Church Shopping and the SSPX Option

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:10] Church shopping has been a hotly debated topic in the Catholic world lately. There's a lot of advice being given out there, most of it bad. [00:00:19] So today we're going to take a look at a Catholic's obligation in choosing a parish, including what I would call the nuclear option, the Society of St. Pius X Chapel. [00:00:32] Okay, so I'm Eric Sammons, your host inner chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started into that topic, I just want to note that for those who watch regularly, as you know, a couple weeks ago we, we changed the setup in the studio here and we got new equipment. But you also probably noticed that the lighting and the camera just didn't seem that good. And it wasn't. I got a dud. [00:00:59] I bought a new camera and it was not good. [00:01:02] So needless to say, I exchanged it and replaced it and I have now a new camera. And I think this looks a lot better. But let me know if you don't think so. Hopefully I won't have any more technical problems. Hopefully. Everything is kind of settled now, but still tweaking things here and there and just working on it. Another thing I want to note before we get into the topic of church shopping is Lent is right around the corner. In fact, it's a week from tomorrow. If you're listening to this live, on Tuesday, the 10th of February, week from tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. We're in Septajustima season right now. [00:01:36] Of course, during Lent, we're supposed to intensify our prayer, fasting and almsgiving. [00:01:43] If you are looking for a way to intensify your prayer during Lent, I have a recommendation. [00:01:49] Is this book the Stations of the Cross in Slow Motion? [00:01:55] What subtitle A Daily Devotion for Lent is by my wife. It's by my wife, Suzanne. [00:02:02] It's very good. And I am saying that because she's my wife, but also because it's very good. I highly recommend it. Basically what it does, it takes you through the stations of Lynn each. I'm sorry, the stations that cross each. Each day through Lent. [00:02:16] And so that way you can, you go through all the stations through lint, you have a daily devotional. [00:02:22] It's kind of modeled after our Jesse Tree book. For those of us, for those of you who kind of know about the Jesse. Remember the Jesse Tree book? It's modeled after that, in a sense. [00:02:33] But I, I just, like I said, I highly recommend it. [00:02:37] Oh, you can buy it at my website, ericsammons.com, just go ericsammons.com, you'll see it on the homepage, stations across in slow motion. And you will get a signed copy from my wife if you buy it there. [00:02:49] So again, lint's coming up. You need to pray more anyway, and this is a great tool to do that. [00:02:56] Okay, so let's go ahead and get into the actual topic of the day, which is church shopping or church hopping. I've heard both terms and they actually mean something different. I've realized I'm mostly going to talk about church shopping, but I also want to mention church hopping. So this has been a debate ever since I've been Catholic for 30 plus years now. And in fact, I've moved, our family's moved, I think five times to five different locations with, you know, different states and cities and everything. [00:03:25] And so we've had to decide each time what parish will we attend. [00:03:31] And so this has been something that is very practical to me and I think it's practical for most people, most Catholics is the idea of do you go to your local parish or your territorial parish, or do you look for a different parish if you think that parish isn't very good? [00:03:49] And so like I said, this debate's been going on for decades, but it's heated up lately. And the person I think most responsible for that is Patrick. [00:03:58] Nev. I'm not. I apologize. Patrick, if you're listening, his last name is spelled N E V E. Maybe it's Neve. Nev. Neve. I don't know. [00:04:07] Patrick. [00:04:09] He posted on Substack recently arguing against church hopping and he titled it the parish you hate might need you. I'm going to link to these articles I'm mentioning here in the show notes, by the way, so you can see them. And really, to be honest, I got to give Patrick low credit. This was great marketing because he's got a book that he just self published called save your parish. I think I linked to that in the show notes as well, where he's basically defending, trying to, you know, basically sticking out your parish and making it better. [00:04:39] Now his article though was a little interesting because he starts with this idea of driving 30 minutes to your parish. [00:04:45] But then what he gets into more is then he talks about, which would be to my mind, church shopping, finding the best parish and going there. But then really the article is much more against church hopping, which is changing your parish frequently. So you start with one parish, you go to another parish and whatever the case may be. [00:05:07] And so those are two different things. Church shopping, I would say, is you are looking for the best parish you can go to and you go there, you find it and you make a decision, you stay there unless something major happens. That would be church shopping, church hopping would be you basically you're not sticking to any parish. You go to one parish maybe for a little while, you change your mind, you go to another parish, change your mind, go to