Pope Leo After One Year

[00:00:01] Pope Leo just celebrated his first anniversary in the papal office. [00:00:06] So how's he doing? [00:00:07] How should Catholics evaluate a Pope's time in office and should they even do so? [00:00:13] Hello, I'm Eric Sammons and welcome to Crisis Point. [00:00:29] Foreign. [00:00:34] CIS just celebrated his one year anniversary in the papal office. Did I say Pope Francis? I might said Pope Francis. He's on my mind still. [00:00:43] Pope Leo just celebrated his first year in office, first anniversary in office this past Friday. I think it was on May 8th. And so we want to talk about his first year and how he did. But before we do though, one thing I do want to bring up. So right now we are doing a survey of the crisis audience and I put a link to it in both the live chat, but also in the show notes for this. And I'd really appreciate it if you would take that survey. And the reason is because we like to see the crisis audience, what it's interested in, the demographics, what mass it goes to, things like that. [00:01:24] We sent it out to all our, to our email list, our readers, and we got a lot of, a lot of responses. [00:01:30] But I'd like to get from our podcast Science as well, because one thing I found is that our podcast audience is not the same as our readership. I mean there obviously a number of people overlap, but they are different demographics. There's no question. I can tell because when we say something on our, in our articles on our website, we can get a very different response if we say the same thing on the podcast. [00:01:56] For example, if I criticize Trump here on the podcast, I often get positive comments in support. And if we say something critical of President Trump in, on the magazine, in the readership, online, then we get a lot of negative comments. And so I just would be interested. It's a very quick survey find. There's five questions, multiple choice, take you less than three minutes. So if you could go ahead and go to the link after the podcast maybe and fill out that survey, we would greatly appreciate it. Okay, so let's just go ahead and get right into it and talk about Pope leo. So on May 8, I believe it was, he celebrated his first year in office. I think we all remember what was going on. And so I've noticed there's been a lot of retrospectives from Catholic media about this first year, what it was like, and I want to do that as well, but I really want to just honestly evaluate it. What do we think about it? Do we think it was a good year, a bad year, an average year? And I know just before I even get started on that. [00:02:55] I know there's some people uncomfortable with that. Who am I to judge? [00:02:59] As a Pope once famously said, who am I to judge the Pope? [00:03:04] I mean, is it really the job of a layman? Some layman, he has a webcam that he talks into to judge the Vicar of Christ, the Supreme Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter? [00:03:16] I mean, of course it isn't. Of course it isn't. It's only God's role to judge him, and God alone who can judge him. [00:03:24] That being said, we do know that the bishops, the successors, the apostles, they should be willing to critique him if necessary, because St. Paul did it. St. Paul did it with St. Peter. Now, I'm no St. Paul. I'm no apostle, I'm no bishop. I'm not even a priest. I'm just a layman. [00:03:39] And most of the people watching this are laymen as well. So really, what is our right to evaluate the Papacy? I think, honestly, I think a lot of it is just simply the fact that in the modern world, the actions of the Pope have a direct impact, a much greater and direct impact on souls, on our souls, but particularly on the souls of the people we love. [00:04:05] And so we have a right to evaluate whether or not we think what he's doing is impacting souls for good or bad. Now, obviously, the Pope has always had some role in impacting souls, but some Pope in the 13th century, the things he did probably didn't have a lot of direct impact on somebody trying to live their faith in some peasant town in England. [00:04:30] But today, with multimedia, with everything the way it is, you know, the Pope just says anything. It can have a real impact. I saw this directly. I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again. [00:04:40] When I was the director of evangelization for a diocese in Florida, I remember I had a woman and a deacon come to me, a permanent deacon, come to me asking to set up an organization that would be in support of basically parents who had same sex attracted children supporting the same sex attraction. I mean, it would not be courage, it would not be encourage or anything like that. It would basically be some something that would defend and support the child's homosexual lifestyle. And of course, I said no. [00:05:16] But then Pope Francis was elected. [00:05:19] This is 2013. They came back a few months and asked again. And the reason they asked again was because of what Pope Francis had said about who am I to judge? [00:05:28] And some at that point was still the media, what it said. And. And basically they're like, well, the Pope now says that homosexual homosexuality, we can't judge against it. So there's nothing wrong with it, therefore, we should be allowed to have this group. And I had to say to them, no, you still can't have this group. Fortunately, the Bishop had my back on this, but I had to say, no, you still can't have the group. And they basically were like, how can you, a layman, disagree with the Pope? The Pope says it's okay. Why are you saying it's not okay? [00:05:59] And this is how popes today really impact our lives. They have a direct impact on a lot of things, the salvation of souls. And so if we are, as lay Catholics, we are responsible to be out there in the world sharing the gospel, witnessing to the faith, bringing souls to Christ. That's our duty. I mean, Vatican II says this, and obviously Catholics have said this for. The Church has said this for forever, but Vatican II re. Emphasized it. And so if that's our duty, we