RadCath Apocalypse (Premium E264)
The monks have found a way to connect to the internet. Brad Abrahams is back to bring you a trinity of radical Catholic sects he stumbled upon while reading about UFOs. We’ve got a fake monastery with apocalyptic monks, a Christian private military contractor, and a Vatican-in-exile in Kansas. Catholic-in-residence Annie Kelly is also back to make sure Brad and Jake don’t blaspheme irresponsibly. Listen on and you might be convinced that stage magic is real and proof of Satan. There’s also an interview with a family who left one of these sects and are brave enough to talk about it.
Thanks for subscribing to QAA on patreon.
Brad Abraham:
https://x.com/LoveAndSaucers // https://lnk.bio/extrasensory
Annie Kelly:
Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe and Jake Rockatansky. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Comments (148)
The conversation at the start about whether God would create aliens unlocked a memory of mine from Christian school wherein I asked a teacher whether aliens could be real and she answered that God would certainly be capable of making other species, but we'd have to be the first one made in his image. So it preserved the "humans are special" element while still allowing for aliens to exist, hypothetically. Makes me wonder whether that take was common or that teacher was just a little pilled.
Annie!! So glad to have you back. Here is the reason they “associate” with the Catholic Church just to then break off… taxes. The US has a nice little poison pill in its Constitution that allows the practice of religion without State penalty (ie taxes, hindered speech, etc.” so we get these types… like the southern snake handlers. These guys can serve up conspiracy theories like Alex Jones but rake in the YouTube revenue tax free. And claim all kinds of property/expenditures in the name of their Church, also tax free. Grifting, as it almost always boils down to.
That firefighter was a prick. He was constantly banging on about how palestinians deserve to be massacred. Good riddance to bad rubbish imo
Annie’s back 💃🎉🍾 congrats on becoming a mother!
Am currently catching up with this episode and I’m pretty sure I know the source of the conspiracy about Chinese people eating aborted babies. There is a 2004 film from China called Dumplings and how they described the conspiracy is basically the plot of that film. Finally my knowledge of early 2000’s Asian horror comes in handy.
During my grandmother's funeral mass my uncle instructed all us unbaptized third gen kids not to take the Eucharist when the priest came around, and of course, a cousin of a cousin (who she had personal beef with, feuding with a 15-year-old at 85, what an icon) took it anyway. The priest could just tell he was an Anglican or whatever and he marched back to the guy, took the Eucharist out of his hand, smashed it up into his wine glass and slammed that shit Idk if that protocols or just how Poles do it
Opposire experience here: at my grandmother's funeral my whole lapsed family got the stinkeye from the presiding priest and our cousins for not coming up for communion. Mind you, this was a church in rural ass South Dakota where they were still displaying a portrait of Pope Benedict well into Francis's tenure. Bonus: When I was a kid, one Christmas Eve at midnight mass (when all the lapsed Catholics and heathens come out of the woodwork), I remember the deacon flat sprinting up the aisle to catch this guy who had taken the host and instead of eating it, just like, palmed it? I'm sure the dude had no idea what a super no no it is to just walk off with the literal body of Christ.
A good while ago but not that long ago I listened to a call in program on Irish radio where a priest from Limerick was calling in to complain about a local magic show and he was quoting the bible saying things like 'You should not allow a witch to live.'
I read that as call in pogrom.
I am just tuning in for the National Baby!
Hasn't Vatican 2 come up before? I swear I remember hearing about it, and I'm 90% sure this is the only place I would have heard about it.
I wouldn't be surprised if it has, given how embedded right-wing Roman Catholics are in the American Right. Vatican II has been a big point of contention among them for decades, which is why we have TradCaths (who reject the modernized Mass) and Sedevacantists (who are basically schismatics that don't recognize any pope either during or since V-II). There's also the fact that besides modernizing the liturgy, V-II addressed antisemitism in the RCC as a response to the Holocaust and denounced such doctrines and interpretations of scripture as heretical. So naturally, it's not unusual to find RCs in this crowd who really hate Jews and blame them for any changes made by the modern-day Vatican.