another parish. And so I'm not 100% sure how much Patrick is against church shopping as he is against church hopping, but he seems to also be against church shopping, like really defending the idea of just attending your local territorial parish. [00:05:46] Now Crisis magazine actually has had three articles in the past month about this topic. And it's kind of funny because as most of you know, I've kind of gotten off social media, so I didn't know this was a big debate and we had articles about it anyway. [00:06:03] First, Kevin DiCamillo, and I hope I don't misfront your name since you're a writer for Crisis. He wrote an article called Looking for a New Parish and Crossing Some off the List. This was about a month ago. [00:06:14] And what happened to Pat, what happened to Kevin is his parish was shut down, it was closed. So he had to find another parish, he had no choice. So now he's looking and he basically saying it's, it's not good out there. [00:06:27] What he's finding is, is not, are not good options. So he wrote that. And then my friend Jason Negry, he wrote an article a couple weeks later called All Hands on Deck and he is defending the idea of basically attending your territorial parish and making it better. You stick with it and you do the work, hard work it takes in order to make that parish better. [00:06:51] And then finally just yesterday we had another article by August Myrat and he wrote it was titled the Problem of Destination Churches. And he is also critical of the idea of finding your own finding church shopping, so to speak. But he does acknowledge, especially in the case of people with children, that it might be necessary. So he's kind of a third way in the idea of yes, you might might find it necessary at certain times of your life, but really as you get older, maybe you should stick it out at your territorial parish and consider that one. And so what's interesting is that I got a number of emails from people who were pro church shopping and they were a little surprised because they know who that I attended traditional at mass 30 minutes away. [00:07:35] Why would I be running articles that are defending sticking with your territorial parish? Well, first of all, I'm running them because I believe in a lot of I believe in debate in the Catholic world about things we are allowed to debate about. We can't debate about the Trinity, for example, or the Immaculate Concession, but we can debate about the prudent decisions that we have to make when it comes to what parish we go to. So what I want to do here, though, is I want to give my own views of what I think about church shopping. [00:08:07] So essentially, I think every single Catholic should church shop. [00:08:13] In fact, I would even argue it's a moral obligation to church shop because of the state of the church today, particularly the state of parishes today. [00:08:24] I think every Catholic is obliged on some level to church shop. Now, they might end up at their territorial parish, they might end up at a parish 45 minutes away, but I don't even think it's an option. In fact, I think you're not being a responsible Catholic if you don't do some level of church shopping. [00:08:46] The fact is, we have to live in reality, not in a fantasy world of an ideal church in which every parish is very similar, in which every pair, you know, every parish has good priests, good music, everything else, good catechesis, a reverent Mass, all that. [00:09:04] Instead, what we need to do is look at reality. [00:09:07] And the reality is that most parishes are pretty bad. In fact, I've. I think. I really think that most Catholics are numb to how bad most parishes are. When I talk about parishes, parish life being bad, I get a lot of pushback a lot of times from Catholics like, oh, my parish is fine, stuff like that. But then when you ask a little more details about it, I don't really think it is fine. I just think we're so used to it, we don't recognize what makes a good parish, what is necessary for a good parish. We're just used to these bland, very average, below average, frankly, parishes that have liturgies that aren't really reverent music that's not very uplifting, you know, lots of different things of that nature. [00:09:58] And I just think we're used to it. And so our bar has lowered so much over the years that we don't even recognize a bad parish when we see one. [00:10:09] And so the reality is, the reason I think that we're all under an obligation to church shop is because our primary responsibility in this life is our salvation and the salvation of those entrusted to us. And who is entrusted to us? [00:10:27] Not the people at our parish, but our family first and foremost. So your own salvation and then salvation, your family. So if you are a parent with children in particular, their salvation is Your top priority. This has to come first. This has to be before anything else is the idea is the idea that your salvation and the salvation of those entrusted to you is your top priority. [00:10:55] And so if your parish, attending a parish will harm the possibility of salvation for you or your family, then you really need to look elsewhere. [00:11:09] And I, and I'll get to the practical aspects of this in a minute. Like, I get that's not always so easy. I mean, people will say, hey, you know, I live in a small town, we got one parish, it's not very good, but I got nowhere else. It's within a couple hours. [00:11:24] I'll get to that in a second. But the point here is