An incident which halted a, let me,so let me start from the beginning.
Lawyers from, for a priest accused ofan, quote, incident, end quote, which
halted a nationwide relic tour say thatFather Carlos Martins touched a student's
(21:34):
hair last week to build, quote, rapport.
And police are investigating thematter only at the insistence
of an, quote, outraged father.
My response was this.
There's still some this wasmy response to them on X.
There's still something accusatoryand even a little sinister
(21:55):
about how you're wording this.
Facts don't always tell the truth.
If you can't fit the truth in a post,which sometimes you can't, sometimes you
can't fit the facts that are necessaryand, and the explanation that is
necessary and pertinent, sometimes youcan't fit that in a, in a, in a post.
So I go on to say, if you can't fit thetruth in a post, which happens, then
(22:18):
compose a post that get the people toread the full story on your website.
Compose it in a way that ideally, Iknow you can't guarantee it, but ideally
gets them to read it on your website.
So Listen, could I bereading into it too much?
Yes, I absolutely could be.
I could be reading into it too much.
But I'm going with my gut, and mygut tells me that was worded in a
(22:43):
way that was deliberately accusatory.
Or, it says just enough tolead the people to accuse, or
to, or to indict, or to judge.
The priest who may or maynot be Father Carlos Martins.
(23:05):
I'm sorry, if I get what they'retrying to do, they're trying to,
maybe not correct, but maybe refinewhat they had originally stated.
Okay, that is not the way you do that.
And if an idiot like me knowsthat, I'm sure the professional
journalists at The Pillar know that.
That is not the way youdo that, absolutely not.
(23:30):
Too vague.
It includes just enough to paint apicture, but not enough to paint a
picture that is accurate to the facts.
It does state facts, butit doesn't tell the truth.
Because it puts things in there thatlead people to a different conclusion.
Now, what is it talking about?
(23:51):
And I'm going to get to this really fast.
Or go through this really fast.
If I can find it now.
I keep losing all of my things.
I'm not going to read it, let mejust explain it to you, and then
I'm going to explain this to you,what actually happened, as best
as I can remember from the storiesthat I've been reading about it.
And then I'm going to show youa couple of weird pictures, that
(24:13):
I'm not sure what to make of.
Okay, here it goes.
Father Martins was in a school setting,I don't remember if, I don't know if
it was a classroom, or an auditorium,or the lunchroom, I don't know.
But he was in a school setting.
It was a class or severalclasses all together.
(24:33):
There were adults, there werepriests and faculty slash teachers.
He was not in a roomwith this child alone.
He was, Oh, I rememberwhere this came from.
The lawyer, it's from this storyon Lifesite News, which I'm
just going to go over briefly.
Update.
Father Carlos Martin's attorney providesfuller context of the church incident.
Folks, I'm just going to explainthis and I will link this.
(24:57):
To this episode's on demand page.
If you're seeing this on socials, you'reout of luck, because Facebook, I hate you.
I'm not giving you any more of my content.
Not the Facebook people,the Facebook platform.
So you're not gonna havethis on demand on Facebook.
So, the first place to check forthe on demand version is going
(25:18):
to be my, the link in my bio.
The second place, probably almost asgood, is my website, CatholicAdventurer.
com.
I will place a link to this article.
In this episode's on demand page, okay?
So I'm going to link this article,but I'm going to explain it
to you right now from memory.
So he was in a room, a large room, withall these people, a bunch of people.
(25:41):
He was just, you know, trying to openup the floor, not open the floor,
but open up the discussion with, youknow, some like attention getting,
some conversation, some hooks.
He's talking with the, with the kids,and these were teenagers, I think
they were high school students, Ithink, young high school students, or
maybe 8th grade, I, I don't remember.
, they weren't 5 year old kids, they wereolder kids, much older kids than that.
(26:05):
And he's gabbing with them, he's talkingwith them, he, he's talking to one
girl in front of the crowd, in frontof the group, he's talking to one girl.
And he comments on how long her hair is.
And he said, yeah, Ihave the same hairstyle.
I have the same hairstyleas you because he's bald.
So he's making a joke.
He said there, there was a time whenmy hair was just as long as yours.
(26:25):
I mean, it was so long.
I could floss my teeth with it.
Joking.
According to the article or theattorney or both, um, everybody
in the room, you know, laugh.
They thought that was funny.
He, then after he said, you know,I could floss my teeth with it.
Okay.
He asked the girl, do you everfloss your teeth with your hair?
She said, no.
He says, well, you have the length for it.
(26:46):
Look how long your hair is.
And he picked up a lock of herhair and showed how long it was.
Is that a little weird?
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know.
It's one of those things thatcould be weird culturally in some
cultures and in other cultures.
It's like, that's not weird.
Really.
(27:06):
I really don't know what to make of that.
If my daughter came home and said apriest did that, I, I'm gonna tell you
very honestly, I would, I would say it'sa little weird, but it's not that kind of
weird, like he did what I, I, I, you know,I guess the situation will dictate, but
I'm telling you very truthfully right now,if my daughter came home and told me that
(27:27):
whole story and said the priest pickedup her hair and said, look how long her
hair is, and, and she does have long hair.
I, I really don't think Iwould find reason to flip out.
Is it weird?
Eh?
Is it that kind of weird?
No.
You know, the kind of weird whereit's like, Oh my God, he did that?
That's so inappropriate.
I don't think so.
(27:47):
But the situation will dictate.
Different cultures, you know, understandthings differently, have different norms.
Where I'm from, when you greet a friend,you always kiss them on the cheek.
Even if it's another guy.
A hundred percent.
You always kiss them on the cheek.
If it's a really close friend.
When you greet each other.
That's just normal.
(28:08):
Once you leave where I'm from, younever, never do some mess like that.
Because it's weird.
It's weird everywhere else.
Where I'm from, it is not.
That is normal.
Or, Europeans love to kiss on each cheek.
(28:33):
To me, that's weird.
You do a special greeting helloor a special goodbye to a close
friend, You kiss on one cheek.
You don't do both cheeks.
That's over the line.
To the Euros, doingjust one cheek is rude.
So, so I'm not telling you what to think.
(28:55):
If you think holding up the girl, alot of the girl's hair and saying,
your hair is long enough for it, youcould floss with it if you wanted to.
If you think that's weird,okay, God bless you.
I don't.
I think it's awkward, but not weird.
I don't know.
It's hard to say.
It's one of those things.
It's just hard to say.
Okay.
Anyway, so that's what happened.
(29:19):
I think the girl was upset by it becauseshe went home and told her father
this, or she told her parents or heror her mother and her mother told her
father, I don't know, but they got it.
The parents got it from somewhere.
I suspect this upset her andthat's why she spoke about it.
Otherwise, why would she even bring it up?
Right?
And if she felt uncomfortable, fine.
(29:39):
I'm not telling anyonehow they should feel.
I wasn't there, and it wasn't myhair that was, you know, held up.
