The Injustice of Restricting the TLM

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:15] The severe restrictions on the traditional Latin mass in Charlotte, North Carolina are not just uncharitable, but they are deeply unjust. That's what we're going to talk about today on Crisis Coin Hell. I'm Eric Sammons, your host editor chief of Crisis magazine. As always, I encourage you to smash button and to subscribe to the channel. But the big thing I wanted to mention before we get started is we're doing our fundraising campaign. We do this twice a year, usually in May and December. [00:00:41] And I just want to be blunt, it's not going well this month and I think I know the reason. [00:00:47] I thought maybe it's just you people don't like me anymore, but that's not. Or our writers, but I don't think that's it. We had a major technical problem with our email list. Mailchimp is who we use, and I'm not trying to throw one under the bus, but I think I am around May 1st. So right before we started the fundraising campaign, they basically removed thousands of email subscribers and they moved them to a non subscribed list. And we have looked into this, make sure we didn't do something wrong on our end. We have reached out to them for support and we've tried to get this fixed. But ultimately what happened was a lot of our fundraising emails to our biggest and most devoted donors, they simply didn't get them. They didn't know we were doing a fundraising campaign necessarily. So the point of this is, I'm asking you, please go to crisis magazine.com you'll get a donor box that pops up and donate to our May campaign. [00:01:45] As I always say, we, everything we produce, all our content, our podcasts, our articles, everything is free. But they're not free to produce. And so we have to pay our writers, people like Anthony Esalen, Joseph Pierce, Jan Smith, Austin Ruse, Candy hall, all those people like that. [00:02:02] And you know, we love doing it. They're great writers, but we, we need, we need your help. I mean, I'll just put bluntly, we need your help. So please consider donating to Crisis. Okay? I hate doing that. [00:02:14] I'm not a good fundraiser. I would never be hired for a corporation to be their fundraiser. And if I ever was, I'd be fired very quickly. But hopefully that you will do that. Another thing I want to mention was we're doing the live stream today on a Thursday rather than on a Tuesday. [00:02:30] That's because Tuesday was actually my 30th wedding anniversary. And so we, you know, honestly, I had better things to do than to be on this, to do the live stream. I enjoy doing this. It was my 30th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. [00:02:47] Lastly, before we really get into the topic of the day is Happy Feast of the Ascension. Today's Ascension, Thursday, May 29, 2025. [00:02:57] If you are a bit confused and think, wait a minute, isn't Ascension on Sunday? Well, you've been gaslit. [00:03:03] I will say this has been a pet peeve of mine for as long as I've been Catholic. Well, yeah, I actually remember two years. I think it was me. No, three years. It was 1996, after I became Catholic in 1993. So it was 1996. So about three years later I worked for a company and I had a trip, a business trip to Seattle. I was living in Washington, D.C. had business trip to Seattle, Washington. [00:03:26] And it was during the Feast of the Ascension. It was going to cover that Thursday. And this is when almost every diocese celebrated the Feast of the Ascension on Thursday. [00:03:36] I thought everyone did. And so I traveled there and on Thursday morning I made sure I got up and I went to a local parish to go to Mass. [00:03:47] And I found that no, the Feast of the Ascension because I looked up what the. This is before the Internet was very big. So I basically looked up what is their holy day schedule. I get there, there's nobody there. And I realize there is no Feast of the Ascension on Ascension Thursday in Seattle at this point. It had been one of the few dioceses at that time that had moved it to Sunday. Then I get back on, I think it was Friday or Saturday. And of course the Ascension had passed where I was living in, in, in Maryland. And so I missed the feces, the Ascension that year. [00:04:20] And, and it's a first I had heard. I didn't know some places moved it. Now, of course, most diocese in America have moved it to Sunday and I think it really does. And I'm going to go off on this just a little bit. I promise to get to the main subject, the topic of this podcast in a minute. [00:04:37] But I really do think the moving of Ascension Thursday to Ascension Sunday, Ascension Thursday, Sunday is a sign of a deeper problem. [00:04:47] It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how to attract people to the faith. [00:04:54] I really think this is an evangelization issue more than anything. [00:04:57] I really think that most bishops do not understand how to attract people to the Catholic faith. Faith. [00:05:05] I think there are some bishops who are, yeah, they are evil. We're going to be actually talking about one of them soon. [00:05:11] But I think in general, most of them are Ignorant about this. They would like people to become Catholic. They desire that. They just simply don't