Candidly Evaluating the Francis Pontificate (Guest: Dr. Peter Kwasniewski)

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Peter, always good to have you back on Crisis Point. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Thank you, Eric. Likewise. [00:00:15] Speaker A: I think you are my most visited guest. I think you've had the most appearances here because we've been doing this for five years now. I actually, next month will be five years, and I didn't count it, but I feel like you're the most. And, And I think that's because that's what the people want. I give the people what they want. They want more, Peter Kski. They. They. They want to hear from you. So I'm glad to have you on, though. [00:00:40] Speaker B: Thank you so much. So I. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Before we get going on, like, kind of the topic of the day, I always kind of make a joke whenever I have you on of your mini writings, your mini books that are coming out. And. And I want to do that at the beginning here and ask you. Okay. I think there's some confusion here because you and I. You notice I had a little confusion here. I want you to tell us what's the best way to get your writings and then also your books, but your writings. I know there's been some movement with Pelican Plus. We had Tim on here a while back talking about Pelican Plus. So tell us. Tell everybody. No. Okay. I want to read Dr. K. Where do I go? [00:01:18] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, my tradition and sanity outfit, so to speak, is still up and running, but it's at Pelican plus now. That's the platform. And I still do three articles a week. Monday, Thursday, Saturday, my Saturday weekly roundup. And just like on Substack, Thursday and Saturday are free articles. Anybody can read them. They just have to go and get a free login to Pelican and use the app. And then Monday is a paywall article for members of Pelican. And I still have my substack, but it just points people towards Pelican, basically. So that's. [00:01:54] Speaker A: I'm on your email list and I get your emails. [00:01:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:58] Speaker A: And so when I click on them, I usually see a preview and it says Pelican. I think it says Pelican Plus. So that's what it is. I click on that. I sound like an old man there. I know, but I just want to make sure if I did it, I'm sure others have done it. So I click on that. I have an account at Pelican Plus, a free account, you know, so if I just log in, then I see the whole article. Assuming it's one of the free ones, not the paid one. [00:02:20] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And it says free or paid. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Okay. And if it's a paid article, that doesn't mean I have a paid to you directly, but it's more to Pelican Plus. Right? [00:02:30] Speaker B: Exactly. I mean, the big difference is, and part of the reason I did Pelican plus or that I went in on it as a co founder, is that I actually don't like the idea of having to pay so many subscriptions to so many different individuals or entities that we decided to create one platform with a ton of good stuff on it. Not you wouldn't be interested necessarily in everything, but you might be interested in a lot of the things. And then for the same monthly price, 7, 99, 8 bucks a month at like, at Substack, you can have access to a hundred different things instead of just tradition and sanity. So people are getting a lot more and value for money, I would say. So I really would encourage people to check out Pelican Plus. It has amazing prayer apps. It's like hallowed, but with all traditional Catholic apps. It has ebooks, audiobooks, it has documentaries, it has family friendly programs about saints, about Christmas epiphany. I mean, there's a ton of stuff there for people of all different ages and backgrounds. So we really are trying to build it up into a kind of mini media empire for traditional Catholics. [00:03:32] Speaker A: So check it out and I'll keep begging you to every once in a while. Right. For crisis. Don't forget us little people. [00:03:40] Speaker B: I wish I could multitask better than I can, but I already feel like I'm spread out. [00:03:44] Speaker A: You are definitely spread out. And then also your books that you've written. What's your most recent book that you've published of yours? [00:03:53] Speaker B: Yes, it's called His Reign shall have no End. And it's a book about Catholic social teaching, but with an emphasis on the kingship of Christ as the title implies. And, and so I use that as sort of the axial principle for the whole thing, which is what makes it distinct. There are a lot of books on Catholic social teaching and many of them are quite good. And I talk about, I mentioned them in my notes, bibliography. But there's. There are very few that take the kingship of Christ seriously. And then there are, there are even fewer that, that take it as a kind of axial principle. So that's. I thought, I thought it was appropriate to do this for the hundredth anniversary of Cross Primus. You know, we just celebrated the 100th. We celebrated the feast of Christ the king for the 100th time. And so. Okay, well, let's think about this. More deeply. [00:04:39] Speaker A: Okay, awesome. And is that through your publishing house? [00:04:42] Speaker B: No, that's from Aralka Press in Canada. So basically I should just mention that I do have a personal website, PeterKorZhchnevsky.com that's sort of the hub where people can see everything. Everything I'm doing is there. My music, my publishing with Alcusti, my own books with other publishers. So that's the place where I try to put everything so that there's one stop. There's one stop. Okay, but I, but I do, I do run Ocuste Press, of course, and there I publish other people's books. It's not a vanity press. Right. I'm a serious publisher and I'm just publishing other people's work. But if I have my own books, I give them to different publishers. So. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Okay, okay, I did not realize that. Is that how you pronounce it? Yes, that. That is, that doesn't publish your books at all. So it's just, I know it. To publish other books. But I just assumed that you're. I don't always pay attention to the publisher. When I see, you know, what you've published, I'm just like, you know, whatever. [00:05:42] Speaker B: But yeah, I mean, as, as, as a writer and a publisher, you know, I, I'm laser sensitive to the question of where is this from, who's behind it? And as a result, you know, it's so easy nowadays for people to self publish that I want to be very careful not to give the impression that I'm just simply, you know, pushing out my own stuff through Amazon or whatever. You know, it's, it's, it's more important to have a publisher behind you, you know, supporting you and, and in a sense giving you the, the backing and the cloud of that publisher. [00:06:13] Speaker A: Right. Okay. Okay, very good. I want to get that out of the way at the beginning because I want to make sure people who want to find your stuff know where to find. And I'll put links to all this stuff in the show notes so people can do that. Now what we want to talk about today is something we have talked about numerous times on this podcast and you've written about it and talked about for years. And that is in general, what Catholics, how Catholics live under a bad pontificate, but specifically a look back and evaluation of the, quote, disastrous papacy, the disastrous pontificate of Francis, of Pope Francis, who of course went died last year, or as the Vatican say, went returned to his father's house. Why do they always say that? Did you have you notice how Often they say that. That he returned to his father's house. What is that? I mean, if you want to just canonize him, fine, but what's this return to your father's house like there before? I don't. [00:07:14] Speaker B: It sounds a little originistic, doesn't it? It does. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Like, I don't really. I saw that again, I was reading. I actually was just a podcast on Leo's State of the World address that he did last week, which was quite good in a lot of ways. [00:07:27] Speaker B: It was. Yeah. [00:07:28] Speaker A: You know, and what I liked about it was it sounded Catholic, unlike previous. The previous Pontus a lot. His addresses didn't sound Catholic. I mean, I had some quibbles here and there, but. But it did say at the beginning, like, his. Before the address, when he was just kind of making some introductory remarks, he did say something about Pope Francis who returned to his father's house. I'm just like, why do you say that? It just makes no sense to say Francis anyway. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Yes, yes. It sort of belongs to the set of Hallmark greetings, that there are certain things, phrases that get recycled over and over again, you know, but they're not Catholic. [00:08:05] Speaker A: But you published a book through your press, UCD Press, that is, you know, it kind of lets the cat out of the bag on what it. What it thinks from the title. It's literally called the Disastrous Pontificate. And once you hold up. Because I don't have a physical copy, I only have the electron copy so people can see it and turn it to the side so people see how big it is. Yeah, it's huge. 900 pages almost, isn't it? [00:08:33] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:08:36] Speaker A: So you put this out, and like I said, you're kind of giving away the lead with that title, but it's written by. The pen name of the author is Dominic J. Grigio, I guess we'll say. And I know you can't reveal who that is. I don't want you to. But what can you tell us about the author? Because I would admit I always get nervous about anything under a pen name. I know there's legitimate reasons, but I know a lot of people just, you know, I need to trust that this person. I have some trust now. I do, because I trust you, and you would not publish it, but can you tell us something to give the readers a trust that, okay, this author is not just some crazy person or whatever? [00:09:19] Speaker B: Of course, yeah. I mean, I guess I would just make the point that, you know, when authors choose to write under a pen name, it's often for very Good reason. I mean, historically, there are many examples of pen names. You know, sometimes it's done for sport, for fun, but other times it's done because you'd get in a huge amount of trouble if you use your actual name. And in fact, the cleric, it's a. It's a. It's a cleric who wrote this book has gotten in trouble in the past for his outspoken criticisms of certain things Pope Francis said and did. He was threatened in various ways. He's been bullied by fellow clergy. You know, he's. He's had his livelihood threatened. I mean, you know, it's. It's. There are people out there who are really paying serious. Who paid and are still paying a price for. For their even respectful criticism of Pope Francis. So I. I completely sympathize with the situation of someone like that. But there's an. There's an added twist, which I think people really need to understand. This cleric, he's in good standing with the Church. He's in good standing with his bishop, and in fact, he has a good enough relationship with his bishop that his bishop said, I want you to talk to me before you publish a book on anything. So this gentleman went to the bishop and said, I've got this book on Pope Francis. And the bishop said, I don't forbid you to publish this book, but I don't want you to use your name. So, in fact, in this case, the use of a pen name is an act of filial piety, obedience. But I would go further and say it also, I think, can be helpful to deflect attention away from the author, from his personality, from his background, from his diocese. You know, people quickly get into that social media shark frenzy mode where they. Where they put too much attention on the individual as opposed to his message. Right, let's look at the message, not the messenger. And so that would be. My second point would be the proof is in the pudding. If people look at this book, they'll see that it's a. It's a work of very serious, sober scholarship. This is not a kind of pulp fiction thriller, okay? I mean, it's going to put you to sleep if you're not interested in serious theology. I mean, it's definitely. It's a reference book, in a sense. Well, we'll talk more about how it. How it's laid out, what's. What's actually in it, what he covers. But it's, you know, it's not some kind of salacious, sensationalistic kind of thing. It's a Very sober, respectful piece of scholarship. And I suppose the final thing I would say is, you know, it's attracted an all star set of endorsements. [00:11:52] Speaker A: It has. I was very impressed with the list. [00:11:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, we have, we have Father Gerald Murray, everybody's heard of him from the papal posse and elsewhere. Edward Faser, one of the most respected Catholic philosophers in the country. Eduardo Echeveria, who was teaching at Sacred Heart in Detroit and got unceremoniously canned along with. [00:12:13] Speaker A: We've had him on the podcast a few times. [00:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah, and Ed Peters. Right. So again, no lightweight. John Rist. John Rist is one of the greatest classical philosophers in the world and has published a book about the papacy just recently. Phil Lawlor. I mean, talk about the most venerable Catholic journalist out there, you know, and then Mike Michael Cirillo, who teaches at Steubenville on the faculty Dogmatic Theology. Claudio Pierantini is probably one that most people haven't heard of, but he's a professor of medieval philosophy from Chile. And then Joseph Seifert. Joseph Seifert was, was, you know, pivotal under John Paul II with the Pontifical Academy for Life before it was gutted by Pope Francis. One of his many problematic moves. And anyway, so this is like an all star lineup of people all saying, this book is fantastic. It's hugely important. It's, you know, it's the definitive study of the problems of the last pontificate. [00:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it was very interesting to see the list of people. Of course, I had to note Mike Cirilla, now that my son's married to his daughter, that was, you know, but, but the fact is I know a good professor and what a careful theologian he is. He wouldn't just, he would not put his name on something that was just a diatribe, some, some attack or something, or uncharitable. I mean, he's one of the most charitable people I've ever met, so he would never do that either. Now I will. Okay, now here, I just want to say, I want to tell you my first reaction when you, When I got the email, I don't know if you sent or I got an email from your press or something about this. I want to tell you my first reaction it was, do we really need to talk about him anymore? Yes, I, I will say I did think. My first reaction when I saw the title, I knew it was about, of course, and I was just like, I had not looked in it yet. I will say that. And I do think there's going to be other people beyond, aside from me. Who were obviously critical. We're not saying we want a hagiography of him either. We're just simply saying, can we just, you know, put him on the dustbin of history and forget about him and move forward? Why? Like, why not only did the author write this, but why do you think it's important to have a book like this? And how do you kind of respond that reaction of mine, which was just a natural reaction of like, I just don't want to talk about him anymore. [00:14:27] Speaker B: Oh, of course. Well, I mean, first of all, I'm totally with you in that reaction. I feel PTSD almost every time I think about Pope Francis. When I see his picture, it gives me the willies. I mean, he was, was living under that pontificate was like, I can only describe it this way for those who, again, for those who are really keyed into what was going on, as opposed to those who got the carefully curated media feed of the Pope patting the heads of babies and stuff. I'm talking about, like, people who really knew what was going on. You know, it was like being an abused child and waking up every day fearing how you were going to be abused next, you know, what was going to be the next strike that was coming or the next, you know, blasphemy or the next quasi heresy, or the next ambiguity or the next United Nations, European Union style, you know, secularism, humanistic, whatever. I mean, it was, it was a, it was a nightmare. It was truly a nightmare. And so, I mean, I get that. I get the reaction of just, can't we just forget about this? Let it recede into history? Maybe cover him over with, with a mound of pious platitudes and just say. [00:15:28] Speaker A: You know, he did, you know, cover his nakedness type of thing. [00:15:31] Speaker B: Yeah, he was, it was, he was undoubtedly well intentioned, but, you know, the Church needs to move on and take a different tack. And what? Sure. Well, I'm just going to say not everybody needs this book, but the Church has to deal with the legacy of Pope Francis. That's really the fundamental answer, right? If we have had the subtitle of this book is Pope Francis's Rupture from the Magisterium. So if Francis in fact ruptured from the perennial magisterium of the Church, if he taught things that are contrary to the Catholic faith and if his teachings are still on the books, so to speak, right? They're still, you know, they're still in the Acta Apostolic Sedi and they're on the Vatican website and people are quoting them and Citing them, Leo XIV is invoking him. All this stuff, then that's a problem. That's a continuing, ongoing problem. And it will be a problem until some future pope or council evaluates the legacy of Pope Francis in a detailed way and says, you know, this particular proposition is to be censured. This is not to be taught. This is to be rejected, or. Or however, you know, the. The correction would take place. Right. Do you see? Do you see my point? [00:16:45] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, I do. And I. And I think it makes sense because, I mean, I think classifying it as a. I. I think one of my reactions to it was before I had opened up, I didn't realize it was a reference book. And really, that's like you said, that's what it is. [00:17:01] Speaker B: It's. [00:17:01] Speaker A: I was looking. It's like it's just going to be another screed against Francis, and we've had enough of those. As you know, I kind of stopped that before he died because I just got tired of it. And I never said other people couldn't have criticism of him, but I just was like, I'm done