simply that you're salvation, your family, salvation is your top priority. And that is the, the overriding concern that should be in your mind when you're deciding where you go, go to church, where you go to Mass. [00:11:42] Another thing I want, I want to clear up some misinformation. [00:11:45] There is no, zero, no canon law obligation for a Catholic to attend their territorial parish. [00:11:55] Often that's said, but it's not true. There is some canons that talk about a pastor's obligation to the people in his territorial parish. [00:12:06] Just canon law. You only get this for a second. [00:12:09] In canon law 518, for example, it says, as a general rule, a parish is to be territorial, that is embracing, that is, it embraces all the Christian faithful within a certain territory whenever it is judged useful. However, personal parishes are to be established based upon right language, the nationality of the Christian faithful within some territory, or even upon some other determining factor. So the norm is that parishes are territorial. Then in canon 5:19, it says, the pastor is the proper shepherd of the parish entrusted to him, exercising pastoral care in the community entrusted to him under the authority of the diocesan bishop in whose ministry of Christ and he has been called to share. [00:12:54] So essentially, what's the saying is the pastor does have a responsibility to the community entrusted to him, which means all the souls who live in the territorial parish. That's the pastor responsibility. Also, it says about the pastor in canon 5 29, paragraph 1, it says, in order to fulfill his office in earnest, the pastor should strive to come to know the faithful who have been entrusted to his care. [00:13:21] Therefore, he is to visit families, sharing the cares, worries, and especially the griefs of the faithful, strengthening them in the Lord and correcting them prudently if they are wanting in certain areas. [00:13:30] And he goes on to that effect. The point, though, is that a pastor does have a responsibility to the souls in His. In his territory. But there's no canon law that says people who. Catholics who live in that territory are obliged to go to those parishes. [00:13:46] Territorial parishes are a convenience. They're not a necessity for lay people. In fact, as I was already mentioned in that one canon, there are exceptions to the territorial parish. For example, there's a military archdiocese. If you're a member of the military on a base, on the guy that is your. Your parish, so to speak, it's not a territorial parish. And of course, there's the ordinariate that is not territorial either. [00:14:12] You could be a member of the ordinariate, the Anglican Ordinariate, and you're not part of a territorial parish. And this is approved by the Church. [00:14:20] Likewise, you have the whole issue of overlapping western diocese with eastern eparchies. And so, like, I have friends here in Cincinnati area who are Byzantine Catholics. [00:14:32] They're not obliged to go to their territorial parish for sure, because their parish is actually, by canon law, their parish is the Byzantine Catholic mission in the area. [00:14:45] And so already the church recognizes that, hey, you know, not everybody's going to be a member of a territorial parish. [00:14:51] And here's another reality. We've never really fully followed this idea of territorial parishes. Think about the old ethnic parishes now. Yes, they were made. They were. They were in cities where often everybody, that ethnic ninticity went to the parish that was closest because they all lived together. So the Poles, the Germans, the Irish, whatever, the Italians, they all lived in a neighborhood and their parish was right there. So it's the Italian parish, the German parish. However, if a German, for example, German Catholic, lived outside of the territorial boundaries, nobody thought different. Nobody thought that, oh, this person can't be. [00:15:31] Can't be a member of the German parish because for obvious reason, for pastoral reasons. So therefore, it's not. [00:15:39] It's not. There is no canon law. There is no obligation. This idea that Catholics must attend a territorial parish is just simply. [00:15:48] It's just simply a myth. It's something that built up over time, but it's not something that is required of Catholics. And so the idea of church shopping really isn't. [00:15:59] Isn't somehow contrary to tradition or canon law or anything like that. Now, I would say, sure, ideally, in an ideal world, we'd all attend our territorial parish because we'd all. [00:16:12] We all would. That way we could be very close to our community. The people around us would all, you know, the Catholics who live nearby, that we could walk to their houses or drive very. A short amount of time. You Know your friends only live within 15 minutes, 10 minutes, something like that. And your parish was very close, stuff like that. Sure, that's an ideal world. That's not the world we live in. And particularly the idea that ideal. It fell apart not because of Vatican II or something like that. It fell apart simply because of the modern world. [00:16:38] With the advent of the automobile and the suburbs, it no longer really was feasible to have an idea of a territorial parish where you walk to it, because that's really what it was in the old days before cars. [00:16:52] You attended your territorial parish simply because where else are you going to go? You don't have a car. You don't, you know, you