Pope Leo’s First 100 Days: How’s He Doing?

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:11] Hello. Well, I'm back. It's been almost three weeks, I think, since my last podcast. I took a vacation. [00:00:17] My family actually went to Catholic family land for the first time ever. It's not a place I ever thought I'd go, but we went and we enjoyed it. It was a great week. And then I got sick last week when I got back. I'm just glad I didn't get sick during the vacation. [00:00:29] I got sick last week. In fact, I might. I still have some lingering effects, so if all of a sudden I have to blow my nose or something like that during the podcast, I apologize in advance. [00:00:39] Okay, so we're back into it, though. Let's get going. And Pope Francis. I'm Pope Francis. See, I'm thinking of the previous Pope, and you'll see why here in a bit. Pope Leo. [00:00:51] Pope Leo the 14th has been in office for 100 days now. I think it was last Saturday. The 16th was his hundredth day in office. [00:00:58] So is he doing a good job or not? That's what we're going to talk about today on Crisis Point. [00:01:04] As you probably know, I'm Eric Simmons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, just to encourage people to subscribe to the channel, smash that, like button, let other people know about what we're doing here. I always appreciate that. Also, you can follow us on social media at Crisis Mag, at all the major social media outlets. I think. I don't know. I don't think we're on Tick Tock, and I don't want to be on Tick Tock. So I hope we're not on Tick Tock. If we are, somebody let me know so I can delete that account. [00:01:32] Also, you can subscribe to our newsletter, which we send once a day in the morning, usually two articles a day. Just go crisismagazine.com put in your email address on the homepage there, and you will get that once a day. And we promise not to spam you. We will send every once in a while an email. We think you might be interested, something you might be interested in. But we don't spam, I promise. [00:01:55] Okay, so Pope Leo, 100 days. [00:01:58] It's kind of a tradition in the American presidential circles. When you think of, like, the first hundred days, that's kind of when they can get a lot of stuff done. And so you evaluate the presidency after 100 days. And so I saw some people doing this about Pope Leo's pontificate, and so I thought I'd do the same thing. [00:02:15] Now, I will be the first to admit there's probably something not perfect about some lay guy like me with a camera trying to analyze and grade the Pope. And it's not really my job to tell the Pope how to do his job. I get all that. At the same time, this is just kind of the world we live in. We talk about this stuff, and I'm going to talk about it. So I'm going to talk about whether or not I think Pope Leo is doing a good job after 100 days. Now, I will also say that 100 days is almost nothing in the eyes of the Church. The Church has been around for 2000 years. So 100 days is just a blip on the radar. But I do think it's a good idea to kind of look back at the Leo pontificate. He became Pope back on May 8, I think it was. And so how has he been doing, how things change? Are things any different than they were under Francis? And those type of issues I think we should talk about now, kind of set the table. When I get started. I think we should talk about expectations because I think one of the biggest issues we have when we talk about the papacy, when we debate how Pope is doing, is we have. We all have different expectations of what we, the Pope should do, how a Pope should Pope, so to speak. [00:03:32] So somebody might think JP2 did a phenomenal job and think Benedict did a terrible job, or somebody else might think the opposite. They might think Francis did a great job and Benedict was terrible, or Ben Dick was great and Francis terrible. We all have different expectations. And so I just kind of want to lay out my own expectations. What I think the Pope. [00:03:53] You know what I think a good Pope would be, how the Pope should live out his office. [00:04:00] I think first I would just say there's theological expectations and practical expectations. [00:04:06] Theologically, it's no secret that I am considered a papal minimalist, meaning I don't think I have a minimal view of what the papacy should be in comparison to other Catholics. Now, my view, the papacy is maximalist compared to maybe an Eastern Orthodox, or definitely in comparison to a Protestant, but in comparison to what most Catholics believed in, especially in the early 20th century, you could say I am more minimalistic. [00:04:35] I personally think the best papacies. In general, there are exceptions because certain times and places call for different things. [00:04:43] But in general, a Calvin Coolidge president papacy works just fine for me. Meaning a subdued one, a boring one, one in which the Pope basically remains mostly