So the girl said something to herparents or to her father directly.
We don't know what.
Father freaked out, called the cops.
Cops investigated, found nocause to arrest or press charges.
And so that was that for the cops.
(30:00):
The father didn't like that outcome, sohe called, uh, or so he got ahold of the
police again, made a big stink over it.
The police went back tocontinue investigating.
I don't know what more youcan continue to investigate.
I mean, the facts arepretty much there, but okay.
Uh, I'm not in the situation.
I'm on the outside looking in.
(30:21):
Okay.
I don't have the perspective
now,
as far as I know.
And my knowledge of this is, is fairlyup to date within the past few hours.
No one has pressed chargesagainst father Martins.
No one has even contacted, the lawenforcement has not even contacted
him at this point, up to this point.
They may have by now, I don't know.
But up to a few hours ago,several hours ago, they had not.
(30:45):
Again, I don't know wherethis investigation is going.
When you don't even feel like youneed to speak to the alleged accused.
Right?
Uh, when there are no charges pressed.
Not even for battery, nothing.
I am not saying a crimehas not been committed.
I'm not saying a crime has been committed.
(31:05):
Some crimes are weird that way.
We're holding up a child's hairmight be considered battery.
Um, throwing a paper clip at somebody evenplayfully could be considered assault.
Even if you miss them,it's one of those things.
So I am not saying a crimehas or has not been committed.
(31:26):
I'm just telling you thefacts as I understand them.
I will link this, so everythingthat I just explained came from
this story on Catholic News Agency,which I will send a link to.
Just a couple more things, and these arenot stories, these are graphics that I
wanted to share with you, which, justweird, what the hell is going on here?
This, from BLG Tweets, Burke Law, uh,I wonder if that's Father Martin's,
(31:51):
uh, I don't remember the name, ifyou don't know this about me, I'm
very bad at remembering names.
So, I think this might be his attoruh, Father Martin's attorney, I think.
This was a text messagesent to Marcella Burke.
Which, I can go back and look, butI'm not gonna bother wasting my time.
I think that's his attorney.
Anyway, this was a text message.
(32:12):
You see here, it says, M.
G.
for Mel Gibson.
And then the name, Mel.
Mel.
And yet, the text opens with,Hello, Marcella, this is Mel Gibson.
Well, don't you think she knows that?
You're in her freakin address book.
You're in her contacts.
That's was a little bit weird.
(32:33):
This is a picture of fatherMartins with Mel Gibson.
I am very surprised to see that becausefather Martins is a normal priest
and Mel Gibson, great director, greatactor, but he's a city of a contest.
So I'm surprised to see himpousing around with a quote
unquote Novus Ordo false priest.
Very surprised to see that.
(32:53):
I love Mel Gibson.
I am not passing judgmenton him for being a Sede.
I'm just saying that's weird.
Do I deny that they'rephotographed together?
Of course not, because I'mnot dumb, and I am not blind.
I'm just saying that is weirdfor Mel Gibson to come to the
defense of Father Martin's.
(33:14):
The text message that he sent,allegedly sent, we are being led
to believe that he sent, Says this.
Hello, Marcella.
This is Mel Gibson.
It's ludicrous that a good priest, comma,father, period, Martins, comma, has been
suspended from his ministry based onreckless allegations by, "The Pillar"
(33:37):
why am I doing all this withthe punctuations and stuff?
Does anybody want to guess?
Is there anybody actually watchingme who has access to the chat room?
Tell me why you thinkI'm bringing all that up.
I don't know.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Time's up.
Have you ever tried to, well, he couldhave typed this on his computer, but,
I'm assuming he typed it on his phone.
(33:59):
That's really, really precisetyping for a text message
that ultimately means nothing.
It's not like he's sendingthis to the New York Times.
He appears to be just texting anacquaintance, but he's got all
the caps in there, he's got allthe commas in the right place.
(34:20):
Hell, you think I bother with anyof that crap when I'm texting?
Hell, no!
Are you crazy?
But, he's Mel Gibson, so who knows?
Okay, let's go back.
Hello, Marcella, this is Mel Gibson.
This time I'll just read it clean.
It's ludicrous.
Great word.
(34:40):
Great word, ludicrous.
It's ludicrous.
Wait, what do you mean it's ludicrous?
You just said it's Mel Gibson.
Oh, oh, he's not saying it is ludicrous.
Oh, my fault.
It's ludicrous.
It's ludicrous.
That a good priest, Father Martins, hasbeen suspended from his ministry based
on reckless allegations by the Pillar,and a diocesan statement that have no
basis as determined by law enforcementand are completely speculative.
(35:07):
My friends, I apologize, but thissounds like lawyer speak to me.
The precision, the wording, the phrasing.
It just sounds like lawyer speak to me.
Reckless allegations by the Pillarand a diocesan statement that have no
basis as determined by law enforcementand are completely speculative.
(35:31):
Sounds like lawyer speak.
There were 200 other peoplethere for Pete's sake.
He was making a joke!
The police came and foundno cause to press charges.
The situation is
and the response from Marcellais, Wow, comma, thank you, period.
(35:54):
I sure didn't have this onmy bingo card for today.
May I share this?
To which, Mel Gibson says, Of course!
Far and wide!
Exclamation point.
Heh.
Heh.
Hello, Marcella.
This is Mel Gibson.
(36:15):
Also known as As Braveheart.
Ah, it's ludicrous that a goodpriest, Father Martins, has been
suspended from his ministry based onreckless allegations by ye pillar.
You have come to fight asfree men and free men you are.
(36:40):
Will you fight?
No, we won't fight.
Okay, all right.
I just can't, I just can't resist.
Did Mel Gibson really send this?
I would say probably, because that wouldbe really dangerous to falsify this.
Send it out there in the public.
If Mel Gibson wasn't really involved.
You know what I suspect, andfolks, this is my suspicion.
(37:01):
This is only my suspicion.
There's too much precision here.
There's, there's, it just soundsso much like lawyer speak.
Mel Gibson works a lot of lawyers,so he might have picked that up.
That kind of lawyer speak.
It's possible.
Heh.
But looking at this, my fea andthen the response, Wow, I didn't
have that on my bingo card today.
May I share this?
(37:23):
Even may I share this?
Why wouldn't you justsay, Can I share this?
Why do you I don't I just feel likethere was an exchange in private
between these two parties, and Marcellasaid, Hey, would you mind texting me?
You know, you're supportiveof Father Martins.
You think this is a and maybehe is supportive and maybe
(37:44):
Marcella says, Could you say that?
And I'll make it public.
You know, just like, causewe're not faking anything.
You really support him, and I'mjust trying to find a way to provide
a channel for you to voice that.
But I don't want to make it look prompted.
Okay.
Sure.
What do you want me to say?
I'll type something.
I'll send something to you to say.
(38:04):
And you can say something like that.
Mel Gibson's a very busyguy, so he's like Okay.