understand how to make that happen. And so what they do is they think the more the Church is like the world, the more people will be attracted to the Church. [00:05:32] So the more the Church is like the world, the more people will be attracted to Church. This is fundamentally false. It is simply not true. In fact, it's the opposite. [00:05:42] The more the Church is like the world, the less people will be attracted to it. Because why bother with the Church if you can just get what it's selling by just staying in the world? [00:05:52] And so by doing things like try to make things more convenient all the time and be like, okay, we're not going to make you take off work, we're not going to make you do anything, any sacrifices or anything like that to be Catholic. People don't think it's worth it to be Catholic. [00:06:09] Now, I think, for example, I mean, if you think about, go back to like before the Second Vatican Council, 1950s, 1940s, things like that in America. Think about the things that Catholics did. They had their holy days and obligations on Thursdays. If assumptions was during the week, whatever the case may be, they had lots of Masses available. People had to get off work. Potentially. [00:06:30] They did, you know, no meat on Friday for all year round. They did much more vigorous fasting. [00:06:36] But we think that we can't call people to do that. That that something will turn them away from the faith. It will actually attract them. Now, yes, it's possible you could go too far on this. If, for example, the Church made mandatory, obligatory for Catholics to attend Mass every day and every Mass was five hours long, yeah, sure, it's going to be difficult. People couldn't do that. And most people would just say, I can't do that. I can't live and go to Mass every day for five hours. It's just simply not practical. I'm not going to be Catholic. It's not worth it. [00:07:06] But I think we can go a lot further than we are today of trying to dumb everything down, try and make it easier to be Catholic. I do think we should make it a little bit harder to be, to practice the faith, because I mean, it's a crux of our faith, the fact that you have to take up your cross and follow him. Well, if you can't, you're not even willing to take off, you know, a little bit of work on Thursday, Ascension Thursday to, to worship the Lord. Well, then, you know, where are we? [00:07:35] But we have this thought in much of the hierarchy that we need to lower the standards. There is this ideal you have to stretch for that that's not really attainable when really it's just gospel teaching. Instead, we have to make it where. Okay. Make it as easy as possible. Lowest common denominator. Okay, rant over. But I just couldn't miss the opportunity for that rant because it's one of my big pet peeves. Is Ascension Thursday being moved to Ascension Thursday, Sunday. [00:08:05] Okay, let's talk about then the main news that Catholics have been talking about for the past week, and that is the fact that Bishop Michael Martin, the bishop of Charlotte, North Carolina, has decided to severely restrict the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. Now, a little bit of background. [00:08:27] Bishop Michael Martin has been bishop of this diocese for literally one year as of today, May 29, 2024 is when he was consecrated bishop, became the bishop of Charlotte. So this is his one year anniversary today. So in less than a year, in fact, when he first became bishop, he basically indicated he wasn't going to change things about the tlm. And then he basically is trying to destroy it now completely, which we'll see in a second. [00:08:52] Another thing you have to know about Charlotte, the diocese of Charlotte is one of the. Has been one of the most tradition friendly diocese in the entire country. [00:09:05] I know this personally, not because I live there. I don't even, I don't even know that many people who live in that diocese. I do know a few and they tell me good things in the past, I should say, but because a lot of the seminarians who from the diocese of Charlotte, they actually attend the seminary in Cincinnati and they. And on Sundays, they all during the school year, they often attend our traditional Latin Mass, our High Mass, which is beautiful, and they will sit in choir for that Mass. I have noticed I have not seen them there this year. And I wonder if, I don't know if Diocese Charlotte stopped sending them up here or if the bishop made it clear, no, you can't go to that. [00:09:48] I don't want to speak on that. I just simply know I haven't seen them. But for years, for years, under the previous bishop when the seminarians were here, they would often go to the traditional Mass on Sundays. [00:10:02] So obviously we have a situation where you have seminarians now, priests of the diocese who are obviously friendly to tradition, obviously friendly to the traditional at Mass. You had a bishop before who was obviously friendly because he, you know, he's. If he's attracting seminarians who want to go to traditional Mass on Sundays. [00:10:22] I mean, he's not, he can't be that bad, right? [00:10:25] And so that's, that's what we're talking about here. [00:10:28] So this isn't like a soupage situation whereby knows, this is, you know, when