Catholics Are Abandoning the Church

[00:00:00] Foreign should be a wake up call for all Catholics. We are losing members at an alarming rate. What can be done to reverse the tide? That's what I'm going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Hello, Eric Simmons, your host editor chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, you know what to do. Smash that, like, button. [00:00:32] Smash it like. Unfortunately, Catholics seem to be smashing the back door of churches. To get out of there, subscribe to the channel. Let other people know about what we're doing here. You can also follow us on social media at Crisis Mag. Subscribe to our email newsletter. Just go to crisismagazine.com put an email address and we will send you an email a day with our opinion pieces for that day. Usually two a day. Okay. You know all that, though. I didn't have to say it yet again, did I? Well, for the newcomers, I guess I did. [00:01:03] Okay, so let's go ahead and just jump into the main story I want to talk about today, which is last week the Pew Research center released a religious survey. They do these every once every few years. Actually, the Last one was 10 years ago, 2014, 2000 to 11 years ago, where they do a major survey of religion in America. They ask lots of questions and it's not limited to Catholics, but there's a lot of information about Catholics in there because we're the biggest religion in America, if you count Protestantism by each of its denominations. [00:01:38] And honestly, these surveys come out from various groups over time and they're always depressing for Catholics. I mean, there's no other way to put it than to say that because it shows what we all know. We all see it around us because we all have friends and family members who are Catholic, who leave the church, who stop practicing, either become Protestant, become nothing, or whatever the case may be. We see it all around us. So when it's put, though in stark numbers and we see how bad it is, it still is depressing. It still is very discouraging to see. I mean, like I said, we know it's happening. We see it anecdotally all the time. But when you see it right there in print, the numbers, it does. It can be something that can kind of get you down because the truth is every one of those numbers is a soul that needs to be saved, that needs to be united to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. And so we should never, like kind of just blow it off. Like it's not that big a deal. I think it's a very big deal. I'm not saying we Black pill. Or we act like the Holy Spirit's not in charge and blah, blah, blah. All the things that the happy clappies will tell you. But at the same time, we need to be very blunt and very honest about the, the state of the church in America. And it's not good. The, the biggest news that came out of it. I'm going to be showing some charts, by the way, on the screen here. So if you're listening to this as an audio only podcast, I'll try to explain it. But it might be best maybe to watch this on YouTube or rumble instead. [00:03:11] But the most startling one, the one that got the most press, was this chart that said that for every one person that joins the Catholic Church in America, 8.4 people leave the Catholic Church in America. So that means for every 100 people who come, 840 leave. That is a dramatic number. And in fact, it's far worse than our Protestant brothers and sisters. For every one that leaves Protestantism only. I'm sorry, for everyone that joins Protestantism, only 1.8 leave, which isn't good, but boy, it's a lot better than the Catholic numbers. [00:03:57] And then we look at the religiously unaffiliated. These are the nones they talk about. N O N E s that one has almost a reverse of Catholicism. For every person who leaves irreligiously unaffiliated, I. E. They join a religion, 5.9 join their ranks and become irreligious. I mean, just think about that for a minute. I mean, this is the one that jumped out and was the headlines in most Catholic, you know, news sites and everything was the one for everyone that joins 8.4 leave the Catholic Church. It's hard to overestimate how bad that is because we get excited when we see people enter the church. I mean, I've talked about this here. I've seen a number of people who are joining the church. We see an. I don't know if it's an increase, but it might be an increase in number of people joining church. The problem is, is that there is a corresponding greater increased number of people leaving. So what that tells me is we're not necessarily doing a terrible job about bringing new people in the church. We could do better, but we're doing a terrible job at keeping people in the church, people who grew up Catholic, keeping them Catholic. [00:05:08] And we can break down the numbers a little bit more in this other chart from the Pew study. And it shows kind of your religion and whether or not you left or entered. [00:05:20] So in this One it says for Catholics if it was their childhood religion. I'm sorry, sorry. 30% of Catholics it was their childhood religion. [00:05:34] It's negative 12.8% left Catholicism and 1.5 entered Catholicism. And if you look at Protestantism, they had a negative 13.7% leaving. So actually worse than Catholics as far as percentage leaving, Protestantism is actually greater than percentage than the Catholic percentage leaving. [00:05:58] But the big difference is we only had 1.5% enter, they had 7.6%. So what's happening is Protestantism is still attractive, is more attractive to newcomers than Catholicism is. [00:06:12] They're both people are leaving both Catholicism and Protestantism, but more adjoining Protestantism. And so like what I think what this is telling us is that we don't have a huge number of people joining Catholicism, but we are having a steady stream. And I think that's simply because Catholicism is true. And in a world, a culture that is anti truth like our American culture is, people are naturally going to be attracted to it. People of goodwill, openness. The problem is the people who grow up Catholic are so ill formed