with them as far as that goes. But, like, in this case, you know, this is more of a. Yeah, a reference book. And there's one part of the. Okay, I'll jokingly call it the worst part of the book. You'll understand why in a second. Okay. So I followed, obviously, I worked. I was working for diocese when he became pope. And then I followed him. I followed him closely for his whole pontificate. I will admit the last couple years, I didn't follow him as closely, but I was following him very closely. And like, I don't know if it was like, because of psychology, I'm getting older, but I had just kind of forgotten most of the things. And then I get to the section, the questionable words and deeds of Pope Francis and his appointees, and it was like. It was like PSTV or however whatever the initials are. I'm reading it, it's like 2013, the 13th of March, you know, the day he gets elected. It says, you know, like, 15th March, and addresses Sacred College of Cardinals. Pope Francis compares the Holy Spirit to Apostle of Babel. The Paraclete creates all the differences among the churches, almost as if you were an APostle of Babel, March 16. And it's like, oh, And I remember. I remember this one very well. Pope Francis dispensed with the apostolic blessing at the conclusion of his meeting with communications professionals. I respect your consciences. And since you are not all Catholic, I will not bless you, but pray for you in my heart. I remember that one very well because like the, it was the first thing where we were like, what, what, what did he just say? I remember thinking like, that doesn't sound right. And then like, you know, March 17, Mark, May 23, June 6, you know, the, the, the, the infamous. Of course I, you know, who am I to judge from what they. Yeah. From July 29, 2013. And it's like, I don't know how many. It's like over hundreds of pages. [00:19:00] Speaker B: I think 200 pages, that section. Yeah. [00:19:02] Speaker A: This goes through every single thing he says. Now it's to be clear, it's not like everything listed is heretical or, or something like that. It's more a matter of just like all these things cause confusion at the very least. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:17] Speaker A: And it was like reading that though, I was like, oh, right, because I remember the highlights or the low light. [00:19:22] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:23] Speaker A: All the details. It was just like I just kind of comes together in some big blob in my memory. [00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So maybe I could make this point too. You know, human beings have always struggled with memory. Memory is one of the great challenges. How do we remember the things we need to remember? And one of the solutions that the human race has come up with is to invent writing and to invent books. And so we, we write chronicles, we write narratives, we write timelines, we write encyclopedias, we write dictionaries. We do this in order to, to somehow maintain the collective memory that we need to, in order to orient ourselves properly and to keep learning and to correct our deviations, for that matter. And what I want to say is that there's a very great danger in the age of social media, the age of the sound bite, the age of the everyday explosion of whatever the latest scandal is, that we are going to forget even what happened last week, let alone what happened last year or last decade. Right. There's a huge danger of people in a sense having either a selective memory or a reconstructive memory or even a kind of sort of Soviet style memory where we clean up the record, you know, the way that the Soviets used to modify photographs and whatever. And I think what this book is trying to do is, I mean, this book took the author five years to write. Okay. It took him, he was working on it day, you know, week after week for five years. So it's very careful work of scholarship. And he's trying to put in one place all of the problematic things, all the confusing things, all the ambiguous things, all the erroneous Things, because there are some that are just plain erroneous. And the scandalous things, too. The criminals that were appointed or promoted or protected or whatever, you know, this. None of this can be denied. It's all. All the citations are here. The historical record is what it is, right? In a way, it's easier that Pope Francis is dead, because the record is what it is, right? And it's closed. It's a finite record, and we can actually analyze it year by year, topic by topic. So, you know, the author, it's really amazing. I'm actually in awe of the organization of this author. You know, he took as his model. He took two books as his model, Denzinger, the End. Karin by Denzinger, which, if you. If you're a theologian, Denzinger is like a household name. He's this German scholar, of course he was German, who, you know, compiled all the most important dogmatic statements that the Church had ever made from the beginning all the way to the present, when Denzinger was writing. And then it's been updated a whole bunch of times in the past century. You know, the most recent edition came out a few years ago from Ignatius. But it's a whopping big book. And people refer to the Denzinger numbers like, you know, the Council of Chalcedon or the Council of Ephesus, said this or said this. So Denziger is a great reference work, and he was carefully studying Denzinger and drew a lot of his material from Denzinger. And then the other one is a book by Ludwig Ott called the Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. What anybody will see who looks at this book, disastrous pontificate, is that part of it takes the form of, here's a statement that Pope Francis made on this date to these people, and here's what the Church teaches on that, which is usually the contrary or something very different. And then he goes, here's the scriptural proofs for what the Church teaches. Here's the patristic proofs, here's the scholastics, you know, here are the magisterial documents. So in other words, he's making a watertight case that, however you look at it, the teaching of the Church from all of these sources is different from what Pope Francis taught. Okay? And when he does that, you know, you could quibble about one or another case, but when you see example after example after example, as you put it, a picture emerges, right? This is not like a one off. Unfortunately, Pope Francis misspoke this day. You know, he normally said the right thing but he misspoke on this particular day. I mean, when you've got 12 years of somebody saying these things and saying the things that click together, right. That is, you start to see, oh, well, if he holds this error over here, it makes sense that he holds this error over here and this other one over here. Well then, then you're actually looking at, I'm sorry to use the word because it's a very harsh word, but you're looking at the, the dimensions of a, of a heresiarch, that is somebody who has a fundamentally warped view of things where the errors kind of multiply in the different areas. And that, I think is the power of the cumulative research that went into this book is to, again, to show you that it's not a one off thing. It's, it's a, it's a pattern. There's a pattern. [00:24:04] Speaker A: Yeah. I was, when I was going through the book myself, I will say there's a few places where I thought, well, is that really a fair criticism of him? Like I thought one time when he, I wrote it down, because when he's talking about Christology and he says that, you know, when the Son of God assumed a human nature at the incarnation, he ceased to be divine until his death on the cross. Jesus Nazareth was a man, not God incarnate. But that of course is a quote from Scoffari and not said, you know, like, we don't know what Francis now, he, now I'm not trying to defend Francis because he also didn't come out and say Scoffari was wrong, but at the same time, and I guess what you're saying is this is more of a compilation of everything that you put it. You don't look at one thing, and if it's true, let's say, let's say Scalfari made that up and he didn't actually say it. It doesn't really take away from the overall picture. He clearly said something, or at the very least, you could accuse Francis of allowing Scalfari to say that without really, you know, making a very clear statement. No, I don't really think that. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Right. And in fact, Eric, I mean, the, the author of this book knows very well that people are going to object to his use of the Scalfari interviews. I mean, granted, these only come up in a few. They're going to object to that. So he has a section called what is Pope Francis attitude towards Scalfari's accounts of their conversations. This is on pages 47 to 48. [00:25:29] Speaker A: I missed that part, I did not see that part. So tell me what he says there. [00:25:32] Speaker B: So it's fascinating because he goes through all of the things that Francis said about Scalfari, including the glowing eulogy that Francis gave of Scalfari in which he praised his professionalism, his integrity, his ability to listen. And Francis never once said, he has misrepresented me. Now again, I don't, I don't have a reason to think that everything Scalfari said was what Francis thought. But why didn't the Vatican or Pope Francis say, you know, with all due respect to my old buddy Scalfari, you know, he really is making up some stuff here. This is not what I think, you know, so please read with caution. Never. Nothing like that. Right. So, I mean, when you, when you look at the evidence, it unfortunately looks like Pope Francis, either, either he thought what Scalfari said or he didn't care to disabuse people of these claims in major Italian newspapers. I mean, can you imagine how somebody like Pope Pius X would have reacted to a situation like that? He would have. I mean, it would have been like a flamethrower with Pius X. Yeah, I. [00:26:37] Speaker A: Mean, any Pope, like, it's not like an interview with like a Hollywood star who's opining about climate change and it gets a little bit wrong, something like that. It's like, who cares? The Pope's literal job is to proclaim the faith accurately. And you know, what he's received he needs to hand on accurately. And so at the very least. So I think you're right. Like it, I mean, I'm not defending Francis in any way, shape or form, but I do think that you look at the book and it really does. It's not just 900 pages just to look impressive. I mean, it really has everything in there. It just is, is going point by point and it has the footnotes and everything like that. It does make the case. I, I guess then my next kind of. Okay, I want to ask you a quick question and then I'll follow up with something else. And that is just simply. Would you consider Pope Francis the worst Pope in history from a doctrinal standpoint, like as far as proclaiming doctrine. Teaching doctrine. [00:27:44] Speaker B: Yes, unquestionably. Unquestionably. And the reason, the reason I say that is, I mean, to me this is actually a no brainer at this point with what I know. You know, I realize that not everybody is up to speed and hasn't looked into these things with as much detail as you And I have. But. But let's just take another example, another famous example from Church history, Pope Honorius, right? You know, and you can still find out there. It's really embarrassing, actually, but you can still find Catholics who try to defend Honorius. Oh, no, he wasn't a heretic or he didn't hold an error and the Church hadn't defined it yet. Blah, blah. No, that's all nonsense. Honorius was wrong, period. He had. He held an error. He. He said something that was false. As he said it, it was false. It was already known to be false, even if it hadn't been, you know, defined in the most solemn way possible, you know, and just like what John XXIII held about the beatific vision was also known to be false and was told to him that it was false, even though it hadn't been solemnly defined yet. And on the basis of what Honorius wrote in a private letter to a patriarch, not even in an encyclical to everybody, on that basis, some 45 years after his death, he was anathematized, excommunicated by multiple popes, by multiple councils. I mean, Honorius was scorched. His reputation was absolutely torched, right, by several popes and several councils for one little error in a private letter that he wrote to somebody. That's how seriously people used to take orthodoxy. Right? When you look at Francis, there is a whole catalog of issues that are much more grave than what Honorius was dealing with. Much more grave in the sense that, yes, you could say Honorius's error had to do with the nature of Christ, the divine, in human natures of Christ. But some of Francis's errors have to do with Christ, have to do with Our lady, have to do with salvation, have to do with the sacraments and worthiness for receiving the sacraments and so forth. I mean, the issues with Francis are also very grave issues, and there are many of them. The author says there are at least 17 clear errors in the teaching of the last pontificate, all of which need to be disowned or corrected. And so I think, frankly, Eric, I think the last pontificate was a kind of a real test of the papacy as an institution. It was a kind of stress test. You know, like when engineers are building a machine, right? They want to put it under every possible stress that it's going to face to make sure that it doesn't explode or break apart. And I feel that Francis is the first pope. He's not the only pope who has tested the institution, but it was put to the maximum test under. Under Francis. And some people think that it failed. Some people think that the papacy, in a certain sense, failed a long time ago. The orthodox would say a thousand years ago. The state of a contest would say 70 years ago. So there are people who think that the papacy has not survived the stress test, you know, at this or that moment. I think it has survived that test. But we have to recognize that there was a unique evil associated with the last pontificate that cannot be forgotten and cannot be swept under the rug. [00:31:10] Speaker A: So I think that's the thing that we, you know, you brought it up, and I'm glad you did. And that is like, how do we react to this? If you read this, like, okay, if I'm non Catholic and I read this, I'm like, yeah, this just proves the Catholicism is false because I'm a non Catholic. I'm coming from it, from that perspective. I'm orthodox. In particular, I'm looking at this thing. Yeah, just proof of what we've been saying for a thousand years. You know, you and your dependence on your infallible pope and the city of Akantis. I feel like they could almost take this book and say, you know, do a dunk on you and say, okay, see, you just. You're basically just what we've been saying. This guy can't be the Pope, because look at all the. All the crap he out there. So as a Catholic who still believes all this, as you and I both are, you published this book, and I want you to kind of address that a little bit more in detail. Like, how exactly should a Catholic, when he reads this, he looks at this. I mean, we live through it, so we know. But, like, when you really see it, I will say this. I thought Pope Francis was a terrible pope, and I've made that very, very clear multiple times, many times during his pontificate. But when going through this book, it's almost like I thought, wow, he was actually worse than I thought. And I thought he was terrible. And it's like, it really is. But like. And to me, because of my own understanding of Catholic theology, ecclesiology, the papacy, all that stuff, it didn't even, like, register in my brain. Oh, that means he wasn't the pope. Or that means Catholicism isn't true. But I do think I could see somebody when they see the volume of this, like, wow, God allowed this. That doesn't really seem to make sense because it's like. It's almost like a different kind than Honorius or John xxi. Or whatever. It's more of like, it just, it's crazy. So like honorius and John 23rd were stress testes on minor level, but this is almost like, okay, we're literally just throwing everything at this in the time. [00:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah, no, no, I mean, I totally get all of that. I guess I would, I would make this fundamental point and this, this is something that, that the author, Dominic Rigio, he, he really does a fine job of it. He has a long. Although I, although I did compare this book to an encyclopedia or a dictionary, I think it does have a narrative. I mean, there are parts of it, long parts of it, you know, you can read just straight through that are meant to be read straight through. And his, his introduction, which is called Safeguarding God's Truth during a Time of Error. Or it's sort of. I shouldn't say his introduction, but his, but the first part of the book after the introduction is basically a 40 page account where he talks about God's truth and man's inclination to falsehood, the supreme rule of faith, inerrancy, indefectibility and infallibility, the obedience of faith, and the role of the Pope in safeguarding the deposit of faith. And in that section he goes into some of these sticky points in a way that I find, you know, very, very satisfying because what he's bringing out here is this, here's the fundamental point. The first Vatican Council, when it defined the authority of the Pope, clearly put that authority in a context. And the context was the Pope's authority is simply to hand on the deposit faith. What does that imply? That implies that the deposit of faith is something that exists prior to and measures any particular Pope or any particular pontificate. The Pope is not, according to Vatican I, the author, the oracle, the conduit through which revelation comes. He is simply the faithful servant who passes on what has already been given in full to the Church. And so in that sense, the deposit of faith is something objective. It's something that pre existing, it's something that measures the Pope. And so the Pope is measured by it. That's how we can say this Pope erred, if he erred in this or that respect, because he erred from the deposit of faith. Do you see what I'm saying? And of course, the Pope has a unique position with regard to the responsibility of handing on the deposit of faith and therefore using his authority to enforce the deposit of faith. And he can, you know, he could excommunicate people, he could anathematize errors. You know, he, I mean, There are many things he can do to protect that deposit, and historically popes have, have done those things. The, the odd thing about Francis is that he very rarely