Beep!
Text message comes in.
Okay.
I got a million things to do.
I'm working on a sequel toThe Passion of the Christ.
They're thinking of doing a Braveheart2, where Braveheart comes back to life.
I can't right now.
Copy, paste, send.
(38:24):
Send.
That's what I think.
Or he copied portions of it.
That's what I think.
I think this was prompted.
I don't think this was impromptu.
That's pretty good.
Was that a good turn of phrase or what?
Is that what you would calla turn of phrase or what?
You see folks, as I told you, I'm stupid.
(38:46):
What do I know?
I don't know.
I don't even know how to speak English.
One other thing I wantedto share with you.
don't know.
This was posted by Christine Niles.
This is father Lane, the priest whoconfronted father Martin's about this
allegation or about this complaint.
Complaint, I think is a better word.
(39:07):
This was posted by Christine Niles.
I did see this elsewhere.
on the interwebs and Christine,and I'm just going to paraphrase
cause I need to get this over with.
Christine said, this is theman who should be reported.
Or she said something like this.
I really shouldn't put words inher mouth, but she was pointing
out the fact that look at this.
He's holding this child against himself.
That's the man who should be investigated.
(39:30):
Is this inappropriate whatwe're seeing this priest doing?
It doesn't look like he'sholding her against his his body.
It looks like he's saying something orexplaining something maybe He has his
hand on her shoulders, but probably not bythe look of it Maybe he's a little close.
Maybe he's just explaining something.
He's about to point to something.
(39:51):
I just don't I don't see thisas being against his body and
I don't see this as him holdingher against his body I'm sorry.
I am sorry.
It is irresponsible and reckless toput that, that suggestion out there.
I should get my face out ofthe screen so you can see.
(40:11):
You see, his hand is not on her shoulder.
It doesn't look like it.
This is his hand here.
It doesn't look like it's onhis shoulder, her shoulder.
It doesn't even look like she's againsthis body, or he's against her body.
It looks like she's up to thecase to look at what's inside.
That's the Relic of St.
Jude.
And it looks like he'slooking here at the Relic.
(40:32):
Right?
You see the line of sight from his eyes?
He's looking at the Relic.
And he's speaking.
What I take from this ishe's explaining something.
And he's getting as closeto the Relic as he can, with
somebody already in front of him.
And he's just casuallyexplaining something or
talking about it or something.
That's all I see in this picture.
(40:52):
Folks, I say this from time to time.
And I don't know if you understand justhow serious I am about it when I say this.
There's a lot of grifting in media.
An awful lot of grifting in media.
Huh?
There's a lot of money in media, andso, people have a vested interest
(41:12):
in grifting, in conning you.
If you think it's uniqueto secular news, Mm mm.
They do it in Catholic news, too.
They do it in, or I should say, theydo it in independent Catholic media.
And they are almost as good atit in independent Catholic media
(41:35):
as they are in shady secular,or in, in, Proper secular media.
And I can tell you many, many, many,many, many Catholics are being led
astray by their trusted sources ofCatholic news and, and, and commentary.
It's not just independent Catholic news,it's independent Catholic commentary too.
(41:58):
Podcasters and such.
I generally do not name names.
, and, and I won't, uh, unless I needto, because I don't want to be gossipy.
Also, um, you never know if some ofthese names turn themselves around,
and so I don't want to take partin, in ruining that turnaround by
(42:18):
taking some role in ruining theirreputations, and I don't want to
ruin people's reputations anyway,and this is the honest to God truth.
People are dear, and people areprecious, and I really don't
want to cause people harm.
Especially in includingpeople's reputations.
I will name names when I have to.
For instance, today Ihad to name the pillar.
(42:40):
I had to because itwas, it was the subject.
And I want to say thisagain about Christine Niles.
As far as I'm concerned, and this is myopinion, in her career, where she has
been, and the work that she has done, Iwill never, ever find her trustworthy.
But maybe she's turning herself aroundbecause what I will say positively
is this she works she's passionateabout investigative journalism
(43:07):
Credit where it's due I just hope and Ipray and I mean this I hope and I pray
That she comes to an understanding of justwhat it means to be ethical in journalism
I don't think she's evil I think she'sbeen misguided Over a long period of
time, by slow degrees, and she may notunderstand that some of her techniques,
(43:33):
some of her reporting, is unethical.
The pillar.
Especially after this one?
That's enough red flags for me.
I won't be readinganything from them again.
You do what you like, becauseI don't think they're poison.
Hmm, that's weird.
My stream just got cut off.
That's very, very weird.
(43:54):
My stream just got completely cut off.
It's just the strangest thing.
Alright, well let mebring this to a close.
Um, I really said everythingthat I have to say anyway.
Be careful about thefolks that you follow.
Don't be mice following the Pied Piper.
This has been a special way too longepisode of the Catholic experience.
I've been your host,the Catholic adventure.
(44:14):
God bless you folks.
God be with you all.
I'm going to try and solve this mysteryof where the hell my stream went.
Signing out of here.
God be with you once again.
Bye bye.
And cue that microphone.
Welcome everybody.
Welcome to this special episodeof the Catholic Experience.
I am your host.
I am your host, the CatholicAdventure, and I thank you very, very
much for joining me this evening.
It is Tuesday, November 26thin the year of our Lord, 2024.
(00:31):
Thank you again for joining me.
Let's fade that music to a little bit,a little bit lower, a little bit lower.
Today we're talking about the curiouscase of Father Carlos Martins.
I hope I'm pronouncing his name right.
Father Carlos Martins was recently,um, or is under investigation.
Hmm, I wonder why.
It's not what you think.
Also, this show isn'treally what you think.
(00:52):
This episode isn't really what you think.
I want to talk a little bit aboutintegrity in Catholic media.
I'm gonna talk a littlebit about integrity.
Now, now that we've gone, now that we'vegone rogue, let me turn the music off.
I'm talking about integrity inCatholic media, because there is none.
Well, there is in some.
There is some integrity in Catholicmedia, but it's sorely lacking
(01:16):
Integrity in independent Catholicmedia specifically is a problem.
So we're going to talk about the FatherMartin's story, what's going on, what
has happened, and where it's going.
Okay, let me just turn off my monitor.
Wow, I've got seven peopleviewing this already?
Do I have like seven windowsof my live stream player open?
(01:38):
Is that why it says I have seven viewers?
I can't believe it.
I have a funny feeling I've got likeseven live stream windows open, like
one, you know, my website is somewherein the background, and maybe Twitter
is somewhere in the background, maybethat's why, maybe I'm being, maybe I'm
being counted as a viewer seven times?
I've never had seven live viewers,that's like unbelievable to me.
(01:59):
So this story broke a couple ofnights ago, I was damn near ready
to participate in it myself.
I was this close to writinga blog post about it.
And, what's the story?
Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonnatell you that in just a second.
I was very close to writinga blog post about it.