can't. It would take you forever to get to the next parish over. That'd be common for most people. So you just walk to your parish. That's not the world we live in anymore. And so although it became custom to attain your territorial parish simply because there was no other options, it was never law. It was never something that you had to abide by. [00:17:18] And so again then, when, when deciding what parish you go to. And yes, we do have a choice in what parish we go to. Again, we're not obliged to go local. One, your priorities through the salvation of your family and particularly now, I want to speak to the parents out there, particularly your children. [00:17:39] The salvation of your children is of your utmost priority. [00:17:43] And I think we need to remember and recognize how impressionable children are. [00:17:50] They pick up everything. [00:17:52] They pick up everything they experience and it really seeps into them. There's this false view of, of, of teaching that all teaching is basically just talking. You just tell people. I mean, this has been true in Catholic Cathy Catechesis for way too long, but it's very dominant in our society that the way you teach is you basically tell people something. That's not how we learn, though. We don't just learn by hearing things. We learn by seeing things, smelling things, doing things. [00:18:21] We learn in so many different ways. We're embodied creations. And so our whole body's involved in how we learn. And so, for example, the architecture of a church will impact a child's faith. The music that's, that's sung at the parish will impact a child's faith. The sacred art or not so sacred art at a parish will affect it. [00:18:48] Yes, the homily will. [00:18:50] The way the Mass is celebrated by the priest, whether or not they're alter boys and altar girls are just altar boys, all these things will have an impact on a child's faith. We might not want it to be that the case, but it is. I remember, I've heard over the years Catholics who would just simply say, well, you know, my pastor doesn't teach any heresy. He has some good homilies. But then you find out, like, the rest of the parish life is not very good at all. It's terrible music. [00:19:18] It's, it's. The building looks like an airplane hangar or something like that. [00:19:22] And so really, we have to take all this in consideration how much what is. What is a child learning from all the different aspects of the parish. And I am convinced that the number one reason, the number one reason that Catholics leave the church once they get to be adults. So Catholic young people, when they, they graduate from high school, they leave their homes and they fall away from the faith. I am convinced the number one reason is not the abuse crisis, not the church's teachings, not anything like that, not politics. It's simply the parish they grew up in, that the parish life that they grew up in did not make it seem to them that Catholicism is something to be, to sacrifice for, to follow. They're just simply not impressed with Catholicism because they're not impressed with their parish. And to most people, their parish is the representation of Catholicism. Those of us who are in this world, or maybe online or talking about this all the time, we think about the Vatican, we maybe think about bishops, like Cardinal super, stuff like that. For most people, it's just Father Jack at their parish and, you know, Susan, the woman in charge of music, and Jane, who's in charge of catechesis. That is Catholicism to them. And they're not impressed with it. And so they leave after they graduate. [00:20:42] And so this is why it's so important that you pick a parish that will foster your children's faith. Now, here's the thing. [00:20:50] I want to make it clear. There's no such thing as a perfect parish. [00:20:54] You're going to find issues in every parish. And the reality is, because of the state of the church right now, you might have to settle for a parish that doesn't have very good music, but it's got good preaching. It's got, you know, the priest is obviously reverent. He believes maybe the catechol programs are good and maybe. But maybe the music stinks and maybe the buildings just isn't very good. Built in the 60s or whatever. [00:21:16] That might be your best option. I'm just saying you should have though a checklist of what would make a good parish and then find the parish probably within 30 to 45 minutes drive of Your house that checks off the most. [00:21:36] This is very important. So absolutely we need to do things like judge parishes and whether or not they're good or not. And I would even go so far to the extreme of saying, if you can't find one that's at least the minimum for living out the faith and your kids, learning the faith and practicing it, you might have to move. [00:22:01] I know families who've done this. I know families who have left, you know, their extended family and moved. This is not ideal. [00:22:08] It's not ideal. I've moved around a few times in my life and I wish we hadn't had to. We didn't have to. I know it has an impact on kids, it has an impact on the family. [00:22:18] You want to be in deep, deep with your community. [00:22:21] You don't want to have to move. But I just think, obviously, like I go back again, salvation, your salvation, salvation, your family is the most important thing now. [00:22:32] I think what we have to look at then is the purpose. I think this is the purpose of a parish. This is where I think people get confused and why. There's a lot of debate about this in the Catholic world. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of what the purpose of the parish is. [00:22:49] So what is the purpose of a parish? [00:22:52] I would argue that the parish is to be your spiritual oasis. It's to be your spiritual training ground. [00:23:02] It's to be where you are strengthened in the faith. [00:23:06] It is not to be a battleground. It is not to be something you're supposed to save. [00:23:17] Instead, a parish is where you go to in order to be strengthened up so you can go out to the battle outside the parish. [00:23:26] So in your work, at home, in your neighborhood, wherever the case may be, that's where you're battling it out. [00:23:33] Well, if you're going to be in battle, you need training, you need strength, you need to be nourished, all these things. That's what happens at your parish. So if you're going to your parish to save it, to battle it out with the other parishioners on how best to do things, you have no time. You have. No, no, you have nowhere that you can get re energized in the faith. And so you're just gonna. That's just why so many will end up falling away or at least become very lukewarm in their practice of the faith. [00:24:07] The parish is really where we're supposed to. Where, to be honest, the parish is. Whereas lay people, we're supposed to receive more than we give. I know there's people going to be like, oh, you're so selfish. You're just thinking about yourself, whatever. You should be volunteering stuff like this. That's not the way it should be. In fact, a lot of this is due to the vocations crisis. [00:24:27] The fact is, because of the vocations crisis, not having enough priests, we don't have enough staff at the priestly and religious staff at these parishes. Because really, the staff at an ideal parish would consist of priests and religious, and that's it. [00:24:45] Lay people didn't have to work at the parish. They shouldn't have to do so much volunteering of teaching and everything like that. I want to be clear. I volunteer at my parish. I help teach the adult conversion class. I've helped teach a high school catechism class there. [00:25:00] Because we're in the reality we're in, we have to sometimes volunteer. Lay people have to step up. But the point is that shouldn't be, though. That's not the norm. Because what's happened is, because it's norm for laypeople to always be working at the parish and trying to make it better and contribute and stuff like that. We don't, we've, we've gotten confused about what, why we have a parish in the first place. [00:25:24] It's where we go to be nourished, it's where we go to be strengthened. It's where we go to be taught. [00:25:30] It's not where we go to fight it out and figure out, okay, let's try to make things better here. [00:25:37] As I said, we should receive far more than we give at a parish. And if you're not, if you're, if parish is basically attaining, your parishes basically work for you, something's wrong, something's wrong with it. [00:25:49] Again, not. [00:25:51] We can't have a perfect parish. Any parish you attend, you're going to have some issues. [00:25:55] And any parish today you attend, you're probably going to have to volunteer some. [00:25:59] But it really should be limited. It shouldn't be. I mean, obviously, if you work at a parish, that's one thing. If you're a layperson, works at parish, you have certain, you know, obligations you have. And it's a reality today that lay people have to staff parishes, you know, at times. So I understand that what we really should look at the, at the parish as the oasis, the spiritual retreat, so to speak, each week we go to, and maybe even more often. [00:26:27] I also want to note, the pastor, you should not be battling with your pastor. Your pastor should be your spiritual father. [00:26:35] Your pastor should Be your spiritual father, at least on some level. This is the norm for Catholicism is that you basically follow your pastor and you look to him in how to live your Catholic faith. [00:26:51] And it's not just because. And it should be in a situation, not just because you agree with him. Sometimes you're in fact a good pastor. Sometimes he's going to say things you might not like to hear, but that's what you have. But if he's your spiritual father and you recognize that, then that will be a healthy thing to hear, that we should be willing to follow him. You shouldn't be battling with your spiritual father. That's not healthy. [00:27:16] I know this might sound a little bit like, okay, you just find the pastor who you like the most and you go there. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you find a parish based upon these factors I've already talked about, and then you basically put yourself under the pastor and you allow him to guide you and direct you and be your spiritual father. But if you're in a parish where you're fighting it out with the pastor, that's not healthy. That's not the way things should be. [00:27:45] Now, I do want to reemphasize something. The difference between church shopping and church hopping. I don't think you should be flitting around attending different parishes all the time. Like one this month, one that month, one this week, one that week, something like that. You need to find a parish and stick with it. Now, I know the reality is you might do that and then all of a sudden everything changes at the parish. You might have to change again, you might move again. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often. But we all know situ. I mean, obviously all the people who attend TLM parishes that were shut down and there's no other TLM nearby, they have to find a new parish. [00:28:18] But in general, once you've got. You decide on a parish, you really do need to stick it out as much as you can. Now, again, if all of a sudden things change at the parish where that kind of criteria we talked about, it starts to go down and down and down, it gets under your kind of minimum, then, yeah, you're going to have to look at going to another parish. You're going to have to look at potentially finding another parish. But it shouldn't be something where we're constantly just trying to find the best parish. Like, we're like, okay, we nitpick every. We've been to this parish for a couple months. Oh, yeah, I really don't like though. They sing this song on some Sunday. I don't really like that one. I'm going to go somewhere. No needs to be deeper than that. So I am against church hopping, but I think we should be doing church shopping now. [00:29:01] I want to lay my cards out on the table. I think most people who watch this, listen this podcast, know where I come from on this, on this one. But in my opinion, your best bet is a traditional Aton Mass parish. Your best bet is a TLM parish. [00:29:15] Because the fact is all those things I talked about with, with the music and, and the preaching and, and the liturgy, the reverence, hopefully the, the sacred art and the statues there, hopefully the architecture, obviously sometimes the TLM has to be. It's thrown in a basement or something like that. [00:29:31] Excuse me. And you just have to go there. You know, it's still better than the alternatives. [00:29:37] But I really think that, like, people who don't attend to TLM don't realize the quantitative difference between the TLM parish and the Novus Ordo parish. There are, there are problems in TLM parishes, don't get me wrong. I've attended two different ones in my life regularly and none of them were perfect. [00:29:56] But what I find is, is that most Novus Ordo parishes are, are very similar. [00:30:05] There are differences in scale between the visor parishes, between, like, okay, how Reverend are their Masses, how good is their catechesis, how good is their music? Stuff like that. [00:30:15] But in general, TLM is often a difference. In essence, I'm not saying it's, you know, those orders aren't valid or anything like that. I'm not using Sacramento language here. I just mean in your experience of them, that so many of the issues that people battle it out in at Novus Ordo parishes just don't exist in TLM parishes. [00:30:36] And so I would say if you can attend a TLM parish. Now, again, they have issues and they're different issues usually than most Novus Ordo parishes, and they get highlighted often online. [00:30:49] But I think they're issues that aren't as critical to our salvation as the issues that you would find in Novus Ordo parish. [00:30:57] So I would just, that's my recommendation. Find a TLM parish and if you can't, then consider, you know, try to find the best Novus Ordo parish that's, you know, within a reasonable driving distance. [00:31:09] Now, bringing up the tlm, though, as a parish option, that of course brings up the issue of the Society of St. Pius X. And I wanted to address this Briefly, too, because they've been in the news in the past week or so because it was announced by their superior general that, that they plan to consecrate new bishops in July, on July 1st. This is a big deal. They have not consecrated bishops in 1988. And when they did that, that's when they were automatically excommunicated and, and John Paul II excommunicated them and all that and the whole mess that that followed from that. [00:31:40] They haven't consecrated any bishops, however. There's only. They concentrated four at that point. Two of them have died, and the other two are not young men. Obviously. They were, they were consecrate bishops 40 years, almost 40 years ago. I don't know how old they are, but I'm sure they're at least probably in their 70s, I would guess. [00:31:56] And so the Society needs new bishops in order to continue their work. That's their, that's what they're thinking. So they're going to consecrate new bishops. [00:32:05] And so just real quick, as an aside, what do I think about that? I think a couple things. First of all, I think there's a real lack of charity at the Vatican and not the being more direct and forthright with the Society and dealing with them. It sounds like they're getting strung along a lot, that they're not really getting clear answers, and there's not really an effort on the Vatican side to really work with them. It's almost like they want to push society further away. [00:32:36] And so I, I just, I wish the Vatican would be more now. I know they're having a meeting, Cardinal Fernandez, and so hopefully, I think it's happening this week. Hopefully something will come of that. [00:32:46] But I just think that there's a lack of charity. I also think there's a real lack of charity. I see from some Catholics, conservative faithful, nose to Ordo or whatever, Catholic against the Society, because they've basically made their entire. [00:33:05] They've pictured their entire view of Catholicism as if you aren't lockstep with the Vatican and, you know, and praising it or whatever, you're not really Catholic. Everything's, everything's done. If