exercised his papal authority to the full extent. I mean, he never, he never exercised it to the full nuclear extent of what Vatican I teaches about, you know, ex cathedra proclamation on a matter of faith and morals, binding everybody in the Church to a particular, particular. He never did that. And as you, as, you know, not very many popes have actually done that. But he, he, he tended to govern in a way by the seat of his pants. He was just a constant flood of opinion. And there's this interesting distinction that Cardinal Burke makes that is based on an older political philosopher. I think his name is Kantorowitz, but it's called the two bodies thesis. Have you heard about this? [00:36:25] Speaker A: No, I have not. [00:36:27] Speaker B: So this older political philosopher originally coined this theory of the King's two bodies to mean the king has one body, it's his physical body, he himself. And, and that's the king as an individual, as a private individual, as a man. And then there's the King's moral body or political body, and that's the King as embodying and representing the whole state and acting on behalf of the state. Right, right. Well, Cardinal Burke and others have said there is also the Pope's two bodies. There's the Pope as an individual man with his own sins and his own opinions, which are not infallible by any means. And then there's the Pope's, you could say political body or moral body, or maybe even mystical body, that is the Pope as the representative of Christ in the Church or the representative Christ, the Vicar of Christ who can teach the entire Church. And it's very important. I mean, this has always been part of Catholic teaching, even if we haven't used this language of the Pope's two bodies. That's just a particular way of thinking about it. It's always, we always distinguish between the Pope as an individual man and the Pope as the Vicar of Christ who teaches with the authority of Christ. And I think that a lot of the problems with Francis, not all of them, I'll be honest, but many of them are at the level of the Pope as an individual who's spewing out his opinions and in low level magisterial occasions or even interviews, which as far as I can tell, have no magisterial authority whatsoever, in airplane interviews or whatever. And you know, and these, these things are, it's still bad, it's still confusing. It's still scandalous because the Pope shouldn't be, you know, a motor mouth who's just sharing his opinion with anybody and everybody. Scalfari, you know, but it's not the same kind of problem for a Catholic epistemologically because we can say, well, he's just speaking as a private individual. I mean, he shouldn't be saying this. It's offensive. But it's actually, it doesn't have anything to do with our belief about the office of the Pope. You know, do you see what I'm saying? So it seems to me that we have to make distinctions like that. And the Church has always made distinctions like that. [00:38:31] Speaker A: Now let's apply this though, like today. So we had to live under 12 years of a Pope who was just, you know, a real scandal to the faithful. I mean, that's probably the, probably the best word I think is he was scandalous. He was exactly what our Lord warned us against being. And so that led us all to this idea like that that we had not thought of very, most of us had not thought of very much under any previous pontificate, which is, what do we do about this? Like during the Francis pontificate? You and I have talked about this privately. I think we've talked about it publicly as well, and I've talked about it publicly. Just like, what is our duty as. Let's just talk to laymen, other laymen, lay women right now. Because like, when this happens, I feel like the one thing I've been trying to decide is the balance. And I want to. We're going to bridge to Pope Leo here in a second. But like, okay, so the Pope is, I mean, you look at this book, what is it, 200 some pages of documented cases of him throughout the years saying things that were confusing, scandalous, erroneous, whatever. [00:39:40] Speaker B: Well, I mean, the book itself is almost 900 pages, right? [00:39:44] Speaker A: But like, what's the one where it's just like, literally he just goes, how many pages is that section where he's just going through like day to day? Like, that's the second I thought was the most powerful, to be honest. I thought the other section were good. [00:39:54] Speaker B: But that part was like the, the, the. There's a section after that part I just told you about called Safeguarding God's Truth. There's a section called the Errors of Pope Francis which is divided into 17 headings. Then there's, then there's the Questionable Words and Deeds. [00:40:14] Speaker A: And I have, I have that here how I just want to look. So that one is 191 to page 556. So we're literally talking 300, more than 300 pages worth of just documented words and deeds of things. He said that over. And it's done by, it's done chronologically. So, so we see that and we live that. But, like, what should be, what should the layperson think of? What do I do about that? Okay, so, like, you and I, we decided both to publicly at times, a lot, in a lot of times, to criticize these. We post on social media. We would, you know, write articles. You have complete books about it. But, like, what is kind of, how should a Catholic approach that? Say, what, what, what do I need to say here? [00:41:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:41:05] Speaker A: Either publicly, like a public person like yourself, or just a private person telling my family, my friend, like dad telling his kids, you know, telling your parishioner, telling your parishioners about it. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, this is so, I want to make one thing really clear. I, I think that the right posture of humility towards reality dictates that there should be times, maybe many times in life where we can say, I don't understand the whole picture. And it's okay, I don't need to understand the whole picture. Only God, first of all, only God really understands the whole picture of reality, you know, and, and history and all of its messiness and the church and all of its complexity, you know, and only he reads and searches the hearts of men. But there are things that are very mysterious. And already St. Paul in, in one of his letters talks about, I think this is, this is first Thessalonians, I believe, talks about the mysterium iniquitatis, the mystery of iniquity. What is that? Why does he use that expression? Well, I mean, the commentators have all different theories about this, but, but one basic reason is that evil iniquity is a mystery. It's, it's very puzzling to us. It's bewildering. It's, it's overwhelming at times when, when we look at human evil, when we look it in the face. You know, I think pro lifers have this experience when they think about ab. Just such an, it's such a cavernous, abysmal, satanic evil that you almost can't look at it straight in the face, or you just, it just kind of twists you like a, you know, it's, it's horrible. It's such a horrible thing. So evil is not something we will ever be able to wrap our minds around. And therefore, I, I, I believe that Catholics are being put through special kinds of strains and tests in the modern period. And I would say the whole modern period from the Reformation onwards, you know, especially the French Revolutionary period, if you read about the, about that period and how much the Catholics suffered, you know, from, from not just from the government, but also from the Church, from, from traitors in the church, right? And then if, you know, if you look at the 20th century, very particular kinds of strains and stresses put on us, not only by people outside the Church, but by people from within the church, right? From the Carl Rahners, from the, from the Anabale Boninis, right. I mean, there's a lot of evil that God in his mysterious providence allows as a test for us. And so my, my basic, my first message would be I distrust anybody who has a neat and tidy explanation of what's going on. And this is, this is one of my basic problems with saving consciousness. It's this sort of platonically crystalline solution, like, oh, yeah, the solution is we don't have a Pope. Because of course, if we had a Pope, he would be perfect. I mean, perfect in the sense that he'd always be teaching the truth. There would never be any issues. You know, you'd always be able to follow him with a good conscience. And so the moment you get a Pope with any real problem, like a Pope who attacks the traditional liturgy or a Pope who attacks traditional doctrine, well, then obviously we don't have a Pope. To my mind, that is, that is like stick figure simplicity. I mean, it doesn't have any nuance, it doesn't have any. It basically is ready to throw out the visible church in order to save a certain kind of platonic, perfect pope that I'm not even sure ever really existed. I mean, but, you know, we can get into that, you know, another time. We don't have to go down that trail right now. So I very much distrust people who think that they have a tidy explanation for what has happened and for what's going on. What I do know is this Dominic Grigio in his book, I think it has a very comforting effect in a way, ironically, in that it shows over and over again through the careful selection of