And I mean damn close.
(02:20):
Just at the last minute, I thought,Something smells wrong here.
Something smells very wrong.
So I'm gonna get thison the screen if I can.
It was published by ThePillar.
com And it basically reported that FatherMartins, do you know Father Martins?
I assume that you all do, maybe youdon't, maybe I should fill you in.
He is a priest and an exorcist.
(02:41):
He's pretty popular.
You might've seen him oninterviews all over the place.
He's been on Matt Fradd's show.
He's been on a few other shows.
He's been on a Christianpodcast, not even Catholic.
Okay.
So he's pretty popular.
He's what you might call a celebritypriest or a celebrity exorcist priest.
I was even considering featuring himon, uh, an episode of my podcast.
(03:06):
And then this story broke out, whichI'm going to read to you in a second.
And then we're going to go through theprogression of everything that happened.
Okay?
I think you can see this if I do that.
This is by the pillar.
This is the original story that broke.
St.
Jude Relic Tour suspendedover police investigation.
Understand too, folks, this mighthave gone through some editing since
(03:29):
I first read it, since it broke.
Because Father Martin's attorney,, issued a cease and desist letter,
so they might have edited it.
I didn't memorize it, so Idon't remember which parts might
be edited, but here it goes.
St.
Jude Relic tour suspendedover police investigation.
So Father Martins was taking the St.
Jude Relic on a tourthrough the United States.
(03:49):
It arrived at a parish inIllinois, where something happened.
We're not entirely sure whathappened, but something happened.
Police were involved, an investigationensued, and Father Martins was asked
to leave the parish and the diocese.
So here's the story.
A St.
Jude relic traversing the United Statescame to a stop this week while the priest
organizing the tour faces an Illinoispolice investigation over alleged
(04:13):
inappropriate conduct involving children.
For those of you who don't know who I'mtalking about, there's this picture.
Okay?
My, my opinion is seem and I'mjust gonna lay down my opinion.
If folks don't like what I haveto say, that's just too damn
bad you ain't paying my bills.
I think he's a good priest.
He seems a good and holy priest.
He seems sincere, genuine.
(04:34):
He doesn't seem like a flake.
He seems very, very busy, very engaged.
He's a late ordination, and lateordinations are usually extremely devout.
Okay?
So my opinion of thisman is he's a good fella.
Do good fellas do wrong things?
Sure, that happens.
(04:55):
But, it, it happens more rarely, right?
It's, it's a little more seldom, so, yeah,good fellas do bad things, it happens,
but my opinion is, he's a good guy.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Okay.
The priest, Father Carlos Martins iswell known for The Exorcist Files, a
2003, sorry, 2023 podcast featuringdramatic audio portrayals of allegedly
(05:21):
demonic encounters, Martin, uh, demonicencounters Martins claims to have
experienced in ministry as an exorcist.
According to a statement fromQueen of the Apostles Parish in,
I think it's pronounced Illinois.
Martin was accused Thursday of anunspecified incident involving students,
(05:44):
which prompted Father Michael Lane,parish moderator, to contact the police.
So right away, you're getting an ideaof what he's being investigated for.
Did he touch a child?
Did he have, you know, , you know, aninappropriate relationship with a child?
Did he abuse a child?
Did this just happen here, or are these,is this a line of allegations and it
(06:07):
just now caught up with him at the timethat he happened to be at this parish?
But that's sort of the narrative youstart to spin in your imagination, right?
Mar, uh, Martins was confronted withthe information, Lane wrote, and we
informed the priest, him, or the priest.
We informed the priest.
That he must depart fromour parish and our diocese.
(06:30):
I want to point something out, my friends.
Do you see anything shady onthe screen in front of you?
Except for me.
Do you see anything shady?
The name Martins is not in quotes.
What is in quotes?
What came directly from thispriest, Father Lane, "was
confronted with information."
(06:51):
That's what's in quotes.
And also in quotes, "we informedthe priest...", Uh, stop.
What priest?
Wait a second.
We informed the priest.
What priest are you talking about?
Aren't we talking about Father Martin's?
You smelling what I'm cooking here?
We informed the priest that he mustdepart from our parish and our diocese.
(07:16):
End quote.
While Lane's statement did not providedetails about the allegation, It
also did not provide details aboutwho the allegation was against.
Let's point that out.
That's me saying for those of you catchingthe audio only, that's me saying that
the article doesn't say that here's,let's go back to the article again.
(07:37):
Sorry for the confusion.
While lanes statements did not providedetails about the allegations, the parish
priest aimed to assure parishioners thatall involved in this incident are safe.
The police investigation is still ongoing.
I was all ready to write about this,and I'll tell you very plainly why.
(08:01):
Because he's a popular priest, andbecause I wanted to say, here's what
we know, and this is all that we know.
So what we know is verylittle, almost nothing.
So don't rush to judgment,don't rush to conclusions.
And in that little blog post that I wrote,I put the details that I could find,
most of it was from Pillar, and thenscoured some socials and some new sites.
(08:24):
Again, very little information.
Most of it was from pillar andthen very little elsewhere.
Some, but very little elsewhere.
I was all set and ready to go thatnight, ready to click publish on that
post, but something kept nagging at me.
And I kept feeling somethingdoesn't feel right.
(08:44):
Something smells wrong.
In fact, I went back tothe post and I said that.
I said, I don't know, somethingsmells odd about this to me,
so don't rush to conclusions.
I went back to the post and wrote that.
And I'm thinking about it, and I'mthinking about it, and I was looking
(09:05):
at this face, Father Martin's face,and I, you know, and once you see
a face, you see a person, you know.
And I was like, I can't do this.
I can't do this because guilty or not,I'm not going to throw in whatever
he's guilty of or not guilty of.
I'm not, I'm just not going to throwin and whether intending to or not, I'm
(09:31):
not going to tear this man to pieces.
I won't be one of the peoplewho tears this man to pieces.
Not because I think he's a good priest,just because he's another human being.
He's a priest and he has done good work.
He does good work.
I'm sorry.
I am not going to descend onhim with the rest of the feeding
(09:52):
frenzy wolves in this business.
And then I turned itoff and I went to bed.
And in bed I thought about itand thought about it and I said
something just doesn't seem right.
Got out of bed, came back to thearticle, read it again, and some
of the things that I shared withyou, some of my thoughts that I
shared with you as I was reading it.
(10:12):
Were things that went through my mind.
These quotes don't seem right.
Nothing seems right.
Go to the statement by the priest.
And the letter that he issued.
Nobody was named.
Just nothing seemed right about this.
And so I was at peace to leave it alone.
And let's see what truth comes out.
(10:34):
Next day I went to Catholic News Agency.
Nothing there.
