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Vinny Palatucci and Paulie Stags are back, and this time they're bringing their whole Catholic-school baggage with them. What starts as a bit about purgatory ("David Lynch meets jury duty") turns into one of the more theologically honest conversations we've had all season — about fear-based faith, the freedom to actually use your brain, and what it means when someone changes their mind after saying no.

Expect:

• Vinny and Paulie's Catholic upbringing, purgatory dread, and the slow migration toward Aquinas, the Franciscans, and "big brain" theology
• A genuine detour into the Book of Job and why theology goes sideways when it tells people their own lived experience isn't real
• A CPTB first: Vinny reads the Gospel text cold, live, on mic
• Bob's C.S. Lewis/Narnia riff on judgment as self-judgment, not divine punishment
• A hard look at who Jesus is actually eating with — tax collectors, prostitutes, and why that got him killed
• A seminary flashback to two professors publicly disagreeing about universal salvation ("we all got drunk")

It is not in any way, shape or form, doctrinally correct." — Eric, immediately after landing his own best theological point of the episode

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Matthew 21:23–32 (NRSVue)

[23] When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” [24] Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. [25] Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’ [26] But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet.” [27] So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. [28] “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ [29] He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. [30] The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. [31] Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. [32] For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.

Hosted by Pastor Eric Damon and Pastor Bob Schaefer.

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Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.