have to recognize the impact, anything that impacts that duty. If it makes it easier, harder for me to share the gospel, to bring people to faith, to bring people closer to Christ in my daily life, I have to recognize that. So if the Pope is doing something that makes it easier, harder, I think I have a right to evaluate that on some level. [00:06:54] Now, that being said, the evaluation should be done in a spirit of charity, in a spirit of understanding his role as the Pope, that he is the Pope and I am not. [00:07:06] Also, it should be understood that we don't. [00:07:15] We don't have to agree with all his prudential decisions. He can make many prudential decisions that we think might be bad, and he might not be that bad of a decision overall, because after all, he is the Pope of the universal church. [00:07:27] Billions, over a billion members of the church. [00:07:31] And so he might say something that might negatively impact us in America or do something, but it might be positive somewhere else. So we have to recognize all that. We also, I do think we have to give him, like I said, the spirit of charity. I saw recently he met with Axelrod, the Obama advisor, David Axelrod, I think his name is. [00:07:52] He met with him recently. [00:07:54] And there's nothing about. I mean, the Pope meets with people all the time. Good people, bad people, indifferent people. I mean, he just meets with people. That's what the Pope does. [00:08:03] And so him meeting with Axelrod, in and of itself, maybe it's bad, but, like, we don't really know. But yet a couple days later, I saw a perpetually mad Catholic who was like, okay, you know, Call Pope Leo Axelrod's puppet or something like that. [00:08:24] I mean, he has one meeting with the guy and you're already thinking that you've already decided that Pope Leo is just his puppet and just doing whatever Axel Ron says. We have no idea what happened at the meeting. [00:08:37] Like I said, I'm not saying he should meet with people like Ax Roddle, and he does meet with some people that I think maybe he shouldn't. [00:08:44] But let's not go crazy here, people. So I think when we do evaluate how he's doing, I think we need to be fair and not immediately go to the most negative interpretation possible, which, let's be honest, we did that with Francis and it was justified in a lot of ways because he went down the worst path. And we had proof of this over and over and over again, the things he did. [00:09:06] And so I get that. But we have to be charitable to all people, including the Pope. [00:09:12] So that's the first thing is just recognize, yes, we can evaluate the Pope on a certain level because he impacts our lives directly. He's a public figure, just like we evaluate politicians and other public figures. You can evaluate me, if you want to, as a grade D minus public figure, and that's fine. [00:09:32] And so I do think it's okay to do that, as long as done with the spirit of charity and fairness. [00:09:37] Okay. So the other thing I want to say, though, is before I even go into Pope Leo, you know, the specifics of Pope Leo's first year in the pontificate is setting expectations. [00:09:50] I think, first of all, setting expectations on what is the Pope's role in general and setting expectations for what we think expect from a Pope today in our current climate. [00:10:01] So what do we should we expect from a Pope in general? I think this is something that Pope Francis really revealed to us. I think we had expectations that were unrealistic and they were a byproduct of the hyper papalism that developed in the Church after Vatican I and really came to the fore under Pope John Paul ii, where we expected the Pope to be a global figure who was part of, you know, St. Paul part St. Peter, part, you know, St. John the Evangelist, part, you know, Isaac, Job, I mean, part everything. I mean, he's supposed to be the holiest man on earth. [00:10:37] He's supposed to be constantly preaching the gospel everywhere, going everywhere. He's supposed to be this dynamic personality. He's supposed to be charismatic, all these things. He's never to make a misstep. And basically everything revolves around him. The Church is whatever the current Pope says it is. [00:10:54] That is what developed in the Catholic Church. I've talked about this numerous times on this podcast, I've written about it. [00:11:00] But I think those expectations are just simply not Catholic. They're false. [00:11:05] And I think a better expectations for Catholics, for a Pope in general is just simply that he hands on what he has received, that he's clear in his teaching. [00:11:17] He doesn't have to go and make comments about everything going on in the world. [00:11:21] He doesn't have to make radical changes to how things operate. [00:11:27] He just should basically take what he's been given, that is the deposit of faith, and he should clearly proclaim that deposit of faith, guard it, defend it, keep it, and that's it. [00:11:40] That's really it. [00:11:42] Now. Yes, There are times in the church where, when we need a Pope to step up and do more, and I think it could be easily argued that now is one of those times. But in general, just in general, not for today, but just in general, that's what I think Popes, that's what I think the laity, what Catholics should expect from a pope is just simply, he guards the deposit of faith. He passes on the next generation. He proclaims it, and that's it. [00:12:09] That's a lot lower expectations than I think a lot of Catholics have built into the Pope because they've turned him into a cult of personality, like we do with our politicians, like you see with, like Trump, with Obama, where they become. Nobody had a cult of personality for Biden, a cult of personality where basically everything revolves around that figure. Everything revolves around that figure. You saw it with Obama, you see it with Trump, and you see it with the popes. Frankly, that's where you get all the Pope explainers under Pope Francis. Doesn't matter what he says, no matter how much he ties you in knots, which, with