I’m feeling parasocial this morning… I am a long time listener of the show and I want to say that I appreciate Julian, Travis, and Jake very much. Your work has accompanied and sustained me through some pretty tough times. I am grateful to you and I hope that you are all doing ok. 🙏♥️
Super late, I know, but Brad might be interested in Mormonism's ideas about life on other planets. It's wild and one of the things that really sets it apart from the rest of Christianity (I was raised LDS, am now Episcopalian)
The Mormon cosmology is incredible, on par with Scientology, and was the basis of BSG. And then there's the stuff about Joseph Smith's family and their connections to the occult (that tbh could have been anti-mormon propaganda? I haven't seen it covered much in super serious sources, such is the curse of having an academic interest in Weird Shit) Also the Mormon use of Jewish terminology takes me out every time. I have a friend who grew in an irreligious Jewish household in Utah who thought Gentile meant non-Mormon until he was in college
To add to Annie’s response to Brad’s question about the difference between the family pope and the actual Catholic hierarchy, the RC church—like many Christian denominations—claims to be apostolic. That is, it takes its authority to derive from its leaders standing in a line of succession that begins with Jesus’ own disciple St Peter. This is what it believes to legitimate the church tradition that Annie talks about. Whether you find such a claim plausible or not, it’s clear that the family pope can’t claim such an apostolic succession.
Brad, with all respect, please try to stop wheeze laughing into the mic :)
Fwiw, born Byzantine Orthodox, converted Roman Catholic and an incredibly religious and devout atheist since I turned 13- this was an excellent episode. Good to hear from Annie (Codename: QAA UK) again, too! But... writing this with 9 days and 6 hours to go before Nov 5th and (quite likely) the start of a whole bunch of shenanigans (esp. if Trump loses)- I need another QAA fix! Where's my fix? 🤣 No worries... Keep up the great work y'all.... (A mostly Hawai'i based QAA fan...)
This is another episode where so much credence is given to ludicrous ideas it damages the credibility of the hosts
Michael Diamond also goes by the alias "Clarence".
Wondering who I should nominate as pope…
Say what you like. Copperfield definitely sold his soul to Satan.
After hearing this episode, I'm inspired to form my own separatist Catholic church. One without all the misogyny or the bullshit 😒
I also wanted this which is why I am Episcopalian now
Not a single Beastie Boys joke, huh?
Annie 💐🥳💩🤭 I feel like tradcaths are having occult rituals. It's bizarre to watch from the outside. The theater around it all, I would think Nazis are the Vatican 🤣
ANNIE IS BACK! I whooped!
So happy to hear Annie on the show again!
Jake's idea that priests should be forced to choose between the bible or the internet (from now referred to as Jacob's Choice? posting or your job....) should be applied to as many professions as possible. Can't Jacob's choice be a Jake story?
I literally let out a scream when I heard Annies voice! I am so glad that she is back, love her✨
Wait i thought Catholics are supposed to consume the wafer immediately because once it's consecrated it becomes the body of Christ. Keeping it under glass is like keeping Jesus hostage
I had questions about this also
pretty soon we're gonna know about everyone who was standing behind trump during the attempted assassination
The Pope Michael documentary on youtube is an hour long episode of The Office where we visit Dwights neighbors and Kevins son joins a cult. Wild in the most mediocre of ways. Yet true.
I’m gonna need Annie to start narrating books or something-her voice is crazy soothing, even with uncomfortable subject matter.
Its so funny when chronically online people become trad cath because they think it’s some gothic Elden Ring religion but it’s mostly canned goods drives and lent fish fries
A lot of pop culture leverages crusader imagery and when pop culture constitutes your entire knowledge of a religion…
I would love a pdf the zine brad talks about in the first story
Insufferable pedant here, but strictly speaking in Catholic / Orthodox Christianity, monks are not necessarily ordained as priests nor perform the same function—some monks are ALSO priests, but many are not. Not that this changes literally anything in the sode.
The guy loving magic is a top 10 cutest QAA moment
I keep going back to Matt Christman's theory that every religion in the US eventually just morphs into protestantism
Like carcinization?
Jake -- finasteride. 1mg 3x/week if you're worried about side effects.
The guys delivery is like he's doing an impression of Jake doing an impression of him
Hail Annie, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...