you do anything that kind of walks outside the line, then you're basically, you're outside the church. You're in schism. [00:33:25] And I think that's uncharitable as well. Clearly, the Society is a unique situation in the church in which we have an organization that wants to be full, that, you know, practices what they believe is full Catholicism. They want to be in full, total Obvious and outward and regular communion, whatever the words you want to use with the Holy See, but they're not for reasons that are not really ultimately that, that originate outside of the Society. [00:33:54] And so I really think we should have charity towards members of society. Don't. I mean, I'm going to have an article, I think it's coming out in the next day or two at crisis about and I think it's ties something to the fact that The Society of St. Pius X is not the problem. [00:34:09] And really I think we need to recognize that when we're looking at the state of the church today, if we're upset about the Society doing something like this, and that's our big, you know, we're getting all huffy and puffy online about it. I think we're missing the woods for the trees. [00:34:23] We need to recognize the bigger picture here. The Society is an ally. Is our ally. And no, no question they're our ally. Have a broader view of Catholicism than just like, okay, I'm in my parent, my diocese and parish. That means I'm okay. If you're not in your diocese and perishing, you're not okay, come on guys, let's get a little bit more. I mean, they recognize Leo as the Pope. They're not city of a contest. You know, obviously all their sacraments are valid. They practice faith as it was practiced, you know, 100 years ago. And normally in Catholicism, not lately, but normally in Catholicism saying you practice your faith the same as people 100 years ago did. That was. That was considered the norm in Cathal. That's why people did it. Everybody did it. Now the question is risen, though. What about choosing an SSPX chapel as your parish? [00:35:15] Because in the whole church shopping, what if in, in the grocery store, in the church, grocery store, SSPX chapel is an option. It's not an option for everybody because it's not even available everywhere. [00:35:28] What I think though, here's the thing. I'm gonna. This is where I think a lot of people might be with me and might kind go against me on this one. But first I'll make it clear. I do not think the SSPX is in schism. [00:35:40] I do not, like I said, think they are a problem in the church. [00:35:43] However, I do think they're in an irregular situation. That's not ideal. It's not very, it's not good. [00:35:50] The idea of having these, these bishops and these priests in these chapels that aren't really under the authority of Rome. I mean, I know they are in some ways and they're not in other ways. I've had guests on the program that talked about this before. [00:36:04] The reality is, though, it's not an ideal situation. And my personal recommendation, because people ask me this sometimes, they're like, hey, do you think it's okay to attend a society chapel? [00:36:15] My personal, my personal view is this is my personal opinion. [00:36:19] We're free to disagree. This is why I have different articles at Christ we can disagree about this. My personal opinion though is simply that should be the last resort. [00:36:27] If you have a TLM parish within driving distance, you should attend that rather than sspx. That's what I think. I think you should attend that. You should because it is important to do as much as we can to be in that visible communion with our local ordinary, which is the local bishop. We really should do that as much. I know that the SSPX chapels pray in, in the Mass for their local ordinary and for, you know, the Pope, but the fact is, is that they're not really under his authority. They're not really under the authority of either of those two people, truly. [00:37:06] And so I would not attend an SSPX chapel personally if there was a TLM nearby. Now, what about if there's not tlm? The only TLM available is sspx. [00:37:16] I'm going to tell you what I would do. I still, I would look hard at every Novus Ordo parish and really try to find one that, that was at least good enough for the salvation. My salvation is salvation of my, my children. And I would probably go there. [00:37:33] I might consider moving even if there was nothing else available before I go to the sspx. Now I have good friends, Kennedy hall, for example, and others who, who attend the sspx. I'm not placing judgment on them. I'm not saying, oh, they're, they're not, they're doing something sinful or something like that. I think these are prudential decisions. I think these are things that we have to look at and I'm just kind of giving my own view of what is how I would look at attending an SSPX chapel or not. [00:38:01] Okay, so let's wrap this up with the live chat. I appreciate everybody who jumps in on the live chat. These Tuesday afternoon podcasts are live. Sorry I didn't have one last week, I was out of town. [00:38:13] But I try to have them every Tuesday at 3:00 clock Eastern if possible. So I appreciate those who join me and I encourage you if you listen to podcasts, podcast other times. That's great. Thank you. But join us sometime for the live chat live podcast because you can chat with other people who are talking about what I'm talking about and I'll put some up on the screen at the end, which I'm about to do right now, and