Last month, I spoke at the Catholic Answers Conference, and I had the chance to sit down with Emily Torres, the Catholic convert, to have a discussion about American politics.

So check it out. And be sure to check out her work at the link below.

All right. Thank you so much, Trent, for meeting with me again, a year later.

Thank you. You, having me.

And yes, so I want to talk about something that may be a little controversial, but I feel like

over the past few years especially, it's become increasingly louder, especially on social media,

so that, of course, is American politics. And so I wanted your perspective on American politics

and values in general. How Catholic are American values, particularly are American

values on individuality and freedom?

I think it really depends on what kind of language you use, because people can use

language in two different ways to either reinforce Catholic values or to denigrate them. So even just

talking about freedom, right? So like freedom is a fundamental American value. And freedom is also

an important element of the Catholic faith. But it depends what you mean by the word freedom.

If by freedom, you mean being able to do whatever you want, well, then no, that's not a Catholic value.

But if by freedom, you mean the ability to choose the good or to choose various goods, then that's

something that the Catholic Church would support and has fought for people whose freedoms have

been subjugated throughout history and various governments

and supporting things like worker solidarity movements. I mean, you think about the work of

Pope St. John Paul II in Poland to combat communism. And so we think of American values of

freedom in contrast to communist values, where freedom only exists in so far as

your role in preserving the state, that the state does not, I think an American value to compare

like some more communist states would be that the state exists to serve the individual,

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