Bless Jake lol wb Annie!! Great episode Brad fun trio
Okay the guy being awed and terrified of David Copperfield is the funniest shit I burst out laughing at my job and customers looked at me like I was insane
Damn I remember being dumb enough to think those various reverse lyric myths were hints of genius back in the day. So glad to be slightly less dumb now. -- Um poor Annie sounds like she was just woken from one of the few precious naps allowed for new parents, Brad's very lucky he's so goddamn nice and loveable lol 😉😋
I was at a presentation Pope Michael gave at KU many years ago. He had two handlers that did must of the talking. They made a lot of antisemetic comments.
Everyone go read The Three Body Problem trilogy right now. If you are listening to QAA you literally *have* to. It's required reading. Brad is describing the 'Sophon' concept that the fiction author Cixin Liu created in the first book (2008). A computer etched into an unwrapped proton and then folded back up. It can spy on us down to our DNA, interfere with reality to drive us crazy, or project images on the human retina, all from a higher-dimensional, totally invisible state. It's fiction. It's not technically possible. I'm not a believer in human contact with UFOs whatsoever, but yeah an alien super-intelligence could insert themselves into our world in more ways than we could ever imagine.
Tropic of Thunder
My understanding of male hair loss is that it's passed down through the X chromosome, meaning that while you're mother's father is the most likely person for you to inherit this from, unfortunately for Jake it's possible for you to inherit from any male ancestor that is solely traced through the female line.
Great ep! Congrats to you, Brad 😀
I grew up very close to Fillmore, and I've never heard about this. I'm gonna have to look into this further, I'll reach out to Brad if I find anything additional
Episode subjects like this make me happy that I’m a faithless person.
Being faithless brings me great joy pretty much on a daily basis.
RIP Pope Michael. Imminent Death Syndrome claims another victim.
It's just like Jesus said: You are Chad, and upon this YouTube channel will I build my MLM, and the woke mind virus shall not prevail against it
The first guy’s deadpan delivery talking about magic reminds me of Nathan Fielder’s Ronald Shoub sketch
Dude! Playing music backwards reminds me of when my family was at a family friend's house. The adults were listening to a recording of some pentecostal speaker. According to him, if you played a Beatles' record backwards (don't remember which song) you heard "we killed John Lennon" being whispered. It was creepy as fuck to an 8 year old.
Kansas mentioned!
“Doin’ great like Jake” is how I aspire to be
So, there are actually some good books on the whole demon/ufo thing, if anyone is interested. Nick Redfern’s Final Events is a good one. Interesting, anyway. 🤓 https://a.co/d/8L4S0lx
This was a powerful interview with this family. Great work Brad.
I could listen to darling Annie say “Christ-y-ans” all day
Annie 🩷
I would absolutely subscribe to a Jake, Annie, and Brad podcast!❤️❤️❤️
I MISS YOU ANNIEEEEEEE. 💖
Congrats to both Annie and Brad on their truly wonderful new life journeys! - which I’m not going to describe with specificity to maintain the exclusive nature of QAA premium
48:00 — I want to play some Christian rock albums backward and come up with ‘hidden’ satanic messages.
It is true that yoga is a cult at best.
1:30:23, you can hear red wing black birds.
Wtf did you people do with Julian?
He's deep undercover. If Trump wins, he'll be named the secretary of interior and lead a Maoist revolution from the inside
Annnnnnniiiiiieeeee!
My exact reaction
Extremely good episode
Jake's faith is 2k and his hair loss is related to the stress of being bad at 2k.
Fire in The Sky is such a good movie. Scary as hell!
I think it’s funny there’s people who think they know more about being Catholic than the Pope. You think you’re smarter than the Pope? That guy talks to god. He’s the vicar of Christ. Cry about it
The guy talking about believing in magic with such a flat affectation has me howling. He sounds exactly like Caleb from Pod About List.
congratulations to Annie on becoming a parent! ❤️ it was so wonderful to hear her. also congratulations to brad on his engagement! and congrats to Jake just in general. :) everything is kind of a clusterfuck, so it’s heartwarming to think about folks still living their lives and reaching wholesome milestones or just vibing.