he comes in, he's going to destroy vocations, destroy anything tradition friendly like that. This was kind of like all of a sudden you just get this guy a tradition friendly diocese that just decides to obliterate it as much as possible. [00:10:47] So what happened was on May 23, he released a letter in which called completing the implementation of Traditionus Custodis in the Diocese of Charlotte. And that basically is his point, is the completing. He's, he's, he's saying, hey, I'm just following the orders given by Pope Francis in 2021. [00:11:07] We're just completing the process we started then when Pope Francis said, you need to shut down all traditional masses in parish churches and basically you need to do everything you can to make it so the traditional ant Mass is no longer celebrated. I mean, that's what tradition in the accompanying letter said. And so he's like, I'm just following orders. [00:11:24] It is a bit odd that this comes out about a month and a half, a little bit, actually, almost exactly a month after the death of Pope Francis. [00:11:35] So clearly it's not a matter of, okay, Pope Francis had somebody go to Charlotte and say, you got to do this. [00:11:44] I mean, it just would make sense from a common sense perspective. Why don't you wait to see what the new regime wants? Why don't you just kind of hold back? You don't have to do this. I imagine if a bishop was simply doing it out of a sense of obligation, of duty, but didn't really care for the directions, he would have definitely stopped after the death of Pope Francis. Okay, I'm going to wait and see. I don't really want to do this, but now I don't have to. So I'm just kind of wait and see how the wind blows. [00:12:15] So the idea that this is just a completion, I'm just doing this because that's what we were told to do. [00:12:20] It's ludicrous on its face. Clearly he wants to do this. I don't see how you can interpret any other way than to say that. [00:12:27] So he basically said, like I say, he says he wants to finish the diocese implementation of norms established in Tradi Unis Custodis. He says effective July 8, the traditional 2025, the traditional at Mass will no longer be celebrated at parish churches in the Diocese of Charlotte, period. End of story. No parish churches. And by parish church, just make sure everybody's clear. These would be parish. The regular diocesan parishes that have the Novus Ordo also celebrated. [00:12:54] They can't have a traditional Latin Mass there. [00:12:57] And so in effect, what he said is only one chapel that seats about 350 people. [00:13:04] Only one chapel in the entire diocese. And this is by all of western North Carolina. I have family. I have visited western North Carolina so much in my life, you wouldn't believe it. Because my mom's side of the family all are from Hail from the Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina. I know that area well. [00:13:22] So having one chapel in the entire diocese of Charlotte is just obviously you can't go to it for a lot of people in that diocese without it being like a three or four hour drive or something like that, or at least a two hour or more drive. [00:13:37] So it's a chapel that, by the way, isn't even a Catholic church. I think it's a Protestant, old Protestant chapel they bought out. It seats 300. They admit that over a thousand people. [00:13:47] They say, I should say over a thousand people in the diocese attended traditional Mass. I'm willing to bet it's higher than that. [00:13:54] And yet they're saying you can have two Sunday masses at this one chapel that seats 350. So clearly they didn't even bother with getting a chapel that was big enough because they figured, well, people aren't going to drive. They can't drive to this, so we're not even going to bother getting one big enough. [00:14:10] They haven't named the chapel yet. [00:14:13] And so. And it also says that those who are interested in celebrating in the eucharistic celebration in this form, the Extraordinary form, or whatever you want to call it, will remain active members of their current parishes where they may continue receiving the sacraments. What this means is you don't become a member of this chapel. And that's not where you get your kids baptized, where you have weddings or anything like that, confirmations. Instead, you are a member of your. Of whatever parish church. You're a member of the Novus Ordo diocesan parish church. And you can go to traditional Latin Mass on Sundays if you want to, but you're still a member. Think about how silly that is, too. [00:14:49] That's set up. If you're the pastor of this, of a regular parish, and all of a sudden you have these people who are going to another parish, another location for Mass every Sunday, but then you're responsible for their soul and baptize their Kids, marry them, confirm them. It's obviously a stupid setup the way it is, the way, the way he's saying up is obviously dumb. Whereas if you had the church lant mass in the parish still, then you know that your pastor, you know your pastor, you see him often, you're part of the parish life. But in this situation, it's purposely saying you're not going to really be part of the parish life because you're never going to be there on Sundays if you go to the