behind the scenes. [00:04:56] Now, don't get me wrong I love somebody like a Pope Gregory the Great as much as the next guy. There are times in which we're called to, you know, the church needs a papacy of a Pope Gregory the Great or somebody like that. But in general, my expectations of what a Pope should be tend. Okay, to use modern popes as examples. Tend more towards a Benedict than a JP2. [00:05:22] Somebody who's more reserved, isn't going to necessarily be a globetrotter and always be on the front covers of magazines and things like that. [00:05:31] And I think that's more in keeping with the office in my mind. [00:05:35] I also think that a Pope should stick to the basics, that in general, and there are obviously exceptions in general. [00:05:43] He should be preaching the gospel, the basics of the Gospel, repent, do penance, pray, believe in Jesus, that he is God, believe, you know, practice the sacraments, go the Mass is the source and summit of our, of our lives. Things like that. Stick to the basics. That should be by far the majority of what a Pope says and does is just sticking to the paper, to the basics. [00:06:11] I would also say theologically, you know, my expectations would be don't cause problems. I mean, don't cause problems. That was the biggest problem, Biggest issue with the Francis papist, easy caused so many problems because all the things he said, I'm talking about theologically, when he talks about, when he says these things that are confusing and they seem to contradict church teaching at times. And what does he mean by that? And why do you say that? And all these things that Francis did that caused so many issues that you rarely saw with Benedict, you sometimes saw with JP2, but you especially saw with Francis, you saw this just causing theological problems, causing confusion, things like that. [00:06:53] So as you can tell, my idea of a good papacy would be a subdued one, a boring one, a non controversial one, one who basically just does the basic job of proclaiming the gospel, proclaiming the church's teachings and that, that's about it. [00:07:11] Now, practically speaking, I would also say, so this is less theological, more like practically the office I would want Pope to today, at least that cleans up the internal mess. I mean, honestly, I think right now we're at a time in the church where I think the Pope and I'd say most heretics, hierarchs, most bishops, in other words, they should be internally focused rather than externally focused. We talk. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. This is a, honestly, I think this is a, this is a development evolution in my own thought. You know, I was director of Evangelization for a diocese for five years. I wrote a book called the Old Evangelization. I've done evangelization work, organized it at the parish level for years, but I'm starting. So obviously I believe in evangelization. I believe we need to share the gospel with other people, with people outside the church, particularly. [00:08:09] But honestly, I kind of feel like maybe we're in a time where the primary focus on. Of our bishops, of our Pope, of our priests, even, should be internally focused, meaning on really teaching and supporting Catholics in the church, Catholics who are practicing to really equip us and to really strengthen the internal aspects of the church. And that includes cleaning up the mess. [00:08:38] So all the scandals, all the corruption we see at the Vatican, we see in bishops, things like that, to really be focused on cleaning that up. [00:08:46] If a Pope came and he didn't say a word to the world, but he just focused only on cleaning up the mess at the Vatican, I think that probably would be an extremely successful papacy. [00:08:58] And so I think that's one thing, practically speaking. [00:09:03] Another thing is this is like with the. Stick to the basics. Don't get involved in every controversy. You don't have to say something about. About every topic under the sun. I know we live in a culture where everybody does this, I do this, we all do this. You have a thought, you put it online, you make it public. [00:09:21] But like, the Pope doesn't have to talk about every single controversial subject. He doesn't have to talk about immigration or whatever the case may be. [00:09:30] Again, stick to the basics. [00:09:32] I would also say that practically my expectations are such. I did not expect that this conclave would produce a superstar Pope. [00:09:41] And by superstar, I mean not a JP2, but I mean like a Pius X. [00:09:45] I mean, somebody who really was a true, saintly, superstar Pope who returned us to the traditions that we should be returning to, that promoted the Latin Mass, that. That promoted traditional Catholic morality, that. That got rid of all the terrible bishops, all that type of stuff. [00:10:08] We weren't going to get that. I mean, obviously, the Lord can do anything, and I do believe in miracles, but