And I said, Well, if, if, If he's guilty,not guilty, but if these allegations
are what the Pillar, whether the Pillarintended to do this or not, the Pillar
did, inadvertently or on purpose, paintthis story, not through its words,
(10:56):
but through its omissions, through thecrafting of the rhetoric, as far as
I'm concerned, And I just felt likeThe pillar painted this story that if
that's, if the story is true, if thepainting is at all accurate to the facts
and to the reality, we would have seenthat on National Catholic Register.
(11:17):
We would have seen thaton Catholic News Agency.
We would have seen that in Secular News.
Next day, there was nothing.
This was, I think Boy,I'm really losing my mind.
I think this was, uh, the 25th,so what is that, yesterday?
Here's what we have yesterday.
Father Carlos Martins, through hisattorney has sent a cease and desist
(11:39):
letter to the pillar, alleging defamation.
Now, I should give credit where it's due.
This comes from Christine Niles, who I donot like, do not respect, do not trust.
We'll get to her in just a second, butI will say this, she's, she's active.
She's active.
She tries to do her job.
I just don't believe she does it honestly.
She may not even, she may noteven realize she's not doing it
(12:00):
honestly, but I will say this.
She tries to do her job.
She's active.
She's in it to win it.
She deserves credit for that.
So I didn't want to read this withoutfirst giving Christine Niles credit.
Breaking father Carlos Martins throughhis attorney has desist letter to
the pillar alleging defamation.
(12:23):
This misinformation is so obviouslydamaging to Father Martin's personal and
professional character and reputation byimplying that Father Martin's behavior
mirrors other instances of clergy abuse.
And that's exactly right.
That's exactly how I took it.
I took it as an implication thathis behavior mirrors or mimics
(12:45):
priest abuse behavior that wehave all come to know and loathe.
Back to it.
By implying that Father Martin'sbehavior mirrors other instances of
clergy abuse, a deplorable allusion,it is, and it is a deplorable allusion,
that in no way reflects the facts.
(13:06):
In addition to being defamatory, thesestatements may also constitute a violation
of canon law, which protects a priest,a priest's good name and reputation.
Boy, that's, that's actuallykind of laughable because they,
the diocese are breaking thatcode of canon law all the time.
If there is the hint of a whiffof an echo of an allegation.
(13:31):
Many, not all, many diocese will dragtheir priests through the coals in public.
Not all, but many, manydiocese will do that.
They will not protecttheir priests at all.
Not all, but many.
In fact, I will even say it's probablythe minority, but a minority of, of
(13:52):
all the diocese in America, that'sstill a lot of, a lot of places.
All right.
Anyway, back to the subject.
Okay.
So, Father Martin's attorneyissues this cease and desist.
I do feel like the story on thepillar went through some round of
modification because I do feel likeit's a little bit less, I don't know.
(14:16):
I just felt like there werethings in there that I caught the
first time that I didn't catchthe second time that I read it.
So maybe there was some modifications.
Maybe the modification was minor.
Maybe it was a modificationto the subtitle.
Maybe it was a modification to theheadline, but I do feel like something
changed, it was like the Matrix, you know?
Every time, when you experience déjà vu, that means something changed, that
(14:37):
means the Matrix changed something.
I felt like the Matrix changedsomething there, but I could be wrong.
Let me tell you a few thingsabout the Pillar, and to be
honest, I have very little to say.
My impression of the pillar isthat it's a normal, legitimate,
independent Catholic news site.
(15:00):
However, my intuition is alittle upset by the pillar and
I cannot put my finger on why.
I feel like in the past, the pillarmade waves with some story that it
reported some way that I don't remember.
I feel like the pillar really disappointedme in the past, not that I was a, an
(15:21):
active reader of the brand, but I, inmy, I just feel like in my intuition
somewhere in there is a memory thatpillar let me down or pillar disappointed
me or pillar got me upset about hisreporting and I stopped trusting it
instantly and I, I don't know what it was.
I don't recall.
Anyway.
(15:42):
But it's not, um, uh, a church militant,it's not, uh, LifeSite News, and no
offense to those of you who liked ChurchMilitant or who like LifeSite News, in
my opinion, you can save your, you canrescue your Catholicity from the pit
of despair by never looking at LifeSiteNews again, because it is a radical rag.
(16:04):
Their reporting is so incrediblydishonest, it might as well just have
the word fairy tale over its title.
Their reporting is so dishonest,it's incredible to me.
One day they are going toget sued out of existence.
I said that about, said that aboutChurch Militant and it happened,
and I'm saying that about LifeSiteNews, and it's going to happen.
One day they're going to be suedout of existence because they
(16:25):
are so flagrantly dishonest andso careful about how they do it.
I'm sorry, there's evil behind that brand.
So no offense to those ofyou who like those sites.
Truly, no offense.
I used to read LifeSite News all the time.
Every day I was on LifeSite News.
Every single day.
(16:46):
This is years ago.
They, they might have beenfairly new at the time.
I, I don't remember.
But anyhow, but over time I waslike, this stuff ain't right.
And I lost my love for them very quickly.
Well, not very quickly, but gradually.
So my point is, I can relate.
If you're someone who likes life sidenews, I can relate because I used to
really, I used to really enjoy themuntil I started seeing through the haze
(17:10):
of, of their magic spells, the spellthat they cast over people's minds.
And I have a mind for rhetoric.
I have a mind for the truth.
And I've said this a hundred times.
I am an extremely stupid person.
And I say that flippantly, but I mean it.
But I have one or two superpowers.
Only one or two.
(17:31):
I have about a thousand passions, and Ihave no gift or skill for any of them.
Any of those thousand passions.
But one of my one or two superpowersthat I have is I can spot the truth
and I can see it when it's hidden andthat means I can tell a lie even when
it's well disguised as the truth.
And I have a knack for rhetoric.
(17:51):
I can see what people do and why they'redoing it and how they phrase things and
Believe it or reject it, it's up to you.
But I am telling you that is my superpowerand I know bullshit when I see it.
I don't care.
I don't care how much whipped creamand cherries you put on that you're
not gonna slap bullshit in a ball, handit to me, and tell me it's ice cream.
You'll fool every living human beingon the planet before you ever fool me.
(18:15):
And it's not because I'm a genius.
I only have one or two superpowersout of the thousands of things
that I wish I could be goodat, that I have a passion for.
So this is not me being proud,this is me being humble.
But it's me being confident.
I'm awful at 998 things, absolutelyawful, absolutely incompetent.
You But there's one or two things that I'mvery, very good at and that's one of them.
(18:37):
So believe it or don'tbelieve it, that's up to you.
Anyway, my opinion of the, of thepillar is shaky going into this.
Going into this, it was already shaky.
After this, I am telling you, youbest stay away from the pillar.
Stay away from the pillar.
It's not life site news.
Let me be clear.
It is not life site news.
It's definitely much morelegitimate than a life site news
(18:59):
or a church militant or whatever.
It's definitely much morelegitimate than that.
But I'm going to point out acouple of other things that
bugged me about the pillar.
Here we go back to it.
I really have to make this quick.