that they don't even realize that Catholicism is the true faith. That's the irony is that people outside the church are seeing the Catholic Church as the one true religion, as preaching the truth. But the people inside the Catholic Church who grew up Catholic, they actually don't see that because what they see day in, day out growing up is very lackadaisical practice of the faith, terrible homilies, insipid, just bland liturgies, terrible catechesis, all the things we know about scandalous bishops and priests. [00:07:23] And so I really think this is something that we have to grapple with. And I wrote an article today at Crisis and I linked to it in the show notes called Catholics are Rapidly Losing Ground where I detail a lot of these numbers and I but more specifically I give some reasons why I think it's happening. Some things we can do. Let me go through a few more numbers before I talk about that a little bit more because I do think if you and I should have linked to the actual Pew study in the article, but in the show notes, but I do link to it in my article. So here's another one. This is basically if you're the percentage of US adults raised in each religious tradition who still identify with their childhood religion or identify as something else. And I highlighted Catholicism. But if you look like for example, if you were raised Hindu, 82% of those who are raised Hindu are still practice Hinduism, 77% is true of Muslims if you're raised Muslim, 77%, 76% Jewish, 73% religiously unaffiliated. In other words, if you were raised with no religion, there's a good chance you remain with no religion. Look way down though. You see, Catholic is the third worst of this group. Only 57%, only 57% of people who were raised Catholic still identify with Catholicism. [00:08:42] Now one thing I want to mention here, and this is something I mentioned in my article, is the numbers are actually worse than the study says because it doesn't, it just is talking about self identifying Catholics. It's not talking about whether or not the Catholic was, you know, if they're practicing or not. It doesn't, you know, do they go to Mass each week, do they go to confession regularly, do they practice, you know, do they pray regularly, things of that nature. Nothing about that. Just if they self identify. And we know, in fact we know from this study that only about it said only 29% of self identifying Catholics actually go to Mass each week. [00:09:19] And even less than that go to confession at least once a year. So the numbers are actually worse than this as far as practicing Catholics, but still only 57%. [00:09:28] Just a little more than half of those who grew up Catholic still even identify as Catholic. 14% of them are now Protestant. 24% are religiously unaffiliated. Those are the biggest two groupings of people who leave. But I mean, that's just amazing if you think about it. That 24% a quarter, one out of every four people who grew up Catholic now basically say they're nothing. They're nothing. 14% who grew up Catholic now say they are Protestant. Those are terrible numbers. Just, just terrible. Let's look at some more, some more things. Oh, here's interesting. So I said 57%. Remember this chart said 57% of people grew up Catholic. I still identify as Catholic. However, if you grew up in a household where you attended church at least monthly and religious was very important, religion was very important to your family. Like we know as Catholics, if you only attend monthly as a Catholic, religion isn't that important to you. But just this is the best we can do is this pew study. [00:10:30] Then the number goes up to 68% remain Catholic. I imagine if it's weekly, if it was attended church weekly, that number would even be greater. In other words, don't believe the lies that they try to tell you. That like somehow the more you practice your faith as a family with your kids, the more likely they are to reject it. That no study has ever shown that. In fact, they all show the same thing. And that is if you live out the faith as a family, your kids will be much, much, much more likely to still be that faith, no matter what it is. Actually, when they become adults, you stay the same religion as your parents. If your parents actually practice the religion. There's also another one. I don't think I have it on here, but the chart here where if both parents are Catholic, they're much more likely to practice the faith if only one is. So basically what it tells us is these numbers of people leaving the church can be reversed in the family setting, at least by just doing a few things. [00:11:35] Take your faith seriously. As parents go to mass each week, go to the sacraments regularly, and make sure you're both Catholic. If you do that, the likelihood of your kids being Catholic is actually very high. It's at least 68%. I would guess it's probably in the 70s, maybe even 80s percent. [00:11:54] So yes, we all know people who their fa. You know, the parents went to mass each week and the kids fell away. We know that happens. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying the percentage is 100%. However, it's much, much better than the 57% that is the national average. So parents go to mass each week, practice the faith, make sure your kids go to mass, and your kids will likely become remain Catholic. Okay, another chart I want to pull up here. A religious affiliate. Oh, this is just the general. 