usually he leaves. He doesn't do miracles like that. Typically. He basically leaves us to our own consequences of our actions in many cases here on Earth. [00:10:22] And so I did not expect the Pope to be, whoever was elected after Francis to be some superstar. So that's part of my expectations as well. Also, I recognize, as much as I want the Pope to be subdued and boring and behind the scenes, I recognize that we just simply live in an era of the influencer Pope, the celebrity Pope. [00:10:47] This isn't, you know, 1820 or so or 1620 or something like that, where the Pope could maybe especially like 1120, where the Pope could basically go about his business. And most Catholics didn't know who it was or didn't know anything about him. [00:11:02] The fact is, when the Pope speaks, it's news. And so we are all desperately trying to follow influencers and celebrities, and the Pope is number one on the list. And so I get that. And so my expectations would be that he would handle that, this is before the election was he would handle that well in such a way that was a good witness to the Catholic faith, which I think know Francis in that case was a terrible witness because of how he used the celebrity, his influence for so much bad things. [00:11:34] Okay, so that's first kind of set the table. What I expected, what I was hoping for, what I expect from a Pope, that kind of helps you understand how I'm going to grade Pope Leo based on that. [00:11:46] Another thing I want to bring up about the first hundred days of Pope Leo is it's fascinating to watch how everybody's trying to claim him as one of their own. [00:11:56] You particularly see this with the progressives. They are desperate, desperate to make Leo Francis 2.0, that he is going to continue the Francis legacy, that he is going to continue to be the same type of Pope that Francis was. [00:12:10] You also, yes. See this in some conservative circles as well, even some traditional circles. Not as much traditional circles, but a little bit, but definitely in conservative circles. They want to make Pope Leo to be a JP2, a Benedict or something like that. [00:12:25] And I will be the first to admit that perhaps I do this as well. I'm not going to claim I'm innocent of this, but, boy, the progressives are desperate to make him Francis 2.0. And there's a real danger in this, in that the stereotype, the general view of him could end up being he's another Francis. It kind of supports Francis even through no fault of his own. Particularly maybe he. He could do something that could make it like that, but it might be just because they try to claim. So we do have to resist that. [00:12:59] I've seen this over and over on social media where the usual suspects will try to claim Leo as one of their own. You saw this like Cardinal Marx of Germany. He really is trying to do this. [00:13:08] But that's not fair to Leo. Let him be his own man. Let him be who he's going to be. And so that's something I think we need to watch out. And I hopefully I don't do that here when I'm talking about the first 100 days. I'm not trying to claim him as a traditionalist. I know he's not a traditionalist. I'm not even claiming he's a conservative. I don't think he's a conservative Catholic either. I don't think he's progressive necessarily either. If I had to put him somewhere on the spectrum, I put him somewhere between progressive and conservative. You know, as much as labels are limited in their use, that's where I pipe them. [00:13:38] One more thing I wanted to bring up about this is that I've chuckled to see how some traditionalists have just gone crazy. I was going to use a term that shouldn't be used in a family podcast. We try to be a family podcast here, but they just go crazy attacking what they call trad Inc. Whenever somebody use an attack and they say ink afterwards, it probably is them being dumb. You know, Conservative Inc. Catholic Inc. Trading. I've used it myself. I'm sure I was probably being dumb too. But the whole trading that basically, somehow I don't know how this happened. Some conspiracy happened among traditionalists. [00:14:18] The Peter Kwasneski's, the Taylor Marshalls, me, other people like that, where we all decided, whoever the Pope is at the Francis, we're gonna back him, we're going to be supportive of him, and we're going to act like he's great. And this is some. I don't really understand how the conspiracy works. Am I supposed to get a check for doing this? Am I, you know, am I. Can I get paid in Bitcoin? I mean, I. That's what I'd prefer if you could do that. [00:14:41] Vatican unknown people who are, you know, fostering this conspiracy. But the point is, is like, it just is stupid, the idea that this is happening. What it is, it's. It's what I call enemies list. Catholicism. [00:14:57] What I mean by that is it's people who want to put people on enemies list. They want to put anybody they see as faltering at all on an enemy's list. Oh, Eric. Samuel