his, you know, twisted logic and just contradictory statements and craziness, you just say, okay, that's what we're. That's what we're behind. [00:12:50] And let's be honest, conservative Catholics did that somewhat with JP too. And I'm, I'll raise my hand as one of those who did that as well, and we need to stop doing that. But what should our expectations be about a Pope today? [00:13:03] Now, this isn't what we want. [00:13:07] This is what our expectations should be. The reality is we're in a low point in the Church's history. The post conciliar era, meaning the time after Vatican ii, right now, has been one of the worst times in the history of the Church for the church. I mean, this is just objectively a fact. This isn't some opinion of mine, because you just look at the numbers. For example, the time of the Protestant Reformation before the Council of Trinity, that, that was objectively one of the worst times in the history of the Catholic Church. If you look at the Aryan crisis in the 4th century, same thing. You could look at the pornocracy in the 10th century, very similar. Just look at the numbers. People have been leaving the church in droves for decades. There's no question that the moral voice of the Catholic Church has fallen in disrepute around the world. And so that's just a fact. So we should, Our expectations should be somewhat tempered for a Pope because of that. [00:14:07] The reality is any pope we would have, who would have gotten elected last year, any cardinal who had gotten elected last year would have been formed in the post conciliar era, I. E. He would have been educated and spiritually formed in the 1970s, maybe 1980s, something like that. Just, just. That's an age thing, it's a demographic thing, which means his formation probably was terrible. [00:14:30] There were very few cardinals alive today who had solid spiritual formation, had solid, excuse me, vocational education and things of that nature. It's just a reality. [00:14:44] And so our expectations should, should reflect that, that we're going to get a pope who very much is a son of Vatican ii, of that era, believes Vatican II is very important, kind of goes with the spirit of, akin to, in many ways, maybe, maybe distance themselves from it in some ways and embraces in other ways. I mean, the better ones, the Cardinal Seurat or Cardinal Burke or something like that, obviously they're going to be less so than a Cardinal Cupich or something like that, but what we got was basically somebody right in the middle of the road, which I'll talk about in a second. But I think that's our expectations. Now. That's not, I'm not saying that's what we want. I mean, what I want is a Pope who recognizes the era we are in and recognizes that, frankly, radical action is needed. [00:15:36] And more than anything else, clarity is needed. Clarity is needed from the papacy more than anything else because if nothing else, we've been in a time of extreme confusion. And so what we need is clarity from the Pope. [00:15:51] And so ultimately, that is what I think we should have. [00:15:56] Our expectations we should not expect, though. I'm not saying we shouldn't want this or desires, but we should not have expected somebody who's going to clean house, a Pius X or anything like that. [00:16:08] And so I also would, I think you could make a good argument, I would argue this that perhaps it wouldn't be best to have a Pope who came in and tried to change everything overnight to the good, to the way we want it to be, so to speak. Like all of a sudden he came in, just said, okay, traditional en masse is now mandated everywhere. [00:16:30] I'm not sure if that would be the best thing to do because I think a better thing would be from a ground up reconfiguring of the Catholic Church. When we configure. I don't mean like changing how it's organized or any of that. I mean like a renewal, I guess, is a better way. A Reformation, a good Reformation, not the Protestant revolution type, but a Catholic Reformation from the ground up. Meaning we just have a groundswell of the people, of the laity growing up and becoming more deeply Catholic. And so then the priests that our families produce are better, are more solid Catholics. And then the bishops they become are more solid Catholics, and then the cardinals are more. And then the Pope is. I honestly, I think that's a healthier way it should be done. And honestly, I think there are signs that that's exactly what's happening. [00:17:16] Because a lot of the Catholics that are frankly, not serious about the faith or embrace heresy, they're leaving the church. I'm not saying we ever want people to leave the church, but it's reality. They are. Whereas people who are serious about their faith and are more traditional in their outlook. [00:17:34] You know, I talked about last week, the two religions in the one Catholic Church, the progressive and the traditional. Well, younger Catholics are more traditional. In fact, this survey we're doing at Crisis again, take the survey. Our Crisis audience survey is in the show notes. It's also in the live chat link to it. And it's fascinating because we do ask the question, which liturgy do you primarily attend? And sure enough, the older the respondent, the more, the less likely they are to attend the traditional Mass. In other words, the younger they are. I mean, I think it's like 50% of the people under 35 or something like that attend traditional at Mass and only like 16% of the old or maybe even less than that. And of course, we're going to have a higher percentage of traditional Latin Mass attendees and most people. [00:18:16] The point though is, is like, I think true, deep, lasting reformation in the church where we get rid of the spirit of Vatican II and we really, you know, go back to the basics, I think has to happen. From the ground up instead of from the top down. And I think that actually is what's happening. It, it takes longer, but it's more lasting. [00:18:35] Okay, so let's get into it with Pope Leo himself. [00:18:40] I'll repeat what I just said. That is, he is a post