19% of all Americans identify as Catholics. That's compared to 24% in 2007. So in those really 2024 is when the survey was done. So in those 17 years, there was a decrease in 20%, the number of Catholics. Now it actually be much worse if it wasn't for immigration. If we had zero immigration. Pew study themselves say that number would be much worse, but still a 20% decrease. One thing I wanted to point out was it doesn't really say it on here, but I saw it in another place. Muslims went from 0.4% of the population in 2007 to 1.2% in 2024, which means they increased by 200%. While Catholics were decreasing by 20%, Muslims were increasing by 200%. Now, yes, it's still a very small number of Muslims in this country, but at the same time, they're going in the right direction. By their perspective, we're going in the wrong direction. [00:13:26] Two last charts I want to show, and this is the percentage of adults born that are Catholic say They're Catholic based upon born, what decade they're born in. And what we notice is older generations, it hasn't changed since 2007. If you were born before 19 for 1950, in 2007, 23% were Catholic, 24% are now Catholic, probably because, you know, some died. And so that, that bumped up percentage. In other words, people were born before 1950, they didn't, like, all of a sudden leave the faith between 2017, 2024. [00:14:00] Born in the 50s, same thing, 23%, 23%. Born in the 60s. 26%, 24%. Essentially, what this is saying is you're probably not leaving the church. If you're this old and you're still Catholic, Then it starts to get a little more troubling. Born in the 70s went from 25% to 19%, which is very much the average nationwide. And then born in the 1980s, it went from 22% to 15%. That's a huge drop. Born in the 1990s, from 16 to 13%. And now born in the 2000s, only 14%. The point is, is that younger generations are leaving the church more frequently. Now, some of that's because the older generations, that ones who have left have already left before the surveys were done. But the point is, is we're not keeping our members. We're not keeping our kids. I think that's probably the best way to put it. We're not keeping our kids in the church. [00:14:55] And we see it all the time how we see, you know, we have, we, we know people, they grow up in a cat, in a Catholic family, they don't really practice that much. And then the kids go off to college and they leave the church. It just happens over. And we're seeing the numbers. It's happening a lot. We're not keeping them in. [00:15:11] And I'm not going to detail all the things I think need to be done in the church to reverse this, this, you know, what's happening. [00:15:20] But I, I'm going to make the same point here. I made my article, and that is we're at a point where radical changes are needed. [00:15:30] One of the things that's the most frustrating, I worked for the church for five years, formally in the diocese and also informally at a parish for about five years before that, maybe almost ten years before that. So very long time. I was very involved in working directly with the church. Now I'm kind of, you know, I volunteer at my parish and whatnot, but I'm not in that position anymore. But one thing I found was the incredible power of the status quo. What I mean by that is most people who work for the church, whether they're a bishop, a priest, or a layperson, they're stuck in a rut. They simply do things like they've always been done. [00:16:07] And how they've always been done really means how they've been done since 1970, according approximately, because things did radically change in the 1960s. [00:16:17] But essentially how things are being done in the church are essentially the same today as they were in the 70s. Yes, I do think some things have gotten much better, but they're the same basic format in everything. We do programs, you know, how we do catechism, how we do the liturgy, how we do, you know, parish organization, all that stuff is the same. It has not changed. [00:16:39] And there's really not very many people within the church calling for a radical change. But that's exactly what we need. We need a radical change in how things are done. Here's a few examples I just gave in my article, which were just literally things that I was like, okay, what comes to my head first, I put promote homeschooling among Catholics. I mean, the fact is our kids are not getting catechized, and I guarantee you our homeschoolers are. [00:17:03] Why are we investing all this money in a failed school system? Yes, I know there are some schools that do that are doing better than others. But the fact is, what I found, and I think a lot of people found this homeschoolers, is that the church has invested so much institutional capital in our schools that we're not willing to really embrace homeschooling, that we treat it like the ugly stepchild that we kind of are embarrassed by and we allow, but we don't really encourage. No, what I'm saying is the Catholic Church should say, parents, homeschooling your kids should probably be the first option if you want your kids to remain Catholic. We admit we failed in our Catholic schools. So you need to homeschool. If you can't homeschool for whatever reason, we'll try to offer a good Catholic school. Don't send them to public schools, obviously, but we'll try to offer a good Catholic school. But really, you should homeschool them. Honestly, I think that's something the Catholic Church. That's a radical change that I think would do wonders. I'm willing to bet if you did a few religious survey that included breakdown by homeschoolers, I guarantee you the percentage of homeschool kids that remain Catholic is much higher than the national average. I Am willing to bet everything on that. So encourage homeschooling. Promote it, obviously make the traditional at Mass more widely available. I mean this is just. [00:18:26] We've talked about this enough that you know why I think that I put abolish the usccb. I've talked about that in a podcast. Halt all inter religious activities, all of them. If you have some scheduled event where your pastor is going to go and pray at some service or be it something with the local, you know, synagogue leader or rabbi or local, you know, Muslim leader, whatever, don't do it. In fact, I'd even say cancel all the ecumenical activities with Protestants as well. [00:18:54] The simple fact is, is what it does. And I've wrote about this in my book Deadly Indifference. I was going to grab it, but it's out of my reach. Deadly Indifference. I wrote about this. The problem is it gives the, it gives the message to most people that doesn't really matter if you're Catholic or not. If it doesn't matter if you're Catholic or Protestant. Doesn't also doesn't