says something good about Pope Leo. He's. He's to be shunned. He's. He's an enemy. [00:15:11] He's no longer to be trusted. He's part of Tradinc. I, however, am pure. I am truly part of the remnant. [00:15:19] And I will tell you like it is. I may get fired from every job I ever hold, and that has nothing to do with me. But I will tell you the way it is. And I just think this is. It makes me laugh because it's just. It's just so stupid. The fact is, is that most trads like me, like Peter Kwasneski, like Taylor Marshall, people like that, we simply approach this papacy just like we did the Francis papacy and the Benedict one, everyone before it. We are open. We give the benefit of the doubt to the man elected as successor, St. Peter. We hope for the best, we pray for him, we try to interpret what he says in the best possible light until we have evidence that that's not true and we go about our business. [00:16:04] And that's basically all we do. And that's what we're doing. We did with Francis, most of us, and we're doing it with Leo. Over time, Francis lost our trust. He no longer had the benefit. I literally wrote an article called Francis no longer has the benefit of the doubt, or something like that. [00:16:19] And that was through repeated times of abusing our trust and of going against, you know, what, what the best for the church. And so that has not happened with Leo, though, after 100 days. After 100 days, there's no way you can say that Leo has somehow no longer has the benefit of the doubt, has somehow abused our trust or anything like that. [00:16:41] So if you want to think I'm part of trading somehow, I'm getting some sweet paycheck for this. I mean, you go ahead and live in your fantasy world. I'll keep waiting for that bitcoin to drop in my wallet from, you know, some unnamed source at the Vatican. [00:16:56] So let's just kind of look at the, the, the, the Leo pontificate of the first 100 days. [00:17:02] I think the, the number one thing. This would be my number one thing, my takeaway, my number one takeaway from the first hundred days is that Leo decided from the beginning to break with Francis. To visually, particularly. But many ways to break with Francis. I'm not saying a total break. I'm not saying all of a sudden he's like Francis. He's going out there and condemning Francis. He's saying many good things about Francis. Of course he has. What I'm saying, though, is he made it very clear from the beginning his style is not going to be the style of Francis. And I don't think we can underestimate how important style is when it comes to the celebrity pontificy we have now we have a celebrity papacy. Style matters. By style, I don't mean like how you dress only. I mean like how you, how you how you Pope, how you, how you act in public, what you say when you, when you're publicly speaking, how you say it, things like that. [00:17:56] I mean, let's not forget that during the Francis papacy, we had a pope who would literally off the cuff, attack faithful Catholics on a regular basis. He would invent stories that tried to make faithful Catholics look awful, look stupid. Look, just, just the worst possible way. He would say things off the cuff that were theologically questionable at best, that the more you look down, the worse they got you. You hear, see a headline, be like, oh, he couldn't have been that bad, could you? Then you read the article and read what he said, and it's actually worse than the. Was. [00:18:29] You know, all these things. [00:18:31] You know, the way he managed things in, in the Vatican is very well known as dictator pope. All that stuff and all the outward ostentatious, you know, effects of humility, trying to look humble, like, oh, I'm not going to stay there. I'm not going to go to vacation, I'm not going to wear this, whatever, all because, look how humble I am. The humbleness. Pope Francis, let's not forget what that was like, had 12 years that Pope Leo's throwing all that out the window. He's simply. In my mind, what I've seen is he's simply trying to be a pope, like popes have always been, just like, okay, I'm gonna wear the papal garments. I'm going to celebrate the, the Mass the way popes written. Obviously not the traditional Mass, but, like, you know, I'm going to sing Latin. I'm not going to be embarrassed about that. When I give talks, they're going to be focused on the basics. I'm not going to be attacking people left and right. You know, all these things are just, just part of the style of, of. Of Leo that shows he is not Francis. He is not beholden to doing things with which Francis has done. And I think this is a cause for great hope. Yes, it's true. He hasn't, like Lou hasn't done some fundamentally, like, consequential things that are against the Francis pontificate or, you know, go a different direction. But the very least, it shows he's his own man. He. Because the truth is, there was a lot of pressure on Leo when he became pope, when he