conciliar pope, meaning he is a product of Vatican ii. That is how he was formed. He was formed in the post Vatican II era. So all the presuppositions are baked in. And that would have been true for most of the popes. And I would say he's just most of the cardinals who could have been elected. [00:19:01] So he's going to embrace ecumenism, he's going to embrace interreligious dialogue. He's going to be weak in his proclamations on the Catholic sexual teaching, on sexual morality. [00:19:15] He is going to accept a lot of the presuppositions that frankly, most Catholic cardinals, Catholic bishops today who are formed after Vatican ii, accept. [00:19:25] That's just really. He's middle of the road, frankly, in a lot of that. [00:19:28] He's not like a cupich or a McElroy, I don't think. He's not like a Cardinal Serra or a Cardinal Burke either. He's pretty much Miller. He's an average American bishop. I've said this multiple times. He's an average American bishop. [00:19:40] And an average American bishop is better than the average European bishop, not as good as the average African bishop. [00:19:49] And so it's just that kind of what he is. And that's who they selected. Now, one of the things I will say though, he, you know, he was selected his primary, his priority, and the reason he selected was to work for unity. [00:20:03] This has been the theme from day one of the Leo pontificate, is working for unity. [00:20:11] And you, the cardinals said this, this is why they picked him, because they knew Francis had caused a lot of discord, a lot of division. [00:20:19] And so they needed somebody who was not going to be like that. And they picked somebody whose personality would naturally be more unifying. And that's exactly what it, what they got in Robert Prevost, in Pope Leo. [00:20:31] And I do believe that for most cardinals like your Cardinal Dolan's and people like that, this desire for unity was sincere. [00:20:38] The problem is that it's misguided. [00:20:41] It's misguided. What we need today is not unity. We need clarity. [00:20:47] What we need today, again, is not unity. What we need is clarity. [00:20:51] We need clarity so we know what is it that we should be unified around. [00:20:57] You can't have unity. Like, can you have unity in the Anglican Church? No, because they believe just radically different things. You know, this Anglican versus this Episcopalian versus that, you know, that guy. They believe radically different things, so they can't be unified. [00:21:14] Well, like I said last week, with our two religions in one church, we can't be unified with the other religion. You're either a progressive Catholic or you're a traditional Catholic, whether you like it or not, whether you like the labels or not. If you want to say I'm just a Catholic, fine. That means you're probably a progressive Catholic. [00:21:31] And so what we really need is clarity from the papacy, from the Pope, Leo, whoever the Pope is, that this is what we believe and this is what you need to believe. This is what you need to do. And in order to be a faithful Catholic. People don't even know. People literally, sincerely out there believe you could be in a homosexual relationship and be a faithful Catholic. Now, people watching this podcast might think, of course that's not possible, but. And it is not possible. Just to be clear, I'll give clarity even if the Pope won't. But that is something people legitimately and sincerely think because of the Father James Martins running around the Cardinal McElroy speak like that. [00:22:12] What we need is clarity. And. And so unity is a fool's errand right now. But that is what he. That's what Pope Leo wants. That's what he was elected for, and that's his sincere desire. And I do think he's sincere in that. I don't think it's like something where it's like a fake. You know, I'm just going to try to act, you know, that's. That's something so I can get my agenda across or anything like that. [00:22:32] It's just, It's a fool's errand. [00:22:35] So let's get into some specifics about Pope Leo, his past year. [00:22:40] Let's look at, for example, personnel. Personnel is policy, they always say. Now, of course, Pope Leo inherited all the appointments, all the men who were running the church under Pope Francis, which, of course, was mostly disastrous. [00:22:58] Now, again, expectations. [00:23:00] I don't think any of us should expect, have expected him to clean house overnight. That all of a sudden on May 9, he's like, you're all fired and I'm bringing in my own team. That wasn't going to happen. I mean, another reason Prevost was selected was some continuity. They wanted unity. They didn't want personality like Francis, but they wanted some continuity. They didn't want to change everything overnight. And A lot of them didn't want to change at all that much from Francis, even if they wanted to a more peaceful soul. They didn't want necessarily to change how things were going. And so we shouldn't have expected that. That being said and that being said though, and actually if you let me take a step back, if you look at the appointments, France, I'm sorry, Leo has made like the Archbishop of New York and some other places, you can tell they're not the ideologues that Francis Leo like to appoint. So I do think his appointments have been better already. He hasn't made a lot of major ones, but have been better already than Pope Francis. [00:24:02] However, I do think he has kept in some men that he should not have kept in this long. And number one on that list, and you all know who I'm about to say, which is Cardinal Fernandez at the ddf. [00:24:18] The fact that a, I mean, what do I say? [00:24:24] A, A heretic who is clearly pro homosexual. And that's all I'll say. [00:24:32] You can, you can assume what I mean as well from that is the head is the defender of doctrine in the Church. The highest of introduction is a scandal. [00:24:43] It is a scan of Christ to heaven. I did not expect him to get rid of Cardinal Fernandez in the first week or even the first few months, but it has been a year and