This is already going longer than Iexpected there's a next phase to this.
Because there's a next phase and there isan order in which it should be presented.
(19:21):
Oh, I remember where it is.
Hey, while I'm looking for this,did you guys know I do a newsletter?
It's called Notes from the Field, andI really want you to subscribe to it.
It's free.
I just sent out the next one today,and I just launched a, um, a newsletter
subscriber exclusive podcast seriescalled The Scripture Sessions, where I
(19:44):
read a couple of verses of Scripture.
I share my.
Analysis, and I share my reflection on it.
Sign up for notes from the field.
It is free.
Go to the link in my bio.
You're going to see apanel there to sign up.
You're going to see a panel ora link there to take you to my
website to sign up, or go tomy website, catholicadventurer.
com.
(20:06):
What a moron.
Go to catholicadventurer.
com and you'll be greetedwith a pop up window there.
All I need is your, your, allI need is your email address.
It's going to ask you for yourfirst name so that I, you know,
it's nice to know a first name.
Um, it's not like I'm goingto memorize you guys, but it's
nice to know a first name.
All you really need to put in there isyour email address when you're done.
It's free, there's a lot ofgreat stuff in the newsletter.
(20:27):
If you don't sign up, you're missing out.
Alright.
Let me see now.
Here it is son of a gun.
Yeah
sorry about it
Following I Assume thisis what it seems to me.
Oh, yeah, loy.
Okay So this was the next action thatI found that I found You By the Pillar.
(20:48):
It was a post on Twitter.
Or on X.
It says, Lawyers for a priest accusedof an, quote, incident, end quote.
So, so far, they're putting incident inquotes because it was called an incident.
Originally, by the priest of the parish,it was referred to as an incident.
Okay, so that's thefirst thing to point out.
(21:09):
Second thing, it doesn'tname Father Martins.
Now it just says, Lawyers for apriest accused of an incident.
That's it.
An incident which halted a, let me,so let me start from the beginning.
Lawyers from, for a priest accused ofan, quote, incident, end quote, which
halted a nationwide relic tour say thatFather Carlos Martins touched a student's
(21:34):
hair last week to build, quote, rapport.
And police are investigating thematter only at the insistence
of an, quote, outraged father.
My response was this.
There's still some this wasmy response to them on X.
There's still something accusatoryand even a little sinister
(21:55):
about how you're wording this.
Facts don't always tell the truth.
If you can't fit the truth in a post,which sometimes you can't, sometimes you
can't fit the facts that are necessaryand, and the explanation that is
necessary and pertinent, sometimes youcan't fit that in a, in a, in a post.
So I go on to say, if you can't fit thetruth in a post, which happens, then
(22:18):
compose a post that get the people toread the full story on your website.
Compose it in a way that ideally, Iknow you can't guarantee it, but ideally
gets them to read it on your website.
So Listen, could I bereading into it too much?
Yes, I absolutely could be.
I could be reading into it too much.
But I'm going with my gut, and mygut tells me that was worded in a
(22:43):
way that was deliberately accusatory.
Or, it says just enough tolead the people to accuse, or
to, or to indict, or to judge.
The priest who may or maynot be Father Carlos Martins.
(23:05):
I'm sorry, if I get what they'retrying to do, they're trying to,
maybe not correct, but maybe refinewhat they had originally stated.
Okay, that is not the way you do that.
And if an idiot like me knowsthat, I'm sure the professional
journalists at The Pillar know that.
That is not the way youdo that, absolutely not.
(23:30):
Too vague.
It includes just enough to paint apicture, but not enough to paint a
picture that is accurate to the facts.
It does state facts, butit doesn't tell the truth.
Because it puts things in there thatlead people to a different conclusion.
Now, what is it talking about?
(23:51):
And I'm going to get to this really fast.
Or go through this really fast.
If I can find it now.
I keep losing all of my things.
I'm not going to read it, let mejust explain it to you, and then
I'm going to explain this to you,what actually happened, as best
as I can remember from the storiesthat I've been reading about it.
And then I'm going to show youa couple of weird pictures, that
(24:13):
I'm not sure what to make of.
Okay, here it goes.
Father Martins was in a school setting,I don't remember if, I don't know if
it was a classroom, or an auditorium,or the lunchroom, I don't know.
But he was in a school setting.
It was a class or severalclasses all together.
(24:33):
There were adults, there werepriests and faculty slash teachers.
He was not in a roomwith this child alone.
He was, Oh, I rememberwhere this came from.
The lawyer, it's from this storyon Lifesite News, which I'm
just going to go over briefly.
Update.
Father Carlos Martin's attorney providesfuller context of the church incident.
Folks, I'm just going to explainthis and I will link this.
(24:57):
To this episode's on demand page.
If you're seeing this on socials, you'reout of luck, because Facebook, I hate you.
I'm not giving you any more of my content.
Not the Facebook people,the Facebook platform.
So you're not gonna havethis on demand on Facebook.
So, the first place to check forthe on demand version is going
(25:18):
to be my, the link in my bio.
The second place, probably almost asgood, is my website, CatholicAdventurer.
com.
I will place a link to this article.
In this episode's on demand page, okay?
So I'm going to link this article,but I'm going to explain it
to you right now from memory.
So he was in a room, a large room, withall these people, a bunch of people.
(25:41):
He was just, you know, trying to openup the floor, not open the floor,
but open up the discussion with, youknow, some like attention getting,
some conversation, some hooks.
He's talking with the, with the kids,and these were teenagers, I think
they were high school students, Ithink, young high school students, or
maybe 8th grade, I, I don't remember.
, they weren't 5 year old kids, they wereolder kids, much older kids than that.
(26:05):
And he's gabbing with them, he's talkingwith them, he, he's talking to one
girl in front of the crowd, in frontof the group, he's talking to one girl.
And he comments on how long her hair is.
And he said, yeah, Ihave the same hairstyle.
I have the same hairstyleas you because he's bald.
So he's making a joke.
He said there, there was a time whenmy hair was just as long as yours.
(26:25):
I mean, it was so long.
I could floss my teeth with it.
Joking.
According to the article or theattorney or both, um, everybody
in the room, you know, laugh.
They thought that was funny.
He, then after he said, you know,I could floss my teeth with it.
Okay.
He asked the girl, do you everfloss your teeth with your hair?
She said, no.
He says, well, you have the length for it.
(26:46):
Look how long your hair is.
And he picked up a lock of herhair and showed how long it was.
Is that a little weird?
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know.
It's one of those things thatcould be weird culturally in some
cultures and in other cultures.
It's like, that's not weird.
Really.
(27:06):
I really don't know what to make of that.
If my daughter came home and said apriest did that, I, I'm gonna tell you
very honestly, I would, I would say it'sa little weird, but it's not that kind of
weird, like he did what I, I, I, you know,I guess the situation will dictate, but
I'm telling you very truthfully right now,if my daughter came home and told me that
(27:27):
whole story and said the priest pickedup her hair and said, look how long her
hair is, and, and she does have long hair.