was like, pope, to be the continuation of Francis from the cardinals, from the Vatican, from the world, from everybody. [00:20:04] The majority of people at the higher levels of the church want him to be a continuation of Francis. And he's Basically saying, no, I'm not going to be just like Francis is. So he's going to stay in the papal apartments, he's going to vacation where post vacation, he's going to, you know, he's going to dress like Pope's dress. He's going to just be normal. I mean, that's the biggest thing. He's just going to be normal. [00:20:27] And so that's, you know, and also, like, if you read Leo's addresses, his homilies, his addresses, they come across as just a Pope, basically just talking about Catholic things. When you followed Francis for any length of time, it was just so weird how so many things he said were like just modern, you know, ways of saying things. He talked about synodality all the time in weird ways. Yes, Leo talks about synodality as well, but just like, it was like there was no like just regular talk as a Catholic when it came to Francis. But with Leo there is, you just get, you know, basic exegesis and things like that. [00:21:12] Excuse me. [00:21:14] So, and another thing about Leo is in this kind of, in keeping with this breaking away from the style of Francis is all those outward signs that are very important. I've written an article about this, I mentioned it on the podcast before, and how that trickles down. The fact is, it's like when a young associate pastor wants to sell, maybe include a little Latin in the liturgy and his pastor would say, no, we don't do that here. He now can say, well, Pope Leo does it. He couldn't say that with Francis. Of course he can say, pope Leo does this. And so these inter, these outward actions can really affect us interiorly. And it seems that Pope Leo knows that. [00:21:53] And so for that, I, I think that's, that's my number one takeaway about Leo is that he is charting his own course. Now, whether or not that's going to be a great course or not, I can't say yet. But I am saying it's at least different from Francis. It's impacted by Francis, no question. You can't Follow Francis after 12 year Francis Pontificate and not be impacted by that, obviously, but it's going to be in a different direction. [00:22:18] Now, what about like his appointments? This is something that has been interesting that of course, that's one of the biggest things about a pontificate is who does he appoint in the various positions at the Vatican, but also for diocese, bishops of diocese. And I don't think there's any clear signs yet. I think this one is like a, you know, if I, if I'm very happy about the fact that he's going a different direction than Francis, at least in style and other ways I will say the appointments, it's unknown right now. He's kept everybody in, in place so far at the Vatican, which is normal. There's nothing weird about that. There's nothing says he's just going to keep them forever. But like he, he is going to start making appointments to Vatican that will be very interesting to see. And will he, for example, get rid of Tucci and things like that. [00:23:00] But as far as bishop appointments, I have not seen and correct me if I'm wrong, chat if I'm, if I missed anything. I have not seen any appointments where I'm like, oh boy, that's a bad one. I've just seen like, okay, that seems like a normal one. Again, kind of boring. He often picks people who are local to the scene, maybe auxiliary bishops or priests in the diocese or nearby diocese or something like that. And so he seems, he seems to like picking people's with local connections. But here's something I want to say with appointments. We have to remember we have not had a pope in my lifetime that has had great appointments. Francis obviously had terrible appointments. [00:23:39] Benedict's appointments are probably the best. But JP2 had some terrible appointments. He had some good ones. But boy, don't forget most of the cardinals and bishops have been a problem for the last 20 years. They were all picked by JP2. So for all the good you might want to say about JP2 spontificate, he was awful at appointing people. So even Leo could follow in JP2's footsteps. He could have some terrible appointments. Now some appointments are terrible. You don't know it. You don't pick, you don't know. McCarrick is a monster when you pick him. Now the fact that he moved up so quickly, that's problematic. But the point is, is like I'm not blaming the Pope for every appointment turns out bad because you just simply can't bat a thousand when it comes to appointing people to be bishops, stuff like that. But in general you want the good better more than the bad. You don't want the really bad. Which is what JP2 had some really bad appointments, especially when he just would elevate people who we knew were bad to the cardinal and stuff like that. [00:24:35] So I don't expect Leo's appointments