I had this rosy vision of the early church where it's like everyone was on fire, they were spreading love for Jesus, people getting martyred like is awesome, everyone's going to heaven.

That clearly, not the case if you want to read the first couple chapters.

I saw just how crazy people in the church could be and how malicious they could be towards others.

Just to take one example with St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, and they wanted to just

live out their carmelite manifestation of their faith more rigorously. Who could be against that?

Holy moly, these people, I mean, bishops were attacking them. The non-discouse karma, the ones who

wanted to wear shoes on their feet, imprisoned John and beat him.

I'm like, geez, this is ridiculous.

Suffering is integral to our lives.

It's integral to our happiness.

The Catholic Church gives people the answer to life.

You want to be happy.

You want to be fulfilled. You want to have the best life you can possibly have,

then suffer. All right, everyone, welcome back to the Loopcast.

Today I am joined by Alec Torres.

He is the co-author of a book.

I'm holding right now in my hands, actually.

It's called Persecuted from Within.

I have it nice and marked up.

It was worthy of many marks.

Alec, thank you for taking the time for joining us today.

I really appreciate you having me on. And thanks for reading the book, too. I appreciate that for sure.

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