I, I really don't think Iwould find reason to flip out.
Is it weird?
Eh?
Is it that kind of weird?
No.
You know, the kind of weird whereit's like, Oh my God, he did that?
That's so inappropriate.
I don't think so.
(27:47):
But the situation will dictate.
Different cultures, you know, understandthings differently, have different norms.
Where I'm from, when you greet a friend,you always kiss them on the cheek.
Even if it's another guy.
A hundred percent.
You always kiss them on the cheek.
If it's a really close friend.
When you greet each other.
That's just normal.
(28:08):
Once you leave where I'm from, younever, never do some mess like that.
Because it's weird.
It's weird everywhere else.
Where I'm from, it is not.
That is normal.
Or, Europeans love to kiss on each cheek.
(28:33):
To me, that's weird.
You do a special greeting helloor a special goodbye to a close
friend, You kiss on one cheek.
You don't do both cheeks.
That's over the line.
To the Euros, doingjust one cheek is rude.
So, so I'm not telling you what to think.
(28:55):
If you think holding up the girl, alot of the girl's hair and saying,
your hair is long enough for it, youcould floss with it if you wanted to.
If you think that's weird,okay, God bless you.
I don't.
I think it's awkward, but not weird.
I don't know.
It's hard to say.
It's one of those things.
It's just hard to say.
Okay.
Anyway, so that's what happened.
(29:19):
I think the girl was upset by it becauseshe went home and told her father
this, or she told her parents or heror her mother and her mother told her
father, I don't know, but they got it.
The parents got it from somewhere.
I suspect this upset her andthat's why she spoke about it.
Otherwise, why would she even bring it up?
Right?
And if she felt uncomfortable, fine.
(29:39):
I'm not telling anyonehow they should feel.
I wasn't there, and it wasn't myhair that was, you know, held up.
So the girl said something to herparents or to her father directly.
We don't know what.
Father freaked out, called the cops.
Cops investigated, found nocause to arrest or press charges.
And so that was that for the cops.
(30:00):
The father didn't like that outcome, sohe called, uh, or so he got ahold of the
police again, made a big stink over it.
The police went back tocontinue investigating.
I don't know what more youcan continue to investigate.
I mean, the facts arepretty much there, but okay.
Uh, I'm not in the situation.
I'm on the outside looking in.
(30:21):
Okay.
I don't have the perspective
now,
as far as I know.
And my knowledge of this is, is fairlyup to date within the past few hours.
No one has pressed chargesagainst father Martins.
No one has even contacted, the lawenforcement has not even contacted
him at this point, up to this point.
They may have by now, I don't know.
But up to a few hours ago,several hours ago, they had not.
(30:45):
Again, I don't know wherethis investigation is going.
When you don't even feel like youneed to speak to the alleged accused.
Right?
Uh, when there are no charges pressed.
Not even for battery, nothing.
I am not saying a crimehas not been committed.
I'm not saying a crime has been committed.
(31:05):
Some crimes are weird that way.
We're holding up a child's hairmight be considered battery.
Um, throwing a paper clip at somebody evenplayfully could be considered assault.
Even if you miss them,it's one of those things.
So I am not saying a crimehas or has not been committed.
(31:26):
I'm just telling you thefacts as I understand them.
I will link this, so everythingthat I just explained came from
this story on Catholic News Agency,which I will send a link to.
Just a couple more things, and these arenot stories, these are graphics that I
wanted to share with you, which, justweird, what the hell is going on here?
This, from BLG Tweets, Burke Law, uh,I wonder if that's Father Martin's,
(31:51):
uh, I don't remember the name, ifyou don't know this about me, I'm
very bad at remembering names.
So, I think this might be his attoruh, Father Martin's attorney, I think.
This was a text messagesent to Marcella Burke.
Which, I can go back and look, butI'm not gonna bother wasting my time.
I think that's his attorney.
Anyway, this was a text message.
(32:12):
You see here, it says, M.
G.
for Mel Gibson.
And then the name, Mel.
Mel.
And yet, the text opens with,Hello, Marcella, this is Mel Gibson.
Well, don't you think she knows that?
You're in her freakin address book.
You're in her contacts.
That's was a little bit weird.
(32:33):
This is a picture of fatherMartins with Mel Gibson.
I am very surprised to see that becausefather Martins is a normal priest
and Mel Gibson, great director, greatactor, but he's a city of a contest.
So I'm surprised to see himpousing around with a quote
unquote Novus Ordo false priest.
Very surprised to see that.
(32:53):
I love Mel Gibson.
I am not passing judgmenton him for being a Sede.
I'm just saying that's weird.
Do I deny that they'rephotographed together?
Of course not, because I'mnot dumb, and I am not blind.
I'm just saying that is weirdfor Mel Gibson to come to the
defense of Father Martin's.
(33:14):
The text message that he sent,allegedly sent, we are being led
to believe that he sent, Says this.
Hello, Marcella.
This is Mel Gibson.
It's ludicrous that a good priest, comma,father, period, Martins, comma, has been
suspended from his ministry based onreckless allegations by, "The Pillar"
(33:37):
why am I doing all this withthe punctuations and stuff?
Does anybody want to guess?
Is there anybody actually watchingme who has access to the chat room?
Tell me why you thinkI'm bringing all that up.
I don't know.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Time's up.
Have you ever tried to, well, he couldhave typed this on his computer, but,
I'm assuming he typed it on his phone.
(33:59):
That's really, really precisetyping for a text message
that ultimately means nothing.
It's not like he's sendingthis to the New York Times.
He appears to be just texting anacquaintance, but he's got all
the caps in there, he's got allthe commas in the right place.
(34:20):
Hell, you think I bother with anyof that crap when I'm texting?
Hell, no!
Are you crazy?
But, he's Mel Gibson, so who knows?
Okay, let's go back.
Hello, Marcella, this is Mel Gibson.
This time I'll just read it clean.
It's ludicrous.
Great word.
(34:40):
Great word, ludicrous.
It's ludicrous.
Wait, what do you mean it's ludicrous?
You just said it's Mel Gibson.
Oh, oh, he's not saying it is ludicrous.
Oh, my fault.
It's ludicrous.
It's ludicrous.
That a good priest, Father Martins, hasbeen suspended from his ministry based
on reckless allegations by the Pillar,and a diocesan statement that have no
basis as determined by law enforcementand are completely speculative.
(35:07):
My friends, I apologize, but thissounds like lawyer speak to me.
The precision, the wording, the phrasing.
It just sounds like lawyer speak to me.
Reckless allegations by the Pillarand a diocesan statement that have no
basis as determined by law enforcementand are completely speculative.
(35:31):
Sounds like lawyer speak.
There were 200 other peoplethere for Pete's sake.
He was making a joke!
The police came and foundno cause to press charges.