church mass, but you're still required to go to them, go there for your other sacraments. I mean, it's just a ludicrous, idiotic set up on purpose, by the way. I mean, it's not like this was like they didn't think this out. That's on purpose to get people not to go to the traditional Latin Mass so that they instead just figure, well, I got to go to my parish church because that's where I'm registered. That's where I have to, you know, have my kids, you know, catechized and baptized and things like that. [00:15:54] And then probably the, the biggest howler of the letter is at the end. And this is always the way. It's these letters like this end. [00:16:03] It is my heartfelt desire and prayer that this implementation of Traditionis Custodis will further promote the concord and unity of the church among the people of God in the diocese of Charlotte. So that as Jesus prayed to his Father, we may all be one. [00:16:18] So remember literally the sentence before that he was saying, you're going to have to. If you want to go to church at Mass, you have to be divided. You can't actually be a member of your full member of your parish. You're going to go, you go here for Matthews, go here for sacraments, but yet this will somehow bring about concord and unity and make it so everybody is one. [00:16:36] I mean, I just honestly, I try to be a little bit careful what I say because I don't want to sin. [00:16:47] But it's hard to read that and not just simply say this is the work of the devil. [00:16:54] I just don't see how you read that and not think this is the work of the devil. He's quoting scripture like the devil, but yet doing everything he can to undermine the meaning of Scripture like the devil. So he manipulates scripture that they may all be one in order to bring about not unity, but actually discord, division and like animosity and all these things. That's what he's essentially doing now. You'd think that's bad enough, and it is bad enough, but it gets worse. [00:17:26] Soon after that, it was leaked a Responses to Concerns document. [00:17:34] It's basically a faq. FAQ for priests of the Diocese of Charlotte to basically be able to answer. When a concerned person brings up to you why they don't like this, here's the response you can give them. So, for example, Bishop Martin isn't listening to us. Bishop Martin doesn't understand how we feel. Why is this happening Now? Bishop Martin will be further restricting access to a TLM and so on and so forth. There's probably about a dozen different sections here, and they give a little bit of an answer. Actually more than a dozen, it looks like. [00:18:04] And in this. This is even worse than the letter because it basically reveals the hand. [00:18:12] It doesn't even try to lie anymore like it did in the letter. It. It basically just says, I don't like you people. I don't really want you to be Catholic. I want nothing to do with you. If I could completely destroy any semblance of tradition in this diocese, I would. [00:18:29] And I'm going to try to do it over time. But essentially, you know, basically it's saying, go away. I don't want you as part of the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte. [00:18:40] You know, it says, for example, the first statement is, bishop Martin isn't listening to us. That's the concern. And so the answer is, listening and agreeing aren't the same thing. [00:18:50] Wait a minute, wait a minute. Haven't we been saying this for years with the whole dialogue crap that the Church has been. The hierarchy and the Vatican have been churning out for so long that they've been saying we have to have dialogue with everybody. And we keep saying, well, okay, but you have to at some point make it clear how we disagree. [00:19:11] Now all of a sudden, we have them admitting the modernists, admitting, oh, listening and green aren't the same thing. How about that? But notice it only applies to trads who are not happy with being shut down and treated like ghetto citizens. [00:19:33] There's a lot of howlers in this document as well, but it Sundays, implementation of TCE will limit the possibility of people to celebrate the TLM. That's a concern. [00:19:43] You have to at least give him credit for being honest. The answer is that is correct. And it's clearly what was intended by Pope Francis in issuing Tradicinus Custodus. And I do give him credit for this, because I remember after Traditionius Custodus came out, there started to be people who were saying, oh, Pope Francis doesn't want to actually shut down the Latin Mass. I'm like, he literally said he wants to. He literally said that this is a step on the process to making it so there's only one Roman rite, which is the Novus Ordo, as he would call it, the Mass of Paul vi, I think. [00:20:18] So I mean, obviously that is the objective. And Bishop Martin is following through. He's like, yeah, it's going to limit the possibility people celebrate tlm. You know, a lot of times they fake it out. They're like, oh, we still believe, you know, we still respect your rights. We understand you might want to do this and that's fine, whatever. But we just have to, you know, implement this, whatever. He's like, no, this is going to restrict your ability to send tlm. And that's what I want. I want the TLM to be