matter if you're anything. And that's what people are doing. They're leaving for nothing, most of them. [00:19:19] So just cancel all interreligious activities. Just it's like an America first thing. Let's do Catholics first. You just focus on what the Catholics and like shoring up our, our strengths and keeping our people don't worry about who cares if we do some stupid event that nobody, that nobody remembers, you know, as far as like what it was about, but they remember in their minds that the message it sent that it doesn't matter what religion you are. Who cares about those events. What we really should care about is saving souls, keeping people in the church. So abolish all interreligious activities. A return to using the Baltimore Catechism everywhere. If you are going to have catechism at your parish. Baltimore Catechism, when you encourage homeschooling, tell your parents, use the Baltimore Catechism. [00:20:04] Bring back year long Friday abstinence. Why do I say that? Because I think that's a very much a Catholic identifier. Why? One of the things, sociologically speaking, that matters to keep people in a religion is those identifiers. What are things that make you identify and kind of remain with your religion? Things like Friday absence is a big deal because you go to work, your co workers see you're not eating meat and they're like, why? He's like, oh, because I'm Catholic. It becomes a thing. Ash Wednesday, of course, with the Ashes is one of those things. We need more of those identifiers, not less. They really do help keep people in the church. And the last one I put down was shut down all parish sports leagues that play on Sundays. This is a pet peeve of mine. That's why I threw it in there. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but it does send a message that Sunday should be reserved for the Lord, not for, you know, your local T ball team or, you know, travel soccer team or whatever idiotic thing you think is more important than, than Sunday. [00:21:01] There's a lot more that could be said that could be done. The point is, like, we need to literally look at everything. Now. Obviously we're not going to change things that are of divine nature. We're not going to abolish the hierarchy or get rid of the sacraments or anything stupid like that. But I do think what we need to do is really look carefully at every single thing we do, how we do it, and say, does this really, does this really bring souls to Christ? Will it keep people in the church? And if it doesn't, don't do it and do something different. I just think this is, I, I, when these surveys come out, I kind of go on this emotional roller coaster myself. Not a real emotional guy, but for me, you know, emotional roller coaster. First I get upset, I get like depressed. I'm like, oh, this is terrible. I knew it was going to come. I knew it was bad, but this shows how bad it is. Then I think to myself, well, maybe, just maybe this will be the wake up call to tell the bishops, to tell our priests, you got to do things differently. It's not working. We have to radically change how we do things. [00:22:05] But then ultimately we don't see any changes. I'm hoping this time maybe it will come up. Maybe at least one bishop will really take this to heart. Maybe a few priests will take this to heart and really make some those radical changes that are needed and be willing to do that. [00:22:20] So pray for the church in America. Obviously pray, you know, that, that all those who remember, every single person that's leaving the church, all those 840 that are leaving, for every hundred that come in, there are souls redeemed by Christ, loved by Christ and whom Christ wants to be with him forever, and they're abandoning his church. We need to pray for them and do everything we can to bring them back and, but even more importantly, because make us a no more leave. [00:22:47] Okay, that's, that, that's, that's the big story for the week. But I want to talk about some other stuff today on the podcast. So the, the big news nationally, like, kind of politically, was the, the battle royale in the White House last Friday. I think it was between President Trump, Vice President Vance and President Zelensky of Ukraine. [00:23:10] I mean, if you haven't watched this, you got to watch it. It just is wild, frankly, to see. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. All the commentators I've heard said the same thing. They haven't ever seen anything like this before. Basically, it was like a nice little press conference where they were going to announce, you know, having a deal for, for minerals and, you know, which is kind of a dumb deal, but they're going to do that. [00:23:33] And Trump was trying so hard, he wanted to deal. That's Trump. He loves to declare he made a deal. So he was bending over backwards to be patient with Zelinsky, to be gracious to him, and then Zelinsky just threw it all away, and he basically just went after JD Vance for no reason. And then he crossed the line and then Trump went after him. Like I said, watch the video and you can see. I'm not going to detail everything that happened, but the fact is, and then Trump announced, I think it was yesterday, that no military. We're going to pause all military funding. Ukraine. Now, I think I've made my views pretty clear here, but I think that United States has to stop all support of Ukraine. In fact, I think the United States needs to pull out NATO. The founding principle of NATO does not exist anymore. I can't emphasize that enough. It was literally created as a defense against the Soviet Union. A country that does not exist. [00:24:32] Don't do, don't ever forget that NATO's purpose no longer exists. [00:24:39] And so we should not be part. NATO shouldn't exist, but we need to pull out of NATO because what it does, it creates these moral hazards, like what's happening now where. What happens is that, you know, countries, they are, they take on more. They're willing to, they're more bold, they're more aggressive than they should be based upon their own realities of who they are, how big they