Episode 5021: WarRoom Christmas Eve Special 2025 cont.
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Aired On: 12/24/2025
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To enrich the experience, we now have the Muslim copper prayer for you as background music for this question.
So, Father Steve Bannon asked, you've been here for 2,000 years.
By the way, Steve, when he said that they were the first church, I challenged him in our wrestling match.
Didn't realize he was actually the parish priest for the church of the nativity.
So I've just added a lot of time to purgatory.
But Steve wants to know: what was the community like here 2,000 years ago when the Holy Family was over our left shoulder, my left shoulder, your right shoulder?
And in fact, I could follow off your earlier question about how the difference of Christmas is approached in terms of atmosphere and culture between Rome and then London and Paris.
And that's really the point of it.
I think here there is still a residue left in Italy.
It's a residue, but it's still left.
Like Christmas is fundamentally a religious festival.
Whereas in England, it's wholly a sentimental thing, a cultural stroke, sentimental thing.
There's no focus on Jesus Christ.
There's no focus on his nativity.
There's no focus on the hope and joy that Christ's birth brings to the world.
It's just a purely pagan festival of indulgence in the UK.
And one of the reasons, you know, one of the reasons is that's because of the absolute implosion of the Church of England, the Anglican Communion, the head of the lead church of the Anglican Communion over the last century.
It's been secularized internally and now is acting as a secularizing force across wider British society.
Don't forget that in the, unlike the United States in England, we do have an established church.
You have bishops that automatically, by virtue of being bishops of certain diocese, have seats in the legislature, in the House of Lords, automatically.
That is what having an established church is.
And it's been a secularizing force.
That is why, Steve, many of us, me, you, many of us, are trying our best from the platform that the Holy Spirit has given us to stop the Catholic Church walking in the same secularizing direction because we don't want sort of Italy, for example, to follow the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands.
You know, you can list the European countries where the overwhelming religious presence in those countries is Islam.
That's the supernatural force that is followed in those countries.
And Christianity is sidelined.
Now, if you come back to later on this, because I know we're going to talk about the influence that Leo the 14th is having on the church, especially compared to Christianity.
Before we go there, so much of the beautiful music that we're going to play today, and I've played and we'll play over tomorrow.
Tomorrow we always do, the war room always does the combat history of Christmas to show you American patriots and American heroes that actually were in horrific wars from the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, Korea.
So much of the traditions we have in the United States really come from Victorian England.
And if you look at Victorian England, I would argue that leading up to World War I, where it all kind of got destroyed in the trenches of the Western Front, but kind of that Victorian muscular Christianity of the Church of England, as far as missionary work goes, because they had a mission and a purpose for evangelization throughout the world.
How did we go from a Victorian church that gave us many of the customs and traditions of the religious nature, but also what we think of the historical Christmas, non-religious nature of Christmas?
How did we go from that, basically in the late 19th century, to modern UK today with the Church of England being completely secularized?
In fact, every day I get up when I read, when I go and do my religious news, one after the other, more bizarre news comes from the Church of England.
But I would answer it by saying: if you showed the Church of England in the 1800s to the Protestant martyrs of the Reformation, they would be horrified because they would say this is not a Christian church whatsoever.
The thing is, the reason why your Christian has sense, has moral force, is because where we are today compared to the Victorian era is even more of a collapse.
I would say that 1800 England, Steve, was already well on the way.
You had a sense of piety and a Christian morality.
But here's the point.
You can't nourish that if the supernatural faith and the foundation for that morality disappear.
So this is fundamentally that I would suggest a problem with the Enlightenment itself, is that it tried to arrive at the same moral foundation that Christianity provided, but without the supernatural framework for it.
It was a false attempt, I think, to arrive at morality using reason alone, and it doesn't work.
But that's why God fundamentally is the ultimate arbiter, as he should be.
And the reason why, you know, when did Gerard Lanley Hopkins referred to the receding rule, the tide going out, and that's the sense of religious faith in England?
That was the Victorian era, right?
The issue is, since like for 400, since the Reformation, really, the sense of the supernatural origin of Christianity has been like a spring winding down.
And what we see today is when the spring is totally, totally expanded and has nothing left to give.