Scripture, Patristics, St. Thomas, and especially magisterial documents of the past prior to Francis, even up to Benedict xvi. It shows how consistent the Church's teaching has been, right? That there really is a deposit of faith, that we can know it, we can know it. We're not completely powerless to know what it is. And that therefore Francis, he isn't somebody who should make us doubt what the Church has always taught. We can see what the Church has always taught, and therefore we can see that Francis stands condemned by it. So in that way, I think this book, actually it's true that I think it would give rise to a temptation to question whether Francis's pontificate was true, like whether he really was Pope. I think it could give rise to that temptation, but it's not going to give rise to the temptation that, oh, the Catholic faith is incoherent and the papacy is a mess. On the contrary, it's no. There has been this immense coherence throughout all the centuries. And that's why Francis is such a big problem. That's why it's a disastrous pontificate, you know, if you see what I mean. Now, you asked real quick, you said, what are lay people supposed to do? And I guess I would say, you know, the number one thing is any one of us who's been confirmed is a soldier of Christ. And as St. Thomas Aquinas says, every confirmed Christian has the duty, not just the right, but the duty, to proclaim publicly the faith and the truth of the gospel. And that is something, you know, he does say that sometimes that simply means that you have to bear witness to Christ when he's being attacked or when the faith is being attacked. You know, if people are making fun of it, if they're blaspheming, then you have to speak up, you have to defend. Other times it might take a more active role, like you actually are going out there, you know, and writing books and debating and whatever the case might be. But the point is that we can't be passive. We have to defend the truth and the faith according to what the circumstances call for. That would mean, at very least, that if we hear somebody say, well, you know, the church used to approve the death penalty, but now we know that the death penalty is always wrong. You can just say, well, no, actually that's not true, and then try to give some at least, you know, 30 second or one minute account of why that's not true, and then say, look, if you're interested in this, here's a. [00:47:23] Speaker A: Good book or I'll recommend feathers book. [00:47:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, you know, I think we have those responsibilities. It is very difficult for Catholics to say something like, well, you know, like when we've had this situation a lot during Francis pontificate, where a Catholic or a non Catholic would say, well, you all believe that it's okay to be gay because you can get a blessing as A couple and whatever. And then you say, well, actually no, you know what? Pope Francis is mistaken about that. Here's what the Church really teaches. That's extremely awkward for a Catholic to say that. [00:48:00] Speaker A: And most people, both Catholic and non Catholic, will be like, well, I'm taking Pope Francis, I'm taking the Pope over you just some schmo who's telling me he's wrong. [00:48:09] Speaker B: Well, I know, but then you have to ask as the follow up question. So then are you telling me that it's okay that Francis has contradicted John Paul II or that he's contradicted Pius xii? So did those Popes not have the authority to teach the opposite in their day? Oh, no, no. So then if they, if they thought about that, then they would either say, oh, yeah, I guess you have a good point. You know, if all the earlier popes taught that the death penalty was licit in the, in, in the appropriate circumstances, then Pope Francis is somehow an outlier and there's something weird about that. Or they're going to say, well, no, the Pope just gets to say, to determine today there's a new truth. And then at that point, I mean, you're in la la land at that point because what you're, you're saying is that depending upon when you live something, something that used to be taught to be either a mortal sin or even a virtuous act, now is the opposite is a virtuous act. [00:49:05] Speaker A: Or now you're having a philosophical discussion with them, not a discussion about the papacy. [00:49:09] Speaker B: Right, exactly. At that point, you're in the discussion that I like to put it in terms of. Well, the Pope is not the President of the Mormon Church. You know, the, the, the chief prophet of the Mormon Church. He can decide that. Okay, actually you can drink caffeinated beverages because it's been revealed to me now that, that you know, our former, well, that's not the, that's never been the Catholic view of the papacy. Thanks be to God, you know. [00:49:32] Speaker A: Right, yeah. So I, here's, here's something though that I've thought about a lot recently in the last, you know, maybe year or so. And that is now I want to make something clear before I say this. The scandal is the Pope saying something wrong. The scandal is never somebody pointing that out. So I want to make sure that's clear that I'm not trying. The blame, I should say, is probably the better way to put it. The blame is when a Pope says something confusing, erroneous, whatever, scandalous, not on the person who Says, by the way, dad, you were wrong to say that. I mean, that's the thing. And so that being said, though, do you feel like there's a danger of the cumulative effect of constantly criticizing the Pope publicly? And I'm talking about people like me, like you, like Taylor, like, you know, whoever the. Whoever you want, John Henry, you know, you know, people like that. Is there the potential that even if we were right, every single criticism we made, and I'm not claiming any of us claim to be perfect, but just say every single criticism we made was accurate, would the cumulative effect of that not potentially be a problem where maybe we should be? Because, you know, you have. This is a reference book. I'm not talking about this book, by the way, because this is a different thing. This is like trying to just, you know, record everything that happened. But, like, you know, you have 300 pages of things he did that were. That were something was wrong with it. If somebody was out there. And I feel like there might have been a few podcasters who literally every single one, they had a podcast about, but it's like, you know, what is our. Like, where do we pick and choose? Where do we choose our battles and say, you know, the Pope did say. Because I'm, as you probably know, I'm kind of translating this now to Pope Leo. [00:51:25] Speaker B: Yes. [00:51:25] Speaker A: And when. When they say, when a pope says something that. Yes, not great. It's not that, you know, it's not really consistent with Catholic teaching or belief or practice, whatever. But I don't have to say, I don't have to point out every single one to my friends, you know, for public people like us, on my podcast, on your articles, or even just to the person who doesn't have a quote unquote platform, just to their friends or their family or whatever. [00:51:54] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so, I mean, you're bringing up a really good point. And. And let me be clear about this. Everything you're talking about is in the realm of prudential discernment. These are questions of prudence. What you say, how you say it, when you say it. These are all classic prudential decisions. [00:52:09] Speaker A: And I think that your thought process to make, I think it. Help other people. [00:52:14] Speaker B: Sure. And so I think part of being prudent is knowing, as you put it, when to pick your battles. Like, you could object. There are so many things that can be objected to in the modern world that. That you can just become a Debbie Downer, right? Where you're just, like, constantly complaining, constantly criticizing. And if you do that, you might please A certain sub category of people who are like you, who kind of revel in being downers together or something. But, but you're, you're. It's sort of like that saying attributed to Francis de Sales. Maybe he's not the first one to say it, but you catch more fl. With, with honey than with vinegar, you know, so it seems like I, I appreciate it when, And I try to do this. I try to talk about beautiful and true and good things a lot, you know, and not just talk about the things that deviate from the truth, good and the beautiful. So that what you're also doing is you're nourishing people with, with what's valuable and with what's permanent. And then sometimes when you, when it's really important to bring out a certain point that, A certain negative point, well, then you go after Cardinal Roach and you say, this man is an ignoramus and he's very harmful and he's wrong, and here's why and why it matters. But I do think that, like with, with Leo xiv, you know, you know that when he was made pope, there was a kind of great reset. Okay. In a certain sense, right? Everybody, Everybody wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. You once wrote an article about, you know, what it means to give the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, we wanted to think the best of him. And I said at that time, I am not going to fixate on Vatican politics. I'm just not going to do it. The Catholic faith is so much bigger than what the Pope is saying and doing in Rome. We have to get that through our heads. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome. He's the Vicar of Christ, but he's like one tile in a big mosaic. If the Catholic faith could be compared to some kind of grand mosaic of Christ the Pantocrator, you know, in, in an apse of a beautiful Byzantine church or a beautiful Romanesque church, right? The, the papacy is, is, is, is a tile in that. But there are, there are millions of other tiles, too. Again, I'm not downplaying the papacy, but it has a particular role and responsibility. It's not the be all and end all of Catholicism. We know this for. There are too many reasons why we know this. And so I, I just said I'm not going to fixate on every single word and action of Leo xiv. I'm just going to respond to anything major that comes along. Well, frankly, there hasn't been that much to say about Leo xiv. He's been very cautious. Of course, he's praised Pope Francis, he's praised Vatican ii, but there isn't a lot of substance or teeth to what he said so far. And in fact, sometimes I get the distinct impression. I don't agree with this strategy, but I get the distinct impression that he's trying to take. Take certain themes from the last pontificate and make something coherent or orthodox out of them. Or he, he sort of. I think he's trying to take something like C, for example, and, and pull out the weirdness that was there with Francis and just say, like, oh, yeah, well, we've always had synods in the church and people have talked to each other and we have meetings. You know, the synod was founded by Paul vi. And, you know, there are synods and there are Roman synods that go back into the Middle Ages. This is not any kind of novelty. Why don't we just try to do synodality in the way that the Church has always done it, rather than the bizarre way in which it was unfolding in the Francis pontificate? I think the verdict is out still, if that's the expression I want. I don't think we have enough to go by with Leo. He's been very cautious. He's been listening to a lot of people. And most importantly, he is not a tyrant. He is not a dictator pope, to use Henry Sears phrase. He listens to everybody. He has meetings with Cardinal Burke. He praised Cardinal Burke for 50 years of faithful priesthood. He met with Cardinal Zen just the other day. He met with George Weigel before Christmas. I mean, he, he's Bishop Schneider Bishop. These are things. These are, these would be almost unthinkable with, with his predecessor. So, again, I'm not. I think that Leo xiv. I'm not saying he is my favorite pope ever and that he's going to be a traditional pope. I think he's probably going to be in some ways really good, in some ways questionable. Okay, fine. That's the world we're living in. But I have actually been very relieved to let a lot of things go. You know, I don't need to pounce on every. Everything he says, even if you could potentially find something to criticize. So I do encourage that in myself and in others that we need actually to cultivate patience and also a sense of proportion, proportionality. What is the iceberg that we have to warn against so that the ship doesn't ram into it versus the, you know, the, the floating flotsam and jetsam that we can just ignore? Right. It's a difficult question, but yeah, it is. [00:57:28] Speaker A: And I think one of the things that we forget is I think sometimes we want to make the Pope almost like an AI bot that just, it supplies. It supplies doctrine. It tells us this stuff like that we don't recognize that the Pope is a person with a personality. And different popes have different personalities. I mean, we saw that very clearly with JP2 and Benedict, how they had very different personalities. They had basically the same mission, the same idea of what they wanted to do, but they had very different personalities and how they would go about that. Well, Francis, I don't think we. His personality was a major part of what happened during his pontificate in the sense that to use like the Internet slang, he was a troll. I mean, he really was. He purposely tried to like, rile up more traditional, more conservative, more faithful Catholics to upset them. I mean, he kind of almost even. He basically admitted this at times. And so it's natural that part of the whole equation in evaluating his papacy. So if we're going to evaluate the pontificate of Francis, this book, the disastrous pontificate, does a great job, but I think it even goes, and I think you see it in the book when you read it. But you have to recognize living in was something very just surreal because it was like he was purposely trying to upset people that were the most cared about the Catholic faith that tried to practice it, whether it be your tradition as Catholic, your faithful Novus Ordo, you know, going just trying to live out their faith. All those people, I mean, things like, you know, I still remember that the moment, like, I don't want to speak for, but like, my wife kind of turned on him in the sense of like is when he said the breeding like rabbits because she had sacrificed so much to have the kids, the number of kids we had and you know, and you know, and with miscarriages and everything, all the things that she went through, through was a real sacrifice that she never once said, hey, look at me, I make the sacrifice. That's not her personality. But when the Pope, her spiritual father, you know, says like, basically makes fun of that, that's not a. It's not a doctrinal issue per se. That's more of a personality issue. And I, and I feel like that's why I get a bit annoyed when I hear people say, oh, Leo's just Bergoglio too. He's just Francis. It's a completely different personality. I'm not saying he doesn't like if we took a test of their beliefs in orthodoxy and what The Catholic faith teaches there'd be a lot of overlap. I don't deny that. I don't think it wouldn't be a complete overlap. I think there'd be definite ways it wouldn't overlap. But when it comes to personality, it's completely different. Leo does not seem to be trying to antagonize anybody. In fact, I think one of his biggest projects, which I personally think is doomed to failure. I. I say this just with, I think, a realistic look, which is he's trying to bring everybody together in the Church. I think he sincerely thinks, he sincerely desires. Okay, the Father James Martins and the Father, you know. You know, I don't know. Dwight Longenecker and. And the Father, you know, some. [01:00:39] Speaker B: Chad. [01:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, right. Father Rippinger. Exactly. If I can, I'm going to do everything I can to bring them together and realize we're all one big, messy. Yes, but kind of happy family. I personally think that's doomed to failure because I think some of the people inside the Church are not actually functional Catholics, like Father James Martin. So I think that's. And I think he doesn't really recognize that, but at the same time, he includes the Father Rippinger in his. In the Cardinal Burks and the Bishop Schneiders and people and the George Weigels and whoever. Yes, part of his effort. And so I, And Pope Francis clearly didn't do that. So to me, it's like, this isn't like some cheerleading session for Pope Leo, because there's things already I've been concerned about and disappointed, but I do think that that matters. I think the personality Pope matters. It's not. He's not just a robot, but he's. [01:01:33] Speaker B: Actually a real person. For sure. It does matter, because, I mean, as far as we can tell, Pope Leo XIV is gentle and kind and considerate, and that goes for a long ways. I mean, the Pope, whatever else the Pope is, he is sort of the supreme diplomat in the Church. He has to be. He's working on everyone's behalf. He's meeting everyone on behalf of the Church. I mean, he has to. The personality of the Pope, and not just the personality and temperament, but also his way of governing. His style of governing. These things are going to have all kinds of ripple effects, you know, And I think so far, if I had any complaint about Leo xiv, it would primarily be that he seems to be so cautious that he doesn't want to rein in any of the serious problems that there are. So he's willing to let a bishop be very traditional if he wants to. He's not going to Strickland the bishop. [01:02:33] Speaker A: Right. [01:02:33] Speaker B: But he's also willing to let Bishop Martin of Charlotte or Archbishop Eisenberger of, of Detroit just, just run roughshod over the whole diocese. But maybe, you know, maybe in his mind, he's, he's got this conception, which goes back to his dissertation as an Augustinian, about, you know, allowing superiors to govern in their own areas without interference. Well, you know, during the whole Bergoglio pontificate, we complained that Pope Francis was interfering in the. In dioceses. And so now we have a Pope who isn't interfering in dioceses. And we're also upset about that. Well, it's because they're, it's almost like damned if you do, damned if you don't. I mean, we don't want a Pope to micromanage, but we sure would love to have a Pope who would micromanage, you know, Detroit and Charlotte, because they need it. You know, they actually need the Strickland treatment, those places. Right. So I, I, you know, it's just such a. And the other thing, too, I want to say