are, their resources, because they know they got big brother Uncle Sam behind them to basically back them up. I made the analogy on X that it's like the scrying little brother who goes in the bar, starts. Start bar and starts talking smack to everybody because his Navy SEAL brother is with him. He knows anything goes down, his brother's got his back. It creates moral hazards. It Makes countries act differently than they would if they were not part of NATO. [00:25:26] And so the reality is. Here's what the reality is. I know people want to act like some people act like it's a cartoon, it's a comic book. Where the world started on February 23, 2022, with the invasion of Russia into Ukraine. But the conflict dates way back before then. I've written about this before, I've talked about this before. Again, read the book provoked by Scott Horton if you want to know all the details. I mean, it's a tome of details. I mean, 700, 800 pages, something like that, of all the details that led to this point. But the reality is, is that Ukraine has never could win this war. It just simply can't. The only way you could get a quote, unquote victory in this war would be if the United States sent troops in and went into an all out battle war with Russia in which they could potentially and probably would eventually win, but only at the cost of probably millions of lives, nuclear weapons being set off, death and destruction everywhere. That would be our, quote, unquote, victory. That's the only way there could be a situation in which Ukraine could, quote, unquote, win this war. And because of that, you need to recognize that reality. And so us just continually sending them money and military equipment, and there's rumors that they're actually selling some of this military equipment to the highest bidder. But even if that's not true, all it does is it puts more Ukrainian men into the meat grinder to be killed. And the end result is going to be what it would have been if we had just negotiated peace from the beginning. I mean, I don't. There is absolutely no strategic interest for the United States for the Donbas region, none whatsoever. Whether or not Kiev or Moscow rules Donbas is simply irrelevant to American interests. And I know people don't like to hear that talk. They're like, oh, but that's not very Christian or that's not very compassionate that, you know, what about those poor people? Blah, blah, blah. First of all, most of those poor people there actually want to be ruled by Moscow. But even if that wasn't the case, there's a lot of evil in the world, There's a lot of bad things going on in the world. We can't solve everybody else's problems and our involvement just makes it worse. That's the reality. I mean, here's the thing. [00:27:37] People love to make World War II and Churchill like the model for every geopolitical conflict in the world. I mean, you see this all the time. Like, there's literally only one conflict that ever matters, and that's World War II. Everything has to be based on that, which is, of course, idiotic. It's historically ignorant. It just. It's not simply the case that everything fits into that mold. But even if we went with that, what happened when World War II was over? [00:28:04] What did those great heroes, Churchill and FDR do? [00:28:09] They literally gave over half of Europe to Joseph Stalin. [00:28:16] They gave half of Europe to. I mean, they didn't just say, like, you know, oh, we're not going to look. We're like, this is yours. You can control this half of Europe. Why did they do that? Because they recognized not to do that could cause a lot worse problems. It would cause a potential direct conflict with the Soviet Union, which they did not want. [00:28:37] And what we're saying now is, because of Donbas, we're willing to go to escalate to potentially a nuclear war so that Moscow can't control Donbas. [00:28:48] I just think that's ludicrous. And every neocon on Earth, the first thing they always say is, but if we don't do this, then all these worse things are going to happen. But they just make up those worst things. The worst things are going to happen is the more we get involved. [00:29:01] And so I praise Donald Trump very much for what he's doing here. It's tough. It's kind of like that tough love. The funny thing is, of course, once he announced he cut off the funding, Zelensky I just saw before I got on the podcast here that he said, okay, we will agree to the mineral deal. [00:29:19] So, I mean, Trump usually gets what he wants in negotiations anyway. Another interesting thing that I think that has resulted from this is Europe, Europe's response. The NATO countries, other than America, many of them, not all of them, like, not Hungary, they are basically saying, okay, we are going to stand with Ukraine. We are going to send money. We are going to send military equipment. We are. In fact, I just saw earlier today, they have this initiative called Rearm Europe, and they're gonna. It's an initiative that's gonna spend 800 billion euros in a defense investment plan. [00:29:52] Honestly, that's great. That's great. That's been the point of people like me for ages. It's a European problem. Let the Europeans deal with it. America shouldn't have to worry about it. And this is what conservatives have kind of been saying is, like, we've been carrying the load for NATO for decades. They need to do something to carry it as well. Well, Trump comes in and a few weeks later, now all of a sudden that's going to happen. [00:30:14] That's a good thing. Let, let, I mean, hey, if United Kingdom wants to send their troops to Ukraine, go ahead. I mean, I think it's stupid if they do that. It risks a lot more death and destruction. But at the same time they do what they got to do. They're going to run their own countries in the ground. They already are with their unlimited immigration and their, their WOKE policies and all that stuff. But let them do that. But America does not need to get involved. So I would say not only do we should we cut off all funding for Ukraine, we should leave NATO as well. And by the way, for