I, and I, I think what, what's happening is kind of what Francis did. I think, was it Mueller who was it? Somebody was the head of DDF or CDF at the time when Francis came in, he kept until his, he was more of a Benedict guy. He kept him until his term ran out. And I think that's what Leo's going to do. I don't think he's going to extend Fernandez necessarily. And I think his term, I don't remember if it ends in 2027 or 2028. I just don't think he should do that. I think he should have gotten rid of Fernandez by now. [00:25:19] Fernandez is a disaster. [00:25:22] And everything he touches. I mean, the fact that Fernandez is the point man in, in, in discussions with the SSPX is just, I mean, why would the ssp, I mean, why would the SSPX take seriously any discussions when the counterpart is a guy who literally writes books about, you know, about kissing and things like that just, I mean, it just blows the mind. [00:25:50] And so yeah, this is, this is probably, I would say this is probably my biggest criticism of Pope Leo is the fact that he's kept Fernandez in and he's kept Other people in that he shouldn't have kept in, you know, Roche and Pharaoh and some others that he shouldn't have kept in. But those are minor characters, frankly, compared to and like even peril. And staying in, I don't think is the worst thing in the world. I mean, I, I, you know, I think you should be replaced. But it's not like that's not the end of the world. Fernandez being head of DDF still is a scandal. Every day he stays there, he is a scandal. [00:26:24] And then also I do want to mention one curious appointment. Like I think most of, I've heard most of the appointments I've heard from Leo have been pretty boring, like, whatever. But the appointment of that bishop of West Virginia last week, that one is curious. [00:26:41] I don't remember his name and I apologize I didn't write this down. I should have. But basically what happened was the bishop of West Virginia, it's Charleston, Wheeling, but it's the entire state of West Virginia which by the way has the lowest percentage of Spanish speakers in the entire Nation. It's 50th out of 50 states. [00:27:01] When it comes to number percentage of Spanish speakers, I think it's like less than 2%, like 1 1%, 1 1% percent like that. [00:27:09] They got a new bishop who is an immigrant and I believe came here illegally initially from El Salvador as their bishop. He was an auxiliary bishop in D.C. and it's like if you become an auxiliary bishop in D.C. these days, you're going to become a bishop somewhere else. It's like that's just the way it goes. [00:27:27] That is, and I call it curious. And that's my kind of subdued English way of saying it's bonkers because it is bonkers. [00:27:37] Because, you know, think about what a big deal the church has made in, you know, church hierarchy has made over the past decades about diversity and enculturation and like embracing, you know, they're Hispanic Catholics, there's black Catholics, there's Vietnamese Catholics, there's blah, blah, blah. Here in America, you're not just a Catholic. I mean, you're, you're some demographic Catholic, unless you're white, of course, then you're, we don't care. But the idea though is like, okay, Hispanic Catholics, they get their own people. We got to make sure we have Spanish speakers with them, stuff like that. Yet when we have a state that is predominantly, I mean, almost 100%, you know, lower class whites basically, that they get a El Salvadorian immigrant as their bishop, I mean, where's the whole like we're supposed to embrace these different cultures and, and, and, and, and work with them. It just, it's crazy. It's crazy. Now I do think, by the way, I don't think Pope Leo was like, oh, hey, I know what I'm gonna do in West Virginia. I'm gonna pick an immigrant because I'll really tick off the Trump voters or whatever. That's not what he did. I think what happened was, is people like Cupich McElroy, they did do that and they just went up there and then Poplar was like, okay, fine. He's not like going through every single appointment. [00:29:04] And so that's what happened. But it's, it's not good. I mean, I'm not, I'm not defending Popoli on this. I'm just simply saying let's not act though, like it's more than it is. [00:29:12] And another thing that is kind of a holdover from the Francis era that I think Leo should have done something about. I mean, we, I think that with Fernandez, of course, but I also think it, with this, this recent sonatal, this Synod report, The Working Group 9, or whatever it's called, Study Group 9, released that report that is just horrific. We're gonna have an article tomorrow from, in the, in the, at the website about, from Dr. Regis Martin about this. [00:29:40] And you know, it's basically called Are we sanctifying sodomy? [00:29:45] So he doesn't hold back. And this should not have been released, obviously, should not have been erased. And just I want to make sure it's very clear. [00:29:51] Courage is one of the best apostles in the church today. I fully support it. I've worked with them before. They do wonderful work and they never get any credit. And they're attacked by people in the church and outside the church and they just keep plugging away, helping souls draw closer to Christ and live in conformity with Christ's commands. [00:30:11] And this working group, this study group, you know, railed on courage. So. But I think though, this is a case of Leo is never going to say anything or do anything to explicitly tarnish Francis's legacy. I mean, you know, and I know Francis legacy is tarnished by its very nature. What I mean by that is how they view it. Like they're not going to try to tarnish his reputation or anything, go anything like that. [00:30:38] So they just, he kind of just lets things go like this and he's going to do things in his own way in, you know, going forward. [00:30:46] But I do think the reality is Francis was such a disaster for the Church, you need to do a few things at least. I'm not expecting him to get up there and condemn Francis again, expectations, that