to be awesome. I don't expect them to be, you know, about a thousand. But my hope is, is that maybe he picks a lot of bishops like him who are Boring. [00:24:48] Who are just like, just kind of do their business, focus on the internal, hopefully just kind of preach the gospel and don't, don't get all controversial. That would be nice. I think that would be a good thing. [00:25:00] Another thing I want to say in kind of Leo's favor is I've been very happy with the way he has spoken out about peace and against war. He's spoken out for the suffering people in Palestine, especially the Christian suffering there. He's. He's been wanting people to work towards the end of the war in Ukraine. [00:25:19] I think this is a very good, important thing. All the posts, frankly, in recent years, decades, have been very good at this, and I'm glad to see that he is keeping with that. Yes, he's had some statements politically that, you know, I don't agree with. Like on immigration, he suggested things, but I feel like he hasn't really gone Francis crazy yet on that. Like, I know he and I, if we sat down, had a conversation about our politics, would not agree with each other and everything, and that's fine. I don't need to agree with the Pope on politics. He doesn't need to agree with me. I don't really care. [00:25:49] I just don't want a Pope to abuse his. His religious authority to make statements about politics in which Catholics are free to disagree, where really it's up to the laity to make decisions, like about immigration, what level of immigration should we have, and things like that. I'd prefer a Pope who, I'm not saying he can't speak out for, like, against abuses of immigrants and can't speak out for stronger borders, things like that. I just don't want a Pope who obviously takes one side, almost always the progressive side, on some political issue and just drives it home and abuses his authority and really harms his religious authority by attaching himself to some political view that is not required of Catholics. So that's something that I've been generally pleased by. He's been much less political than Francis. Yes, he has some interests, but it hasn't been anywhere near as bad as Francis has. [00:26:43] I would just say, if I had to sum up Leo, Pope Leo. I. The one word I would use, if you ask me, was one word you use to describe Pope Leo. It would be normal, just normal. He just comes across as a normal person. [00:27:02] And honestly, that is a big change from the last Pope. [00:27:06] He doesn't come across. Leo didn't come across as some super ideologue who like, sees the world through this crazy ideological lens where everything is judged by this 1968 progressive lens. [00:27:18] Also, he's not even like Benedict. Benedict was super smart and he, you know, he couldn't hide it. [00:27:24] JP2 was this superstar crazy, you know, as far as like, you know, his charisma and all that. So the last three popes have not been normal. And I think normal is good. I don't. I mean, sure, I'd love a superstar pope who was like super orthodox and traditional, but I think having a normal pope was very refreshing. [00:27:44] It honestly allows us to kind of, I don't know, just relax from the last 12 years where we're all on edge. I mean, I joking with my wife that, you know, Pope Leo seems to be. He might be terrible for Crisis magazine, which I love, meaning there's not as much of a crisis. Not a crisis all the time. In fact, I feel like, and I could be wrong about this, I haven't really studied it, but I feel like our articles of crisis have been less about a crisis in the church and more about just what's going on in the world, how we can live as better Catholics and things like that. Sure, we still talk about things going on in the church and we're going to continue to. It's not like the problems are solved, but there's not the scandal a minute that there was under, under Pope Francis. And so I'm very happy that Leo is very normal in the way he talks, the way he interacts with people, all of that. He just comes across as a regular guy, which I think is good. [00:28:36] Didn't come across as a weirdo and that that could have happened because you look some of the cardinals, they definitely could have come across like that. [00:28:44] So what would grade would I give him? Yes, I know it's arrogant and blah, blah, blah that I'm giving the Pope a grade after 100 days, but I'm going to do it anyway. My podcast, I can do whatever I want. [00:28:54] I would give him a B plus. That's my grade. My grade is a B plus. I don't want to give him an A simply because he would have to do something I think more phenomenal, like Olson resin tradition custodes or Sack, you know, Cardinal Fernandez and some other people like that, that I would need him to do something more significant to get an A. That being said, his just normalcy and his doing most of the pope thing things right, I think gives him a very good grade. I think gives