If you want to return to a sense of Christian morality, then, and that's not a sense of just that's not a sense, I'm not talking about judgmentalism.
I'm talking about the morality that arises out of Christian ethics.
You need to have, you need to nurture the supernatural belief that Jesus Christ is God, who was born incarnate for the salvation of man at the bottom of it.
Because if you don't have that, then Christian sentiment and Christian morality isn't worth anything.
Folks, this is the reason we're doing this event down on 9 January.
We'll have more details about 9 January in Texas.
Ben Harnwell, it's not people are worried or complaining that we're in a post-Christian era.
He's saying, no, no, no, no, you've missed the point.
We're well beyond post-Christian in Europe, in Western Europe.
You're pre-Islamic as being the foundational element of that civilization.
Ben Harnwell's at the Vatican.
Jason Jones, we're going to try to get a technical issue there at Bethlehem.
He's got some amazing guests.
We're going to get to all of it.
We got music of the season and some amazing photography, both at the Vatican and at St. Peter's Square and at Manger Square.
Short commercial break.
We're going to be back in the warm in just a moment.
Welcome back to our coverage.
I think we figured out our technical issue in Bethlehem.
We're going to go to Jason Jones.
Jason, here's, I think, what the audience would like to know is: since our guest is the priest that's head of the Church of the Nativity, can you walk us through what Bethlehem was like at the time of the birth of Christ when a very pregnant Mary showed up with Joseph looking for a place to stay and the evolution of it as we see today?
You've got a square with pilgrims and tourists coming to witness this tonight.
You've also got a mosque in the church in Nativity, all of it.
So, Father Issa, Steve would like to know, and the audience would like to know, what was it like when the holy family, when the Blessed Mother and Joseph walked down that little road and found no room at the inn?
What was Bethlehem like then?
And how did it evolve into what it is today with the pilgrims, the church, the mosque over my shoulder?
So it's the history of the living stones of the church, right?
It's just to live as a simplicity as it is, to live with love and peace, because from nothing that we can be something.
So it's in the Bible says, and you, Bethlehem, will not be small.
So, and Bethlehem was a small town, and now we can see it.
Actually, all the eyes of all of the world looks in this small city of Bethlehem.
And that's where Jesus was born as to give this love and peace.
And so, if we can say, like now, it's the same Bethlehem.
We can see all the houses, we can see the cave where Jesus was born, and we can see the simplicity people and hospitality people of Bethlehem that they're still living and continue the message of peace and love until now.
You know, one of the things, Father, that I've noticed in my time working with the Palestinians, whether it's the church in Gaza or here in the West Bank, is there is this magnanimity, there's this charity, this forgiveness.
And I've prayed about it.
And what is the source of it?
And I thought, as Catholics, our theology tells us that grace builds upon our nature.
And it dawned on me that grace has been building upon the nature of this Christian community for 2,000 years.
And that's why we still actually, we are the living stones.
I call the Christians' community in Bethlehem the living stones, not the church.
The church, maybe 2,000 years and still exists.
But the church doesn't mean anything with the faithful people, the Christians who keep it alive, you know, with the prayers every day to keep these services and liturgy and helping people coming from all over the world to visit this place and also actually to give a blessing and grace from it.
And when I would hear Christians talk about the good news, the gospel, I thought that's an awful strange expression, good news.
But when you look back, what good news is it that the Caesar is not God, the Pharaoh is not God, but I could be a humble peasant, I can be a slave, but I am made in the image of God.
Saint Joseph is the best because he took care of Mary when he knew that the one that she's holding in her womb is Jesus Christ.
So he never actually knows this because he was suspicious about it.
But after this, when Gabriel told him that you have to take care of her because this is from God, and that's why he continued actually to take care of this woman that he never actually knew before.
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But this was actually the and it was scandalous and embarrassing.
This is what people actually usually do when you are in the right place and you're doing the best thing.
So that's why we have, as Christians or as a young man, to have to look at Saint Joseph, how he dealt with this issue, and how he continued because he knew I has a vision.
And this vision actually, Jason, what Father just said, I think, is kind of shocking to an American audience because we followed your work for years.