those who are wondering, just so you know, I also think we should cut off all funding to Israel and that's not our strategic interest either. So. But, but I just think this is a fascinating thing. Trump is dealing with this as no president has before. And I think it, I think it's great. [00:31:04] Next story. I want to talk about Pope Francis. He is still in the hospital. It seems like every, it's like there'll be a day where they announce something bad happened, you know, some setback in his health and there'll be a day or two where everything's fine and then another day where a setback happens. And again, there was a big setback yesterday, a couple respiratory incidences. He's on non evasive medical ventilator, something like that as well. [00:31:29] I think it's pretty obvious that Pope Francis is probably not going to ever leave the hospital. He's going to die there. Whether it's this week or in a month, I don't know. I'm not a medical professional. I make no claim to be. I'm simply going by my own experience, watching my own parents pass away and some others, like aunts and uncles have passed away, that this just seems to be the way it goes. They have a point where it becomes true that they simply, their body is shutting down. It's starting not to be able to resist different things that happen. [00:32:03] And so it just, I think this is, I think this is the end again. I don't know the days, you know, how long it's going to be. I just don't think he's going to recover from this. [00:32:13] Maybe they'll bring him back to the Vatican. I don't think so. Maybe if they brought all the medical equipment. I've heard there's stories about that maybe happening. Okay, but he I don't think he's going to get back to, back to health. [00:32:24] One of the things I want to bring up, and I'll talk about this more after he passes, is simply we're going to have to be honest about his papacy after he dies. There'll be a lot of emotions, A lot of people won't want to canonize him. As soon as he dies, we'll talk about, you know, he's the greatest Pope ever. I mean, I've already seen this happening because we get emotionally reflective when somebody's dying, and we only think the best stuff like that. But the fact of the matter is, is we need, we're going to need to be honest. And hopefully the cardinals in the next conclave, excuse me, will be honest, and they that will. And that honesty will be reflective in who they vote for as the next Pope. [00:33:07] I just think that's, that's the right thing to do. And again, I think I mentioned on another podcast, but it's okay to pray for the Pope to have a happy death. When both my mom and dad passed away, I got to a point where I actually was like, okay, obviously I love them to stay with me forever, but it's time for them to go. I can tell they're ready, their body's ready, they need to go. And I'm praying for a happy death for them. The same, we can do the same for Pope Francis. It's not like somehow anti Catholic or something to think that that's just, that's the way of life. We know he will die one day. [00:33:40] It's not like he's, he's immortal. And to say, if this is his time, let it be his time. Let him be ready for it. I think that's. There's not absolutely nothing wrong with that. [00:33:50] Next subject I want to bring up is Andrew Tate. Now, I will admit I'm not a huge, like, I don't have a huge knowledge base of Andrew Tate. If you don't know who he is. He's a pretty well known online, at least one of these, like, brothers, guys, man, masculine, whatever, who, who talks a big game about how to be a man and stuff like that. And he is a despicable human being. I mean, there's just no other way to put it. He is a sex trafficker. He is a, you know, he, he brags about sleeping with underage people, I believe. And I mean, just the things he says are awful. I mean, and when I say he's a sex trafficker, I mean just simply that I'VE seen videos where he talks about things like that, about prostituting women. He talks about being violent to women. He talks about. He denigrates marriage. He talks about the. The fact that real men will sleep with lots of women, impregnate lots of women. I mean, just vile, disgusting stuff. And he got in the news because supposedly the Trump administration made it possible that he could return to America with his brother. I guess they were in Romania. There were some charges there. I don't know all the details, but people are like, why would Trump spend political capital on this guy? And it is. I am curious about that. How much was Trump involved? How much were his people involved? Who was it? Who made this happen? I mean, Tate is not a good guy. One of the things I noticed, though, is a lot of people talk about how, you know, it's awful that Catholics and Christians are influenced by him and things like that. [00:35:20] I don't think he does influence actual practicing Catholics very much. [00:35:25] I mean, I talk to a lot of young men who go to Latin Mass or maybe don't even go to Latin Mass, but go to Mass regularly. They go to confession regularly. You know, students at Franciscan University of Steubenville, people, kids in my parish, not one of them thinks highly of Andrew Tate. Not one of them follows him. They all think he's a degenerate. Yeah, he's got an online following, but don't. Don't make that demean that those. I mean, most of those people who follow him online, I bet you are in cells in their mom's basem who are up, you know, who are just mad at the world. I mean, they're losers. I mean, if you do follow Andrew Tate, you are a loser by definition, because he's a loser. And people who follow losers are losers. So I. I don't think we should overemphasize that. That being said, I do think there is a reason why these kind of, you know, people who try to really talk about masculinity and how to be a man, usually the more you talk about it, the less you actually are yourself. If you're spending all your time talking about how, here's how you be a real man, you probably aren't a real man, because real men actually don't talk about that. But, like, there is