him, like I said, a B plus. I mean, I would give him Francis an F. You know, F for Francis I would given. [00:29:29] Well before he resigned, I would have given. I probably would have had Benedict close to an A minus or something like that. But with the resignation, he goes down. But the point is, after 100 days, I think Leo is doing a good job. I think there's every reason to believe he'll continue to do good job. And yes, he will have his missteps. Yes, what he thinks he does, I'm not happy with. [00:29:46] But overall I think that it's a welcome relief from what we had with Francis. And that's the last thing I just want to bring up. [00:29:56] The reality is Francis broke a lot of people. Let's be honest, he broke a lot of Catholics. And what I mean by that is he really harmed their ability to trust the Church, to trust the hierarchy, to look at the bishops and the Pope as father figures and even priests. He really did break a lot of people. And that's what happens when you have an abusive father. [00:30:19] People freak out when I say that Francis like an abusive father. And I'm sorry, but it's true. He was spiritually abusive and that broke a lot of people. And I think we should pray for those people and I think we should be understanding of those people, not attack them, which I sometimes do, I admit, and I shouldn't do it, but I know I do that sometimes. [00:30:39] But the fact is it's very hard to get over that if you've been broken by Pope Francis and because he spiritually abused you, which I get he did to all of us. I think we just have to though just say I have to get over that. I cannot let that harms me by hanging on that. That only harms me and it might harm others around me and those I influence. It does no good. And so we really do need to not let our hang ups with Pope Francis, which I have them too. [00:31:09] We have to make sure we don't let them transfer over to Pope Leo. Let Leo be Leo. Don't, don't put Francis on him. Don't let what Francis did to your view of the whole church really drag you down. But instead really give, give Leo the benefit out, look at him as he should be looked at as his own man, as a Pope, and give him benefit and work and really pray for him and fast for him, him and, and look at him as a father. Try to look to him as a Holy Father, which was very difficult. I, I'll make a confession here. I stopped calling Pope Francis Holy Father. I don't remember when I stopped doing it. Probably a few Years into the pontificate, May 2018, something like that. I just couldn't do it. I'm not saying he didn't have that title or anything like that. I'm not saying he wasn't Pope. I just couldn't call him that. And that's sad. [00:31:55] I am willing to call Pope Leo Holy Father and I, and I hope you, you are too. Okay, let me jump into the live chat. [00:32:03] As normal Tuesday afternoon, we have live quite, you know, questions, comments that are made. I really appreciate everybody jumps in. We had a nice little conversation today. It looks like. Here's, here's the first one. Dave Earnhardt says if Pope Leo allows a tlm, he'll be a good Pope. In my book. Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's so huge. [00:32:19] It'd be hard to be a bad pope if he regularized, kind of opened up to TLM again. He rescinded, at least in practice, during. As soon as custodis. I'm not sure he's going to come out and say it's. It's done. I just hope that in practice the shot mass is allowed to flourish again. That would make him. I agree with you, Dave. [00:32:40] Anna Kate says, I think wait and see, especially since nothing happens in Rome in the summer, is different from going all in as hyper papalist. I think every group has their blind spots. Yeah, you're right. We all. I know I have them. We all have our. Our blind spots. [00:32:53] And I think that that's where I am. I mean, I don't even. Okay, Anakin, you bring up a good point about wait and see. [00:33:00] I'm not even at wait and see. I think I'm more of a benefit of the doubt. Be positive. [00:33:06] You know, try to look at the positive as much as possible, not just wait. Because I feel like you might not mean this, Anna Kate. You probably don't. Knowing you, I don't think you do. But some people take wait and see as almost wait for something. Him to do something wrong, wrong and then pounce. [00:33:20] We don't want to do that. We need to assume good things will happen. We need to assume he'll do good. And if he disappoints us, we can talk about it at that point. But at this point, that hasn't happened, so let's not do that. [00:33:31] Michael Jarman says 100 out of 100. Eric, couldn't agree with you more. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that. Always like to get some positive reinforcement. [00:33:39] A mere tradition with Kenny. Oh, Kennedy. What's up, bud? Eric, did you receive your Shipment of gold bars. The backing usually drops mine off my backyard. From Hillcar, Kenny. That's the thing. I asked for it in bitcoin. Maybe that's what's holding up my payment. I guess you asked for it in gold. Probably good. Not getting those Canadian dollars. So. Okay, now we know why. I. I just. I need to contact my Vatican. My Vatican contact and let them ask them like, what's going on. Do you not pay in bitcoin? Or do I need to get like worthless cash or maybe the gold bars in. In the backyard? So hopefully people understand we are joking. [00:34:11] Female KC Royals fan from Nebraska. [00:34:15] Was your name before just Casey Rose fan from Nebraska. Remember being female Casey Rose fan. But anyway. Okay, so still waiting for Stupid to be replaced in Chicago? Still waiting for Dolan be replaced in New York City. Yeah, that will. I mean they're. I think Dolan's over 75. I know Soupich is over 75. [00:34:31] I mean, my hope is that super just replaced soon Dolan. I'm okay if he goes on for a little longer. I'm not like Mr. Dolan fan or a Cardinal Dolan fan, but at the same time, he's no Soupage. I mean there's a. There's a huge difference between the two. But I think that's one of those things where like give the Pope time on that one and you know, really he needs time. There's so many things that go in play. He's not going to be like, oh, the first thing I'm going to do is going to replace the bishop from my hometown. That probably is not the first thing. Who's a very powerful bishop. He's probably gonna be like, let's just get our feet wet. Get, you know, start doing things and then eventually we'll take care of that. [00:35:07] Excuse me, Anna. Kate also says TC and FC FS need to go document wise. Yeah. [00:35:15] Fiducia supplicants fusi. Why am I forgetting it anyway? You know what I'm talking about. [00:35:20] Yes, I agree. I just don't think they're going to actually go in the sense of they'll be formally rescinded. I think what I hope happens, I mean, I hope they are formally rescinded, but the most likely scenario is that they're simply going to be forgotten about, overridden by other things in a more subtle way. But we'll see. And Kate also says we're going to have to change the name to Things are relatively okay magazine that this doesn't like, you know, roll off the tongue as well, but maybe we should do that. Things are relatively okay. Magazine. And the truth is, and I know you're joking about this, we know the state of the Church right now isn't okay. We're still in crisis. There's still lots of people leaving the Catholic Church. The culture is very anti Catholic, all these things. There's. There's plenty of homosexual bishops and priests out there who are doing terrible things. We know all that's true. [00:36:11] So I don't want to act like I'm like Pollyannish. I know all that's happening. At the same time, we can be happy for good things and we don't have a Pope who seems to hate us. And I think that's a good thing. So maybe I should tell it that the Pope doesn't hate us anymore. Magazine dot com. [00:36:28] Okay, final Gracie. History will tell just how bad Francis was. I think it's very difficult to be objective, like historically objective when you're living through it. It's just not possible. [00:36:42] And the funny thing is, during the Francis pontificate, I often said that it's premature to say this is the worst pontificate in history, because we just can't say that when you're a contemporary of it, you can't judge it objectively. [00:36:57] That being said, I think for the average Catholic, not people like maybe who are listening to me right now, but for the average Catholic, I don't think they realize how bad the Francis pontificate was and how bad of a Pope Francis was. And I think over time that will be made very clear. In fact, my guess is that Francis will be forgotten, which is the best thing that can happen, is that he'll just simply be forgotten and it'll be almost like an embarrassment that you don't want to talk about anymore. And we'll just like, you know, we'll just ignore that time. And I think that's a more. More likely scenario. So we'll see. But yeah, let's pray for Pope Leo. I'm gonna finish it up there. [00:37:33] Pray and fast for Pope Leo and pray for his appointments. [00:37:38] You know the words he says, everything he does. And don't get dragged down by the people who just want to assume he's another Francis. I just can't. I think that's the more danger of my audience than the Pollyannish view, is that you're just going to want to find something wrong. He will make an appointment that will make you upset. I guarantee it. It will make me upset. But let's not just be like, okay, he's. He's dead to me now, and he's not a father figure to me anymore. But instead, let's just really try to treat him as a Holy Father as long as we can. I mean, I hope it's for his entire pontificate. I hope we never have to. I never have to say something about him like I say about Francis. I just hope and pray it doesn't. So, okay, until next time, everybody. God love you.