The situation is
and the response from Marcellais, Wow, comma, thank you, period.
(35:54):
I sure didn't have this onmy bingo card for today.
May I share this?
To which, Mel Gibson says, Of course!
Far and wide!
Exclamation point.
Heh.
Heh.
Hello, Marcella.
This is Mel Gibson.
(36:15):
Also known as As Braveheart.
Ah, it's ludicrous that a goodpriest, Father Martins, has been
suspended from his ministry based onreckless allegations by ye pillar.
You have come to fight asfree men and free men you are.
(36:40):
Will you fight?
No, we won't fight.
Okay, all right.
I just can't, I just can't resist.
Did Mel Gibson really send this?
I would say probably, because that wouldbe really dangerous to falsify this.
Send it out there in the public.
If Mel Gibson wasn't really involved.
You know what I suspect, andfolks, this is my suspicion.
(37:01):
This is only my suspicion.
There's too much precision here.
There's, there's, it just soundsso much like lawyer speak.
Mel Gibson works a lot of lawyers,so he might have picked that up.
That kind of lawyer speak.
It's possible.
Heh.
But looking at this, my fea andthen the response, Wow, I didn't
have that on my bingo card today.
May I share this?
(37:23):
Even may I share this?
Why wouldn't you justsay, Can I share this?
Why do you I don't I just feel likethere was an exchange in private
between these two parties, and Marcellasaid, Hey, would you mind texting me?
You know, you're supportiveof Father Martins.
You think this is a and maybehe is supportive and maybe
(37:44):
Marcella says, Could you say that?
And I'll make it public.
You know, just like, causewe're not faking anything.
You really support him, and I'mjust trying to find a way to provide
a channel for you to voice that.
But I don't want to make it look prompted.
Okay.
Sure.
What do you want me to say?
I'll type something.
I'll send something to you to say.
(38:04):
And you can say something like that.
Mel Gibson's a very busyguy, so he's like Okay.
Beep!
Text message comes in.
Okay.
I got a million things to do.
I'm working on a sequel toThe Passion of the Christ.
They're thinking of doing a Braveheart2, where Braveheart comes back to life.
I can't right now.
Copy, paste, send.
(38:24):
Send.
That's what I think.
Or he copied portions of it.
That's what I think.
I think this was prompted.
I don't think this was impromptu.
That's pretty good.
Was that a good turn of phrase or what?
Is that what you would calla turn of phrase or what?
You see folks, as I told you, I'm stupid.
(38:46):
What do I know?
I don't know.
I don't even know how to speak English.
One other thing I wantedto share with you.
don't know.
This was posted by Christine Niles.
This is father Lane, the priest whoconfronted father Martin's about this
allegation or about this complaint.
Complaint, I think is a better word.
(39:07):
This was posted by Christine Niles.
I did see this elsewhere.
on the interwebs and Christine,and I'm just going to paraphrase
cause I need to get this over with.
Christine said, this is theman who should be reported.
Or she said something like this.
I really shouldn't put words inher mouth, but she was pointing
out the fact that look at this.
He's holding this child against himself.
That's the man who should be investigated.
(39:30):
Is this inappropriate whatwe're seeing this priest doing?
It doesn't look like he'sholding her against his his body.
It looks like he's saying something orexplaining something maybe He has his
hand on her shoulders, but probably not bythe look of it Maybe he's a little close.
Maybe he's just explaining something.
He's about to point to something.
(39:51):
I just don't I don't see thisas being against his body and
I don't see this as him holdingher against his body I'm sorry.
I am sorry.
It is irresponsible and reckless toput that, that suggestion out there.
I should get my face out ofthe screen so you can see.
(40:11):
You see, his hand is not on her shoulder.
It doesn't look like it.
This is his hand here.
It doesn't look like it's onhis shoulder, her shoulder.
It doesn't even look like she's againsthis body, or he's against her body.
It looks like she's up to thecase to look at what's inside.
That's the Relic of St.
Jude.
And it looks like he'slooking here at the Relic.
(40:32):
Right?
You see the line of sight from his eyes?
He's looking at the Relic.
And he's speaking.
What I take from this ishe's explaining something.
And he's getting as closeto the Relic as he can, with
somebody already in front of him.
And he's just casuallyexplaining something or
talking about it or something.
That's all I see in this picture.
(40:52):
Folks, I say this from time to time.
And I don't know if you understand justhow serious I am about it when I say this.
There's a lot of grifting in media.
An awful lot of grifting in media.
Huh?
There's a lot of money in media, andso, people have a vested interest
(41:12):
in grifting, in conning you.
If you think it's uniqueto secular news, Mm mm.
They do it in Catholic news, too.
They do it in, or I should say, theydo it in independent Catholic media.
And they are almost as good atit in independent Catholic media
(41:35):
as they are in shady secular,or in, in, Proper secular media.
And I can tell you many, many, many,many, many Catholics are being led
astray by their trusted sources ofCatholic news and, and, and commentary.
It's not just independent Catholic news,it's independent Catholic commentary too.
(41:58):
Podcasters and such.
I generally do not name names.
, and, and I won't, uh, unless I needto, because I don't want to be gossipy.
Also, um, you never know if some ofthese names turn themselves around,
and so I don't want to take partin, in ruining that turnaround by
(42:18):
taking some role in ruining theirreputations, and I don't want to
ruin people's reputations anyway,and this is the honest to God truth.
People are dear, and people areprecious, and I really don't
want to cause people harm.
Especially in includingpeople's reputations.
I will name names when I have to.
For instance, today Ihad to name the pillar.
(42:40):
I had to because itwas, it was the subject.
And I want to say thisagain about Christine Niles.
As far as I'm concerned, and this is myopinion, in her career, where she has
been, and the work that she has done, Iwill never, ever find her trustworthy.
But maybe she's turning herself aroundbecause what I will say positively
is this she works she's passionateabout investigative journalism
(43:07):
Credit where it's due I just hope and Ipray and I mean this I hope and I pray
That she comes to an understanding of justwhat it means to be ethical in journalism
I don't think she's evil I think she'sbeen misguided Over a long period of
time, by slow degrees, and she may notunderstand that some of her techniques,
(43:33):
some of her reporting, is unethical.
The pillar.
Especially after this one?
That's enough red flags for me.
I won't be readinganything from them again.
You do what you like, becauseI don't think they're poison.
Hmm, that's weird.
My stream just got cut off.
That's very, very weird.
(43:54):
My stream just got completely cut off.
It's just the strangest thing.
Alright, well let mebring this to a close.
Um, I really said everythingthat I have to say anyway.
Be careful about thefolks that you follow.
Don't be mice following the Pied Piper.
This has been a special way too longepisode of the Catholic experience.
I've been your host,the Catholic adventure.
(44:14):
God bless you folks.
God be with you all.
I'm going to try and solve this mysteryof where the hell my stream went.
Signing out of here.
God be with you once again.
Bye bye.
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