This episode was such a nice long cozy deep dive into the horrors. Can always count on Brad for that. And I’m soooo glad Annie is back, I missed her so much. Congrats to both Brad on his engagement and Annie on a second generation of national babies ❤️
Peter OToole in The Ruling Class. The quote….
Awesome episode. Congrats on the engagement Brad and all the best to Annie and the new member of her family.
Not sure comparing the Catholic Church to the Bar is fair given the level of influence and seemingly unchecked corruption in the former.
I also have the Irish Catholic heritage, can confirm that all the male members of my family still have their hair, my dad's hair didn't even fall out through his chemo treatments. My grandma would buy us indulgences for our b-days, I would get a card that said she gave $100 to nuns to pray for my soul.
lol what a bullshit present
I appreciate Jake's recent fixation on conspiracy pilled people having beautiful heads of hair
Hahaha agree. Jake always comes through with commentary on villains with good hair. And ridiculous hats 😅.
The part where the interviewee was drawing the difference between a cult and a religion. Yikes. I'm not saying those were the correct distinctions, but each of the points he raised are clearly evident in established religions also. He's still in the sauce. This episode left me disappointed in our species. I hope the cockroaches make a better attempt at critical thinking than we did in the eons that lie ahead for them.
I think you could argue that religion, by its nature, encourages the kind of enforcement they talked about, but I do think there is a specific element in cults where the behavior is compulsory and enforced through direct systematic pressure. Again, in the abstract, you could argue that systematic pressure is innate to religion, but there are clearly lots of people who are members of congregations that don't isolate from their family and give away millions of dollars. If such people do exist, they are generally outliers, whereas in a cult, those things are the norm and any deviation is punished in an organized manner.
In the late 1980s, I attended a summer program for elementary school students at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA (locale of Seminary school drop-out Natale). Kids in the program were housed in Aurelius Hall, historically the dorms for freshman seminary students. All the kids were soon talking about how the fire-damaged 7th floor was 'off limits' and - importantly - how the fire started. The urban legend at the time was that the fire was started by a dejected seminary student who had turned away from the church: the story went that the blaze was started by a candle that had been knocked over in the student's attempt to hang himself. Given when this fire happened (1976) - the legend which reached me through the Satanic panic had the fire-starting student using lots of candles in their practice of Satanism, so it was very spooky when we broke into the 7th floor of the dorm and saw the walls were still blackened with smoke damage. There was also a much more severe fire at Saint Vincent in 1963 - so this episode has me now wondering if the origin of this particular urban legend got its beginning with Natale's rhetorical burning of the church.
In the "Pope kissing Santa Claus in a Kippah" image, Kippah Santa is actually the Pope and the man he's kissing is, I assume, the Patriarch of Constantinople
There is a lot of work on institutional legitimacy that I think speaks to the last topic. One of the major factors is that when you establish a new field, the focus is first on establishing legitimacy together (Empty Seat ideology) and then later has to transition to competition and exclusion once legitimacy is established. You can kind of see it in these three stories and their religious ideas.
I realized yesterday that we hadn't heard from Annie in a while. Congrats on your baby Annie!
Yahweh worshippers are weird af. even the nice ones
Sorry Annie, being a pill head with a three digit body count is actually much more true Catholic and growing up in the church
Yay for Annie's return!
Welcome back Annie!!!! 🫶
Congratulations Brad!
Amen to that? To what? To everything!
Annie Kelly is back...I'm screaming, crying, throwing up. I missed you so much, paragon of masculinity Annie Kelly ❤️🙏 I hope your T is high and your mind is fresh. Brad Abrahams too, you are spoiling me QAA
Good episode. As a cradle Catholic I’ve unfortunately dealt with trad Caths throughout my life — and it always comes down to racism, specifically, antisemitism. Vatican II broke these people. They want to blame Jews for deicide. That’s all they want. The idea Jesus was a victim of state violence really, truly bothers them. They want blood libel back so, so much.
😞😞😞
Annie’s back!
I just got to the magician part and... come on, man! Get the fuck out of here! This has to be parody.