And where we've seen throughout the world is where Islam is helped to eradicate the church, the desert church in the Middle East.
Why is it that there seems to be cooperation in Bethlehem where throughout the rest of the world, there's not just not cooperation, there's actually conflict, whether it's in Western Europe or now in the United States, sir.
Like in Bethlehem, since I was born, actually, I can tell that we live Christians and Muslims together, side by side.
As you can see, backgrounds, like the mosque in front of the church.
And which is meaning that we are actually together.
We're living in Bethlehem, this just neighbors, and we actually share the life of Bethlehem people here, the same together.
Like in the church, we have people like police helping us.
They are Muslims and they are taking care of this church.
They are security.
And we have also, and many people, we are actually grow up with them, neighbors, side by side, with the same difficulties, the same problems, and with the same happiness.
So as I said before, when we let the Christmas tree, it was many people from Muslims backgrounds, and they were actually celebrating with us.
They were happy.
And we actually joined together like during Easter time, during Ramadan, and during Christmas time, we share together.
We greet each other in these feasts and we are here one family.
This is only in Bethlehem because, you know, just where Jesus was born.
I have to say, I was shocked last Christmas, Steve, when I was the only person not from Bethlehem here, but there were so many Muslim pilgrims in the church of the Nativity.
I want to get the full answer on that when we come back to Bethlehem.
Sure.
Guys, just hang on.
We'll be right back.
Ben Harnwell's at St. Petersburg.
We're going to go back to Ben also.
Leave you with some great music on the war rooms Christmas special.
President Trump has just announced that he's going to do something at 3 p.m. this afternoon, Eastern Standard Time or later, live from Mar-a-Lago.
Actually, Real America's Voice will be there with a camera.
There'll be more updates we'll put on social media, but plan on around 3 o'clock right thereafter, a special event at Mar-a-Lago with the president of the United States.
Short Commercial Bro.
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With the choice of free, Christ is Lord of heaven.
Hail the heaven, prince of peace, hail the song right just might and might the Lord He screams.
Why this is glory thy love and high for his sons of earth,
Taj, real quickly, you've spent the better part of a couple of decades of your life trying to defend people over in the hellhole of Iraq and Afghanistan.
And our audience, for all the veterans that did that, you can't thank these folks enough for what they did.
Unbeknownst to them, maybe not a government that wasn't totally straightforward with people.
But for the patriots, you and your generation and everyone, our nation has nothing but thanks and gratitude.
And the folks there that you defended, I know too.
We're going to need a now you're you went from a gunman to a baristo.
Brista, real quickly, where do people go to get some great coffee today?
Because I need a refill as soon as the show is over.
16 tours over in the Middle East in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Taj, and there's so many guys like Taj.
Three o'clock today, Real America's Voice are going to be back at Mar-a-Lago.
President Trump to talk about doing something very special for Christmas.
We're going to have our own correspondent there.
I think we're the pool feed today.
So make sure that you hang around the room today and find out what the president's doing later this afternoon.
Tomorrow, we have our traditional, I think it's the 15th year that Patrick K. Donald and I have done this.
We did a Breitbart radio news over at Sirius XM for so many years and now at the war room for what, the past six or so?
The combat history of Christmas, talking about the Tej Gills of the world, whether in the revolution, civil war, World War II, Korea, specific stories.
Don't miss it.
It's one of my favorite shows of the year.
Jason, we are pressed for time, but I want to hear that.
That question you teed up to the pastor of the Church Nativity is one I think our audience wants to hear.
It's good questions, actually, because you know, survived Christians' community, especially the Orthodox one from the Ottoman time and past, not just on the Ottoman Crusaders' times, British times, and many happens in like the Holy Land.
But still, Christians' communities still exist and they're rooted in the land because of the help of the Patriarchate, Jerusalem.
We know about the church itself of the people who are around us to help and to maybe to or maybe command the faith of their people, the Christians community, still resist in there and they're rooted in the land.
But maybe some of them, like Christians, lived with fear, you know, with no hope, with they need freedom, they need justice, they need dignity.
And some of them, actually, even Palestinian Christians community, they have left this place because of have no freedom, no dignity, no justice.