address them. Okay. TKO Tradish says, well, I don't know about other diocese, but ours just closed seven churches out of an eight church parish. [00:38:39] So how are we supposed to go to the local parish when they aren't there? Yeah, that was the, the situation of Kevin DiCamilla in the article I mentioned for crisis. His parish was shut down. Now he's got a church shop. And I think this is, this brings up a good point, though, about like the, the idealism or something of those who are defending. Like you go your local territorial parish. I just think they're, they're like, they're. [00:39:01] I think, first of all, I question if they have children who are old enough that impacts them. Like, do they have teenagers? Do they have, you know, older, you know, preteens, something like that. [00:39:11] I wonder if they do. Or maybe they just have a good local parish and so they're like, hey, parishes aren't so bad. My local parish is fine. And maybe they just have too low of a barrier. But the point is that in reality, lots of Catholics have to deal with this. I mean, you know, if your parish gets shut down and you know, you have a new bishop, that messes things up, all that stuff. [00:39:32] Okay. Mark says no parish is ever ideal. Yes, that's true. So many typical parishes have problems that parents would have to explain to their kids why they, what they see others do. Like people leaving Mass early is wrong. Yeah, that is, that is true. No parish is ideal. No parish is perfect. I would say, though, if you're attending a parish where lots of people are leaving before Mass is over, that's a real red flag. That's a real red flag. [00:39:58] I mean, obviously they're going to be, you know, they're sinners, we're all sinners. And so we have different sins and some are more noticeable than others. [00:40:08] But I just think those are the type of things you should be thinking about when you're looking at parishes. Okay. IPO Rose says, I'd love to go to my local parish, but I don't want to take my kids to a church where the priest ad libs the Mass so much. I legitimately wonder if it was valid. I mean, this is a real issue. This is not like somebody being hyper scrupulous. [00:40:30] The fact is, I know this for a fact, because, I mean, I've gone to other places. I've gone to parishes where I'm the same, where I'm like what? Like in traveling. By the way, I, we actually now coordinate all of our trips now around Sunday, trying first of all to be here in town on Sunday, attend our, our local, our own parish. [00:40:49] And if we're, if we have to be out of town on a Sunday for whatever reasons, then we find, okay, where is going to be the parish we go to? Because we're just, we just don't want to deal with the mess. But when we used to, used to be when we traveled, we would just find the local parish and go. And I'm not kidding. [00:41:05] 95% of the time it was awful. I mean, 95% of the time it was awful. [00:41:10] And so that's the norm in so many places. And so we, we have to look at that. So, okay, Ryan Martin says I went first to the diocesan tlm, but they were mixing it with Nav, Latin Novus Ordo rubrics. Now I'm with the SSPX and Glad made that decision. [00:41:25] Okay, I'm assuming you mean during the Mass they're adding rubrics in the TLM from the Novus Ordo. Not that like. Okay, here's an issue. I know some people have had like our parish that where I attend it celebrates both the TLM and the Novus Ordo. Fortunately, the TLM is the pride, has the pride of place at our parish, not the Novus Ordo. And Novus Oro is celebrated though, twice on Sundays and every day. And the TLM's twice on Sundays and every day. [00:41:53] I know there are some people who won't attend our parish who are TLMers because they worry that they might receive a host that was consecrated during the Novus Ordo because of course there's only one tabernacle and so hosts left over from the Novus Ordo might be, potentially might be used during a TLM and they want 10. Honestly, I think that's a heretical view of the world and that's awful to think that, but that. I don't think that's what Ryan's saying. I think Ryan's saying basically they're changing the tlm. I do think that's a red flag. I do think it's red flag. I'm not sure what I would do in that situation, but I understand Ryan's point, why he decided to attend the sspx. If something like that's going on, I might be more likely to stick around. I might also in that situation, I'd probably definitely ask the pastor, like, what's going on here and why are we doing this? And is this something the bishop's asking? Is there some reason, you know, stuff like that before? I would jump ship in a situation like that, so. But I understand you're not supposed to do that. And so when you have a priest who's doing something that they're not supposed to, they're literally violating the rubrics. [00:43:00] That's whether it's a telom rubrics or the no sort of rubrics. That is a reason to. To be cautious about attending that parish. [00:43:07] Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. [00:43:10] Pray for Catholics who are in a situation where they don't have a good parish situation. [00:43:17] It's sadly too many Catholics in that situation. Just pray for them and pray that they would have wisdom and prudence and have the ability to attend a parish that really helps out the salvation of their souls and the souls of their family. Okay, that's it for now. Until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the poor.