wasn't going to happen. But you didn't have to let this study report get published as is. Now, just to be clear, people might not know this has no magisterial authority. It's not like, you know, the Church changes teachings. That being said, it's still a scandal. It's a terrible scandal. I don't want to act like it's not. [00:31:13] And so another thing I want to talk about when it comes to Pope Leo is, you know, let's just talk about quickly his personality. After a year, I do think that Pope Leo's personality is way better than Francis's. I mean, there's just no question about that. He's more boring and that's a good thing. He's more peaceful. That's a good thing. He's not looking for fights and that's a good thing. The reality is, is Pope Francis was a troll to traditional and conservative Catholics. I mean, there's just no doubt about he said things purposely to try to irritate us, upset us, scandalize us. [00:31:50] And Leo doesn't do that. And that's good. [00:31:53] That's good. I mean, we shouldn't act like that's not a good thing and, or act like Leo is just like Francis in that. So with Leo, at least you get somebody who's not actively trying to attack you or to, to undermine your faith or anything like that. So that, that's very good. Then also, that comes across in, like his, his restoration of some of the traditional trappings of the papal office, like what he wears, you know, he's going into the papal apartments, things like that. Now, I know there's some people who are looking for any reason to be upset, who are looking for any reason to be mad at Pope Leo. They think this is like just all smoke screen, a cover so he can be, do the evil, evil stuff that Francis did, but make it with a cover so trading doesn't really get on to him or, you know, you know, or they get fooled or whatever. They run cover for him. [00:32:39] They're just looking for, you know, they're unwell people who are just looking to be mad. They want to be mad and they're mad if you're not mad. [00:32:48] The truth is it's good that, that Leo does these things because it recognizes on at least subconsciously or, you know, people can recognize that Leo is a servant of the office, not its master. Pope Francis, for all his, you know, being humble, it really was his him, like, trying to be like, I'm in control of the office, I'm in control. I will decide, I will set the tone. I will do everything I can to change things, just to show who's at boss. [00:33:16] The problem is the Pope isn't the boss. [00:33:18] He isn't the boss, he's the servant, the servant of the servants of God. And so when, like, you know, the Pope wears red shoes, it's not a matter of, oh, look how fashionable I am or something like that, look how great I look. No, it's a matter of being subservient to the traditions of the office. Yes, there are some traditions that probably over time need to be changed and things like that. But in general, these are good things. And I think it's good that Leo is embracing them. I think it's a good thing. [00:33:44] And speaking of, though, traditionalist, what about Pope Leo's relationships with traditionalists? [00:33:52] Honestly, at this point, I think it's been mostly a mixed bag. He, like I said, he hasn't gone after traditionalists like Pope Francis has. He hasn't said things purposely to anger traditionalists like Pope Francis did. [00:34:05] But he is allowing traditionalists to be persecuted in Charlotte, in Detroit, places like that. I know the Church works slowly. I'm not expecting overnight things to happen where all of a sudden, you know, he, he calls in some bishop and, and criticizes him. But the fact is he is allowing this to happen. Some very bad things are happening in some diocese and nothing's being done, at least that we know of. Hopefully, over time we'll be able to revisit this and say, okay, he did step in. He took a while, but he did step in. [00:34:35] But of course, we can't talk about this, his relationship with traditionalists without talking about the situation in the sspx, which has gotten ironically worse than it was under Francis. Francis had the weirdest relationship ever with the Society, where clearly he did. He was the anti trad in his heart, yet he allowed the Society a lot more freedom than previous popes had. [00:35:01] And so now it looks like, it looks sadly like that this is going to end up in the Vatican declaring the Society in schism, excommunicating some members. I'm not sure, you know, we don't know yet if we'll be just the bishops who get consecrated and they're consecrating bishops, if it will also include priests or others. We don't know. But it's a sad situation. [00:35:23] And I will say I want to be. I was just talking to somebody recently about this and I was just saying I don't have a strong opinion at this point about whether or not the Society should consecrate the bishops on July 1. I do know this, though. I have a strong opinion that the Vatican should have its dealings with the Society be based in mercy and similar to how it deals with every single other entity in the world. I mean, they will bend over backwards for the homosexual lobby and sometimes forwards. It will do everything to. To pacify China. They do all these things. And yet when it comes to sspx, no, no mercy. [00:36:07] I just think that they should be merciful and. And I'm with Bishop Athanasius Schneider on this, that they should not. If. If the SSPX consecrates bishops on July 1, I do not think they should be excommunicated. I do not think, think a schism should be declared. I think you just keep on with the status quo of where they are and keep working towards an eventual, you know, full communion, full irregular regularity, whatever you want to call it. [00:36:33] So. Okay, I'm going to skip here. Oh, one last thing I want to mention before I kind of conclude here with my overall thoughts is Pope Leo's dealings with President Trump. Now, I know President Trump. The whole, whole world revolves around him. I get that in his mind. And so he thinks he has said that Poplio's elected simply to deal with Trump, and