And that's why in many Christians' communities, even in Iraq or Syria or any place, they're leaving immigrations.
What kid would you, if you could talk to Ambassador Mike Huckabee, what would you say to him on what the United States can do to preserve the Christian communities here in Bethlehem, in Tebe, in Gaza?
We need something to do to keep and protect the Christians' community in Bethlehem and in all Holy Land and Palestinian areas.
And we have many Christians, they are willing to leave, but we need them to stay here because I call them the living stones.
So we need an act, we need support, maybe don't mean support like support with any political things that we can actually just keep them staying in Bethlehem, staying in the lands and not to leave.
I got to go over to the Vatican and maybe another time we'll get my idea that since there's essentially going to be a Palestinian state in Gaza with Qatar as the financier and the Turks as the, as incredible as that sound, the Turks as a security guarantee, since you have a two-state solution, my recommendation is we go to a three-state solution.
One of those states would be a Christian state, which takes the Christian quarter of Jerusalem all the way to Bethlehem.
But that's a topic for another day.
Maybe too controversial for Christmas Eve.
Stay right there.
I'm going to go to the Vatican real quickly.
Yeah, let's not let's get through Christmas, okay?
Ben Harnwell, very big on the world stage tonight.
The Pope Leo is going to have his first midnight mass.
Why is this important to him, and particularly as the hardcore trad Catholics that, as we kind of forecasted, when we're the only people in the world that said Prevost was going to be selected as Pope because of not so much the American, not so much the Americanness, but the access that he could have to the money.
Well, because the whole world we're watching to see what he says, and he knows that, and they know that.
So, these words, both in his mass this evening at the Christmas Mass at 10 p.m. local time here, Rome time, but also his blessing tomorrow, midday at noon, the orbit at Orbi, to the church and to the world, to the city in the world, excuse me.
Both of those are events in which he will make in a very subtle way or not so subtle way some of his priorities clearly known.
These were big opportunities that his late unlamented predecessor, Pope Francis, always used to push his favorite political projects.
For example, his support of the invasion in the first place.
We'll look at Leo, we'll see what he says.
We'll no doubt digest it next week, Steve.
I'll say this: though, you might not get the forefrontal Marxism of Pope Francis, but it's not, you're not going to get pure Milton Friedman either.
He's going to be doing what he always does in his subtle way, which is continuing the revolution of Bergoglio, of Pope Francis, but in a way that it beds down amongst the church rather than generating opposition and rebellion, which was what Francis was generating, simply because Francis was crazy, pathologically crazy, and he couldn't help rub people up the wrong way, even his own natural supporters.
Steve, my social media platform of choice, Getter, where in the full, obviously the Christmas spirit, certainly in the warm spirit, there's a full-on throwdown against inverted promised Pope Leo that I posted today from a few words I gave to the Observer newspaper, Steve, which is effectively the Guardian's sisters paper on Sundays.
So if you were thinking I'd be becoming all beta male and all peace and love this Christmas spirit, absolutely not.
Throw down right in Pope Leo's face because he's pushing the invasion point, obviously, and the woman must step up to resist.
Steve, get at Harnwell, my surname.
You'll see all my gratuitous provocations there.
Let me take this moment to wish you the warm imposse, Real America's voice, a very Merry Christmas, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May the Spirit of God be with you all and see you after Christmas.
It's a privilege to be here on this show with you and with Jason.
Thank you for this opportunity.
I'm wishing that you and President Trump would really come and visit Bethlehem, the heart of Bethlehem, the cradle of Jesus Christ, and to support the Christian communities here.
And I thank Mr. President Trump that he's bringing us hope and peace to the Middle East and especially Palestine.
I want to interview you the first couple of days of next week about my idea of the new Christian state of Jerusalem, the third state, since they've got a Palestinian state now in Gaza.
We need a Christian state, but I'll hold that for after Christmas.
What's your social media?
How do people find out more about your fight and your efforts in the Holy Land?
Tomorrow, Combat History at Christmas, Patrick K. O'Donnell and myself, Raheem, will be on Boxing Day, and we're back on Saturday with another incredible special.
Gonna leave you with some of this great music.
Merry Christmas, folks.
We'll see you tomorrow morning right here in the world.