is I think that, that the Internet and social media and just media in general, this has been going on for, for over a century now. It not only does it magnify everything the Pope says and does, and we've taught. You've talked about this, you know, phenomenon and how harmful it is, because it's, it's actually too much scrutiny always being put on the Pope and too much weight being given to him de facto, just by it being broadcast to millions of people in an instant when, you know, in the 19th century, you know. Well, certainly we always joke about how in the Middle Ages, people might not even know who the Pope was. That's the joke, and it's true. But, you know, Even in the 19th century, it would take months for a papal decision to kind of percolate down. And the laypeople often never heard of it because they were all done in Latin and it was only the clergy and the educated, whatever. I mean, it would be so healthy to get back to a world where the Pope was somebody you heard about or heard from once in a blue moon. You know, I mean, and, and the power of his words would be so much greater if that was the case. Right. If it wasn't just every day there's a new tweet from, from, you know, Pontiff, you know, or whatever. [01:04:35] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing about Francis. He was actually the perfect Pope for the social media age. And that's not a Compliment. [01:04:41] Speaker B: I know. [01:04:42] Speaker A: Basically what I mean is he had. He would do and say things that you could very much encapsulate in a short video. You could, you know, it. Have a quote or something you could put on. On X or Facebook, whatever, and then you could have a reaction video, a reaction thing, stuff like that. And I've done it. [01:04:59] Speaker B: You've done it. [01:04:59] Speaker A: I'm not saying that you never should do that. I'm just simply saying it really was a situation that was primed for our social media age, the way he acted. And I will say Pope Leo is a terrible pope so far when it comes for the social media age, which, again, that's not an insult. [01:05:18] Speaker B: Yes. But, you know, here's. But here's a point that can be made, Right? And actually where I was going with this whole discussion of the Internet is that we have been habituated into thinking that change ought to happen pretty much instantaneously, right? Like, like, the old Pope is dead. Now we have a new Pope, okay? Traditions, custodes, needs to be repealed. This needs to be done. This needs to be done. Boom, boom, boom. What's wrong with Leo xiv? A week has passed. He hasn't done it. You know, and I. I think, again, if you look at him carefully, he is. I think he's actually trying to restore normalcy to the papal office where he's. He wants to let there be time. He's not going to do rash decisions. He's exactly the opposite of his predecessor in that respect. He's not going to make spontaneous, rash decisions that cause, you know, havoc in all kinds of ways. Maybe, maybe as a result, he won't do enough. But I think I'd rather have a more laissez faire period of time. I'd rather have a Pope who's hands off than a Pope who is constantly, you know, getting into the works and trying to impose his personal views and his personal attitudes, you know, on everything. Yeah. [01:06:31] Speaker A: And I think you're right, though, because, like, I did podcast earlier recently where I was talking about his state of the world address, and of course, I got comment like, oh, yeah, but he's bergolio, too, because he hasn't, you know, he. He's letting Trodis stand. And I'm just like, you don't. Just because I don't have. I'm not attacking him. I'm just simply critiquing and saying some good things about. He said this reaction of like, oh, we have to now say, no, he's terrible because he hasn't done these Things already, obviously. I want him to overturn Traditionist Custodis. Heck, yes. I want him to institute the traditional Latin Mass as the Roman right for the whole church, just like you. I mean, that's what I really want, of course. I do think, though, you have to understand, like you said, there's like. There's levels of what we. What you know, of good and bad as far as, like. And I do think a more laissez faire papacy at this time is probably a healthy thing in some ways because it. We did have a micromanager, a guy who just tried to disrupt everything for 12 years. And so like you said, he might not do enough, then that might mean tradition just kind of stays in effect and certain bishops are able to do their things. I think the big test will be what will ha. What will his appointments of new bishops, what will they be like and what will they allow? Because if some old Francis bishop is doing terrible things and he lets them go, that's one thing. It's awful for the people who live there. I don't want to undermine, you know, or undercut how. How terrible it is for people in Charlotte, Knoxville, Detroit, other places. But at the same time, if he's bringing in new bishops that aren't like, superstars, they're not like trads or something like that, but at the very least, they're like. They're like more of a Benedict type bishop of like, yeah, we're just gonna church, like, Mass. You guys keep doing your thing, and. And I'm fine with that. I'm not gonna. And, you know, that's, I think, going to be the key. [01:08:17] Speaker B: Sure. Of course. I mean, you know, personnel is policy. And that's something that. That Dominic Grigio really demonstrates with. With Francis, is that he put his money where his mouth was. You know, he not only taught, you know, ABCDEFG errors, but he also put people in place who would support and promote those things. Right. Which. Which I think is kind of a one, two punch argument where it's like, oh, you. You know what I mean? Once you see that, you see how deliberate the process was. [01:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I think I wanna. Okay, I'm gonna wrap this up, but this has been a great discussion. I could go on for hours with you about all this stuff. But I did want to say one thing about the book, which is it really finally puts a lie, puts a clear spotlight on the. On the gaslighting we all received during the Francis pontificate, where the Pope would do something problematic. We'll just say and you get the people who would basically look at it in a vacuum and be like, well, no, because you could look at this with this. It's like, okay, fine. For one thing, I will grant you, like the thing I mentioned about the scoffari quote about Pope Francis thinking that Jesus wasn't really God during his public ministry or whatever. Okay, I'll grant you that, Pope Splainer, that perhaps, whatever, you know, but when you have this relentless 900 page book that's just going through everything, it just really demolishes the gaslighting. And that's the one thing I think is just as a reference book when they. Because you know, the gaslighters still live, they're still around, they're still trying to act like Francis pontificate was this golden age or whatever. And when you can. And when you say one example of a problem that. Well, no, actually, if you understood that properly, that was. He was misquoted in the media, blah, blah, blah. Well, this is kind of like, okay, defend all this. Go through the entire book and defend every single thing in here and then tell me somehow that this wasn't a disastrous punishment. [01:10:13] Speaker B: Pontificate. Yes, exactly. Exactly. No, Amen to that. [01:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:18] Speaker B: Now. [01:10:18] Speaker A: And the hope is that we will not have to have a book with this title again, at least in our lifetime, hopefully forever. Hopefully this will be the first and only book that's ever written called this. Because hopefully we'll not have another disaster. Pontificate. But so we talked about the beginning, where to find you, so we won't go through that again. But I will put links to your tradition insanity, you know, Pelican plus your website and obviously where to buy the book as well, if you want to get it from. I always want to say it's. Oh, I just want to say just because I'm not a good osusti. Is that right? [01:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. O S J U S T I like the, like the introit of the Mass for confessors. Osusti meditabitur sapiensiam et lingua eos loquator judicium. That's, that's the. [01:11:02] Speaker A: I am the, the worst traditional attending Latin Mass, Catholic about Latin. I mean, I have gotten the point now where I actually, there's parts of. When I have my missile open. I will actually follow along in the Latin now because like, you know, the creed or, or the eve or the confettiors, things like that. But I'm still mostly the English guy, you know, I'm just like. And that's fine until I realize people get intimidated by Latin. If I can attend the traditional Latin Mass, so can you, because I'm a big dummy when it comes to Latin. My. My kids are my. One of my daughters, literally one of her majors was in Latin. And I'm just like. You got that from your mother, not from your father. [01:11:42] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Okay. [01:11:44] Speaker A: Well, thank you very much for coming on. I really do appreciate it. [01:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you, Eric. [01:11:49] Speaker A: Okay, until next time, everybody. God love you.