something to be said for how effeminate the Church is and how feminism has taken over this country. I mean, just your. Your average priest in a lot of parishes comes across very effeminate with very effeminate homilies, and just a Real, like, I mean, a real vibe that comes across. I mean, let's be honest, kind of gay. [00:36:52] And so young men are just not attracted to that. I mean, I wrote an article a couple years ago for Crisis, before I even became editor in chief, that is literally the most, like, I think the second most viewed article in the history of Crisis. And it was no church for young men. And I was talking about the need for parishes to attract young men, like men in their 20s who are just starting off families because they're leaving in droves, you know, as we've talked about earlier in this podcast. And I think it's because they're just simply. If you walk into your typical St. Suburbia, it's kind of set up to send men away because it's very. Like I said, it's feminine. You got your felt banners, you got your. Your. Your hymns that are just like 1970s folk music. You have a billion women up there who are like, running the show basically, with. With Father, you know, you know, Father Effeminate sitting back there and kind of watching I'll Go and making his dumb jokes and things like that. That is just all too common, unfortunately. And so I can see why young men are not attracted to that if they don't really understand underneath what the Catholic faith is about, the Eucharist and things of that nature. I can see why when they look at the surface like, I'm out of here. And some of them, yes, maybe go to somebody like an Andrew Tate who projects an image of masculinity, it's all fake. It's all fake and gay, as they would say, but it is a projection. And so I do think that as Catholics, we just need to reject that message. [00:38:23] Rejecting feminism does not mean embracing Andrew Tate and people like him. We should reject feminism, but we should also reject Andrew Tate and embrace true masculinity, which we see in somebody like St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, and of course, our Lord. [00:38:37] Okay, finally, the white pill, the week. We always have to have the white pill of the week. I. At least I try to always have that. Lynch starts tomorrow. Today is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, where you want to call it. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. So get in your treats or whatever today and hunker down tomorrow. Why is this a white pill? Because the fact of the matter is, is our Lord through the church, has given us this wonderful opportunity to reset our spiritual lives. We all need it. You know you need it. I know I need it. It's amazing. It's like clockwork every year as we approach Lent, I realize, man, I have fallen off the wagon as far as really being serious about my faith. [00:39:17] I've let the little things slip. I don't do as much prayer as I used to. If I was praying an hour a day before, now maybe I've gotten, I've reduced it to me 45 minutes or a half hour, something like that. If I did certain practices like I was doing, deny myself certain things after, like dessert, after dinner, something like that, I stopped doing that. Or maybe I was telling myself, okay, I'm going to restrict how much I'm, I'm scrolling on the Internet or on X and I started doing that more. All these things. I'm not reading as many spiritual books where the case may be. You can tell I'm giving you my own examination conscience. But we all have them. We all know what they are. [00:39:51] Link comes and says, okay, wake up, wake up and get back to it. And I just want to encourage people to really make this link your best ever. Make lint great again and don't be afraid to aim high. Now I've told this story before, I tell it again. You know, 33 years ago I became, I decided to become Catholic. And actually the days match this year in that I decided to become Catholic on Tuesday. And the Wednesday following a week and a day later was Ash Wednesday. That's the way it was this year too. And I decided to give up eating for Lent. I mean, I basically eat just some bread, have bread and water every day during Lent. I crashed and I failed. And I learned from that, to moderate some of that. But at the same time, I love that enthusiasm I had as a, as a, as a young person. I was 21 at the time. Don't ever lose that enthusiasm. Honestly, in my opinion, it's better to aim high and to not reach it than aim low and reach it. If you aim very high and you fail somewhat and you try and you try, I think our Lord honors that more than having a very low expectations and like barely meeting that. Who cares if you do that? So really aim high about, you know, your fasting, your prayer and alms giving this year. If you, you know, pray at least an hour a day, really give till it hurts and definitely give up something serious and fast from food. Don't just like, do the whole, like, I'm not going to, I don't be on Facebook. Okay, fine. But really give up something serious. I think that's our white pill. Because that, to do something courageous for Lent, that really will make a difference and that will make it so that we have people, you know, we have people not leaving the church when they see what we're doing and our penances and our prayers offered up for their soul. [00:41:37] Okay, last thing I want to do is I want the live chat. I really appreciate everybody who participates in the live chat who watch me live here on Tuesday afternoons. I like to highlight a few of the comments. We had a good chat today, it looked like. Okay, so first, it's all good. Says by the Bishop banning the TLM in the Austin Diocese last year, the attendance numbers dropped up big time. I mean, let's be honest. We know that. We know the tlm, the Traditional Latin Mass needs to be expanded. I made the comment in my article that the restoration, the wide celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass is not the silver bullet that's going to solve every problem. However, I would say it's the starting