“Some magic is just sleight of hand, but card tricks? That could *only* be supernatural.” Incredible example
annie!!! so glad to have you back, there has been so much crazy catholic stuff
Annie appearance!! Yes!!!!
Annie being "the national baby" is my favorite QAA running joke / lore
Sorry Mr Monk, Jesus was 100% a communist
Julian gone and Brad hosting means Jake is fully untethered.
When he started talking about hair loss prevention brands by name I thought of what Julien would say
Welcome back, Annie! Great ep.
A “You Know” has never been more welcome.
annie's sectarianism drawing out my sectarianism. feeling the unnatural urge to defend Lutheranism
I feel like we never really believed in miracles at all in my church lol
The quote Jake says at the beginning is from the 1972 film The Ruling Class. Good movie.
Ooh, I love it when Peter O'Toole plays nuts (like the Stuntman). Gotta check that one out
Something Annie said here really resonated with me: I also grew up Catholic (but I'm an atheist by now) and my parents are still Catholic. They and their whole faith community are super nice and what I would call Christ-like. Kind, looking out for each other, helping their neighbours as well as people in need, taking in refugees or sponsoring them etc etc etc. I know the Catholic church had and still has a lot of issues (I'm in Ireland, you may want to look up Magdalene Laundries and Mother & Baby Homes to get an idea of how bad it can get), but the congregations are much nicer and more relaxed than these tradcath converts expect them to be.
Same. I grew up Catholic in Texas -- deep in protestant country -- and my congregation was much, much more laid back than anyone else I knew. Then again, my Dad (who I wasn't raised by) was a "trad cath" some 30 years ago, as he was always complaining about the lack of Latin mass and wrote crank letters to the Vatican after my mom tried to get an annulment, lol.
There's no need for Satan or demons to use UFOs and aliens to undermine the church. The church does that itself by allowing clergy to twiddlle alterboys, and trying to cover it up.
Annie Kelly ftw!
Oh, I completely missed that Dasha lost her mind at a certain point
yay annie is back 💚
Finally the Red Scare idiots are catching some strays
At my dad's church, the only latin mass was benediction. Theres also a church near me that do latin mass if you want to wake up to be in church for 7.30 on a Sunday morning
In the English mystical tradition there’s a concept of the Christ as the manifestation of God’s love on our plane of existence. It follows that every sentient species/planet/dimension would have their own Christ. It’s sort of Jesus as natural phenomenon. The version of this that most people would know is the Chronicles of Narnia. It’s usually misunderstood as a not very subtle allegory but Lewis means it literally. The children travel to a universe of talking animals and meet Jesus who appears as a lion. I am particularly fond of Sydney Carter’s Christmas hymn Every Star Shall Sing a Carol that implies the birth of Jesus happening over and over so that when you look at the stars you can imagine the unfolding of God’s love in another world or solar system. It’s not what I believe but it’s a beautiful thought with no demonic conspiracy nonsense.
"But you can't *believe* things because they're a lovely idea." "But I *do.* That's how I believe." --Brideshead Revisited
Take 5 grams of mushrooms then get back to me on the mantis thing.
I'm taking that sentence for my tinder bio.
It's almost two hours! What a treat! 😍
So excited for another ep with Brad! 😄
I would argue that Jake's true faith is Ghostbusters
Or possibly Weezer..,
Kinda seems to me that dudes like this are infatuated with the Catholic aesthetic, but are also that essentially American kind of religious - off into the woods to found the new, perfect, theology
Brother Michael Diamond himself sounds like a Jake Story character
His voice is basically Jake's Chat GPT impression 😂
Welcome back Annie! 😄 excellent episode 👍
Deus Vult ( viam ad coniungere ad interrete) 🙏💻🖱️✝️
THE NATIONAL BABY HAS RETURNED
BRAD EP! ANNIE EP! Jake - would you say you’re Business Casual Jewish
Thanks Jake bc I too was screaming FIANCÉE AT MY PHONE 💕 CONGRATS BRAD
Annie is so cool
Bring back Julian or we burn down QAA HQ
We must free Julian
Wow!!! First comment!! Anyway love the show. Love you guys all so much. QAA is my one and only true hobby - something I listen to EVERY day. ❤️❤️❤️