that's just not true. [00:36:56] I mean, I guarantee the Cardinal Archbishop of Baghdad did not give a flying rip about Donald Trump when he, when he was voting for, you know, whoever he voted for. Trump's going to be out of office in 2028, and based on the age of Pope Leo, he's going to be around a lot longer than that. So that was not a factor in electing. So if you think that, just disillusion yourself with that. That being said, he is an American, and so he is. There is, like, interest in how does he deal with the American president, who in some ways is aligned with, you know, with Catholic values and with Catholic teaching and in other ways is directly opposed to it. [00:37:37] I mean, with ivf, with the war in Iran, things like that. [00:37:41] So how would this happen? And I think, honestly, I give Poplius the only time I'll say this about, hopefully I give a Poplio on grades, you know, F in some areas, A, B in some areas, C, I give him an A plus. And how he's dealt with Trump, I give him an A plus. If you look at actually what happened, not the, the propaganda pushed by the Trumpist. If you look at how he's dealt with Pope, with President Trump, I think he's done an excellent job. He has not got down in the mud with him. He has not tried to make it a tit for tat. And he has just simply stated Catholic teaching on things. He simply, now, I don't think he always says that. He doesn't articulate well why this war in Iran is unjust, but he, he does, you know, state it. And he, he, he says like, you know, eliminating civilizations is a bad thing. He doesn't name Trump when he says things like that. So I think he's done a very good job. I think his dealings with Trump have been excellent. I know some Trump supporters would disagree with me and that's fine. And Trump himself probably would disagree with me. But, but I do think he's done that is the, the thing I would give him an A plus for. Is that. [00:38:42] So the question remains, and I had it on the thumbnail here, is he Francis 2.0? You hear that over and over, especially from some trad circles. Is he Francis 2.0? Obviously not. [00:38:54] Obviously not. If he's, if you think he's Francis 2.0, that's because you were going to say anybody who was elected Pope is Francis 2.0 because you want him to be Francis 2.0. You, you got a charge out of being angry at the Pope for 13 years and you, you just simply can't stop. You simply have to continue saying that the Pope is the worst and your, your Catholic identity has become how bad is the Pope? And so anything Leo does you're mad about, you think he's Francis 2.0. In fact, he could be worse and things like that. I bet you the, the people who are the most saying, saying that the most, if Cardinal Seurat had been elected Pope, they would be saying it. [00:39:34] So you just can't please him. He's obviously not Francis 2.0. At the same time, he's obviously not anti Francis either. He ain't no Benedict. [00:39:42] He's not even JP2, you know, and it also doesn't mean he's not similar to Francis in many ways. He obviously has some of the same views as Francis did and any of the cardinals probably would have been of that nature. So, I mean, Francis ultimately was a radical, extreme form of the post conciliar bishop and Leo is a moderate form of that. What we need is one who's not at all a post Vatican II bishop. [00:40:12] But that'll take a while before we get that. [00:40:15] And so, yes, do I want a better pope than we have now? Sure. Yes, of course I do. I want a Pope who is 100 clear about the church's teachings. He is forthright in, in dealing with the issues of today. The actual issues, not the, you know, the, the fake issues created, like the 1960s issues, like where we think people are leaving the church because we're not, you know, progressive enough on the. On the pelvic issues and things like that. I want a. A pope who is very strongly defending the faith, standing up to people like President Trump. Yes, but when he's wrong. But also praising Trump when he does, like, you know, when he talks against abortion or something like that. But just in general, though, more importantly, not even involved in politics as much as he's just simply cleaning up the church, cleaning up the lavender mafia, cleaning up, you know, the. All the diascories, the diocese around the world and their problems, you know, getting rid of some of the worst offenders like the Cardinal Fernandez's. That's what I want. I mean, I, you know, I can. I can want that. [00:41:19] I'm just realistic about what we actually have. And so I'm not going to lose my peace and freak out just because I don't have what I want. That's what immature babies do. They don't get what they want and so they cry about it. And you see that online all the time. So don't do that. So what we need to do is we need to pray for Pope Leo. Pray, obviously, he's got the toughest job in the world. [00:41:41] And pray for the day that we one day get a pope who fully embraces tradition and fully, you know, exercises the office in a saintly and holy way. So. Okay, let me look at the live chat. I see we've been getting a lot of chats, which is great. Okay, I am. Chad says. Do we always. Do we really always have to do this disclaimer for giving opinion within Catholicism? Yes, we do. Welcome to the online Catholicism, Chad. That's exactly what we need to do. We do give disclaimers all the time because people want to interpret things in the worst possible light of anything that's said. If I said something nice about Pope Leo and I, and I don't have a disclaimer, people will attack me for being a pope explainer. If I say something negative against Pope Leo and I don't have a disclaimer, people will say I'm. I'm a rad trat. Who hates the Pope. So. [00:42:27] Okay, you two. BO says, not interested in the topic but need my weekly 7 6. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. You do need your weekly salmons fix. Absolutely. [00:42:36] Okay. God is my judge says we shouldn't forget Galatians 1:8. To not accept a contrary gospel from anyone, including the apostles themselves. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Like that Synod working study group, whatever it's called. That is a contrary gospel and that is a gospel. That is an anti gospel. And so we, we must reject it no matter where it comes from. [00:42:57] TKO Tradish, one of our regular commenters. I've gotten used to that name, says cautious but hopeful is my approach. I can't take the constant negativity. Yeah, I'm with you. [00:43:05] I'm with you completely. [00:43:08] I don't. I just think the. The attitude of let's find everything we. I mean, and there are certain Catholic media, let's be honest who. They just want to just say everything that Leo does wrong, everything going on wrong in the Vatican. And yes, we do have criticism at crisis, but we're just not going to have the constant negativity because it's just not good for our souls. [00:43:27] And it's just also, it's not deserved either. [00:43:30] Okay. Okay. Phoenix XP says. I've seen an increasing tendency amongst traditionalists to stick their head into the sand, in spite of the alarming direction of the Sonatal Church, to grasp at peace or normalcy. I don't know. I disagree, obviously. You probably would. You probably would think I'm one of the people who's sticking my head in the sand. I don't think it's sticking our head in the sand. [00:43:49] We know things are not ideal. We know things are bad in many ways and we might even bring them up at times. [00:43:57] The problem is, is that, is it helping souls to constantly find every single thing wrong going on at the Vatican or with the Pope? I say no. [00:44:06] I say the constant drip of negativity, the constant attacks, the constant criticisms actually has a cumulative effect that is bad. [00:44:16] It doesn't mean we can't speak out at times, but we should also not. We should have it a. Not a balance. That's the wrong word. A just a more mature attitude of, okay, yeah, this is bad, but it's not the end of the world type of thing. And I think we lost that under Francis for understandable reasons. [00:44:36] Tom's Digest says trads are selective in their love for clarity. We want clarity. Okay? We need to move forward with the reformed liturgy and phase out the old. No, not like that. Well, no, what we want, Tom's Digest, is we want clarity in proclaiming the gospel as it's been in a deposit faith as it's been handed on to us from the beginning, I. E. Including the Mass. If the reformed liturgy does not do a good job of passing on that deposit of faith. No, we don't want clarity in instituting it. We want clarity in teaching the traditional doctrines of the church and in orthopraxy as well, and how things are done. That's what we want clarity on. I'm not saying generic clarity. I mean, obviously, I don't want Leo to be clear that homosexuality is okay or something like that. That's ridiculous. [00:45:23] So, yeah, we're not selective. We're very clear about what we want. Well, we're selective in the sense that we want clarity on the truth. [00:45:29] We won't. We. We don't care about clarity in falsehood. [00:45:34] Okay. Huskers in Royals gal. I think this is. Isn't this. I think this is the Kansas City Royals person. Anyway, his appointments have been terrible. They're all pro lgbtq. I don't think that's true. [00:45:44] I don't think that's true. I don't think his appointments have all been pro lgbtq, but I don't have proof of that. Okay. Julia Rose says he hasn't removed the bishop in my diocese of Lexington. You know, the one who. Who accepted transgender hermit. Yeah, he wasn't going to do that. There was no way he was going to do that. He wasn't going to come in in his first year, remove bishops who, you know, he's going to take resignations and stuff like that. And so anybody who thought he might, I think were deluding themselves. It's just simply not the way things are done. [00:46:12] Okay. Patriot Pooh Bear. Hey, how's it going? I highly recommend the EWTN documentary. The post Peru is very enlightening in regards to post style of governance. Yeah. Okay. I've not seen that. So Patriot Pooh Bear is a good guy. If he says to watch it, I recommend watching it. Then, Julia Rose, he's not the boss. A. He's just a sitting figure, silly. I don't think you understood what I said. What I'm saying is, the Pope is not the boss. He's the servant. It's not my words. It's the words of Pope Gregory the Great. The Pope is the servant of the servants of God. [00:46:43] Okay. Brian K. Says they are very rigid in their treatment of the sspx. Yeah. And that's My problem. That's my problem. I'm not defending the SSPX and everything they do, every decision they make and saying I agree with everything they do. [00:46:55] But at the same time, it's hard not to notice how they deal with everybody. The people who like the German bishops, they said a few things, but they've been very, you know, reserved in any condemnations of the German bishops. They're very reserved in condemnations of the China bishops, the Chinese government involvement in selecting bishops. They're very reserved and merciful in dealing with all the, the people who are attacking church doctrine. But yet when it comes to the sspx, not so much. [00:47:22] Jenna says just jumped in. I'm happy to hear your sentiment about the Pope. We must pray for him. Yes, thank you. I agree. That is the top priority is to pray for him and really pray that he would do the. The job of the Pope well, the job as God wants him to. Not as a podcaster like me wants him to, but as God wants him to. I do think we can have some. [00:47:45] We just got a comment pop up. What would you like to see? Other New Catholic American. I'm gonna say that for another podcast, so. [00:47:52] Okay, so let me. [00:47:54] There we go. [00:47:56] Okay, so I think I'm going to cut it out there. I appreciate all the comments. And again, pray for Pope Leo. Pray that he would give clarity to the deposit of faith in presenting it to the world. And he. And that his appointments and the people who work under him would do the same. Okay, until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the poor.