pistol, meaning that's what gets the race started. If we want to really have a true reform, really turn things around, I think you have to have an expansion of the celebration of the church Latin Mass. I think it's absolutely necessary. I mean, obviously my deal is like that becomes the normative. Right. Again, that that's what every parish celebrates. But even, not even, not even going that far, it needs to be free again. I mean, there's just no question about that. [00:42:40] Okay, Cap C Log says even Catholics who see devout Catholics observe the Friday abstinence Lent season or not become confused and do not honestly know the Friday abstinence ramp up the catechism. Bishops and priests. Yeah, it's true. I mean that we see that sometimes we're like fellow Catholics don't even understand the Friday abstinence, even during Lent. And so, but that's what we need to do is by practicing it, by, by highlighting it, by, by the church leaders saying, we got to give up meat, let's give up meat, not just on Fridays of Lent, but all year round. That does make an impact. It's not just a minor little thing. It really does make an impact. [00:43:16] James says, comment from X. Turns out the New World Order needs the American taxpayer. Yes, that is very true. I mean, that's what's interesting about this is when all of a sudden America says, hey, we're going to cut off all the funds to Ukraine. All of a sudden now it's like, well, things aren't going the way they want it to. I mean, it sounds like I was funding the New World Order through my taxes. And thanks to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Maybe I won't be as much going forward. [00:43:42] Daniel Verney says, Eric, you're such a Catholic fundamentalist. Thank you, Daniel. Which is great, in my humble opinion. Loved your book Deadly Indifference. We need to get back our missionary zeal. Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate that comment. He, of course, is referring to the article. I'm sorry, the book that was written that included me as a case study in a chapter about being a Catholic fundamentalists and how that was supposedly a bad thing. But I appreciate the, the, the plug for my book Deadly Indifference. It really is. I think it's, it's more important than we realize. Religious indifference in this country, in, in, inside the church, has really sapped all our missionary zeal. We need to recognize and proclaim the Catholic Church is the one true faith. Outside the church, there's no salvation. If you want to go to heaven, you need to be a practicing Catholic. We need to proclaim those things again. And because we don't, a lot of people are leaving. People aren't even trying to keep them from leaving. [00:44:35] Okay. C. Kevin Crow says Trump may do some good things, but he's not our guy. And I'm not sure Vance is either too strong. Theo connections we can cautiously and critically prove their actions when good. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, I'm more enthusiastic about Trump and Vance, especially Vance, than you are, Kevin, but I understand your point. I mean, I think to me, you just simply praise a politician when he does something good and you criticize him when he does something bad. In my mind, Trump has done a few very bad things so far as president. The IVF thing, obviously, very bad. The occupying Gaza thing, getting all the policy, that's a bad thing. And there's been some other bad things as well. But on the whole, I think he's done a great job. Vance. I hear the whole thing about the Thiel connections. The fact is, is like, I feel like that I just don't really care that much when it's like, okay, he knew this guy, he was friends with, he came up, whatever. What is he doing? Do we see some nefarious thing in what Vance is doing? Vance has been amazing as vice president. He has been the best vice president of my lifetime, probably in the history of America. [00:45:43] I don't care if he used to be friends with Peter Thiel or if he still is friends with him. What I care about is what's he doing, what's he saying, what he's doing. What he's saying right now is great. And I think he is our guy now, Will he screw up? Will he do the bad things? Of course, all politicians do. I think we just judge it based on the action, so not on, you know, other things. Okay. If you're not on tour, you probably don't know who he is. Oh, that's. I think you're talking about Andrew Tate. Yeah, I think. Oh, grap. Thor's hammer. I know the reference. I do know where that. By graph. Thar's hammer, I will avenge thee or something like that. [00:46:16] If you're not. Yeah, that's the thing is, I think people like, I saw a woman, a Catholic woman on, on, on X, who was really upset about, like, supposedly all his big support for Adam, for Andrew Tate and how that's awful and stuff like, men are terrible. Stuff like that. It's like, come on, take a break. And realize in the real world, as they say, go touch some grass. Andrew Tate is not that big a deal to the average American, even the average Catholic, and especially not the average practicing Catholic. They just don't know who he is or they don't care, or they think he's a loser. So let's not. Let's not overemphasize his influence. Okay, I think I'm going to cut it off there. I appreciate, like I said, everybody who joins in live chat. Make sure you do that if you can. I almost always Friday, I'm sorry, Tuesday afternoons, usually at 3:00 Eastern Time. I try to do the live. A live podcast and you can join in the chat. We'll try to. You can discuss with other people while I'm talking. You can also, you know, bring up things that I'll hopefully bring up at the end. So. But let's pray for the church in America. Let's pray for the people of Ukraine. They're the ones who are in the middle of the conflict, who are dealing with all this stuff going on. Let's pray for the Pope, obviously. Let's pray for the conversion of Andrew Tate. I mean, you know, he's a soul that Jesus Christ loves as well, so we want him to convert as well and make Lent great again. [00:47:34] Okay, everybody, until next time, God love.