gone. [00:20:43] And then here's another concern. Implementation of Traditionius custodians will only cause more division and may even cause people to leave the church. This is a definite concern. [00:20:53] And it basically the answer is, yeah, that's right, whatever, whatevs, they can go. It says why is sad that some may leave the church. It appears that the direction of the congregation recommended and Pope Francis required was implement was implemented to cause less division over the longer term. So he's basically like, if we get rid of the trads, everything will be fine. Again, they're the cause of division. They're the reason we have any problems in the church today, just get rid of them. And we got Kumbaya Church. Again, that's essentially what he's saying. So let's do everything we can to kick them in the behind and get him out the door behind. That's by the way, that's how you pronounce it down in North Carolina. [00:21:37] I have family there, remember? I'm not making fun. [00:21:40] So my best, some of my favorite relatives in fact live down there. [00:21:44] Okay, so. And then there's some other things. And then here's one. Implementation of traditional custos will reduce the number of seminarians that are coming to the diocese of Charlotte. This is a concern. [00:21:55] It's absolutely true. [00:21:57] We know this. We've seen examples of this over and over. Not traditional custodians, but bishops that are antithetical to tradition. [00:22:08] Ultimately they lose seminarians. I'm not saying the bishops like have to be pro, like gung ho fro traditional massive textimarians, although that would help. I'm just saying the bishops that are not contrary enemies of tradition, they're the who Understand the importance of tradition. They're the ones who attract the most seminarians. And so when a bishop is clearly, and we'll see in a minute here, he's even more than just what this is. [00:22:36] He hates tradition. I guarantee the number of seminarians are going to decrease. In fact, I will just say here, mark it right now, let's assume it's May 29, 2025. Somebody come back to me on May 29, 20, 35 years from now. [00:22:51] And if bishop Martin is still the bishop of Charlotte on that date, I will guarantee, I will bet whatever you want to bet, there will be less seminarians then than there are now. [00:23:04] That's just the way it is. I don't make up the rules. I just simply report them. [00:23:08] And he says, you know, any young man who is only or primarily interested in the celebration of the TLM is not nor has ever been a viable candidate for ordination to traditional transitional diaconate or priesthood and diocese of Charlotte. Of course, that's not the point. It's not somebody who's only or primarily interested in celebration Telome they wouldn't be applying to be a seminarian in a diocese. I mean, that's just. We know that they go to The Fraternity of St. Peter, the institute of Christ the king, something like that. If you were primarily or only interested in celebration tlm, you're not going to go to a diocesan seminary, obviously. [00:23:43] But young men who are faithfully Catholic who want to be diocesan priests, they understand what this means. When you attack the traditional Latin mass, you're attacking tradition. And they don't want to be anything, be a part of that. They'll just go to another diocese that respects it more. Now, I personally think that there's, you know, I feel like, okay, I'll put this way, if my son, who's married now, so obviously this doesn't apply to him anymore, but if he came to me a few years ago and said, I'm thinking about being diocesan priest, I would have encouraged him not to be. And I hate to say that I don't want to. I hate, because I think diocesan priests have a very important, vital task in the church, and I. And I pray for them. And I know so many that are heroic in their charity and I don't envy their jobs at all, but I would recommend he go to a religious order, a solid religious order, just because you can go to a good diocese like Charlotte. And what happens. This is what happens, because I know some men who were staying who were seminarians and now priests, Diocese of Charlotte who were solid young men who went there because it was tradition friendly. [00:24:50] And now this is what happens. [00:24:52] So the point is, like, he's going to lose seminarians, but he doesn't care because he doesn't want seminarians. He'd rather have no seminarians than seminarians who are faithful to tradition. I'm not saying they're traditionalists. I'm just saying faithful to tradition. He doesn't want them at all. [00:25:07] But definitely, I would say the low point, the worst thing of everything that this bishop did was this. The last question. [00:25:16] It says, what can people do who find the TLM to be a blessing? [00:25:21] So this was the concern. And how did the bishop's office. I don't think the bishop actually wrote this, but he approved it. How did they respond to that? [00:25:29] And basically, you know, it's like, find ways to see the work of Holy Spirit in the Novus Ordo. Avoid social media where division is a goal, not communion. In other words, I don't, don't, don't listen to what people are saying when they all say, hey, when literally everybody. By the way, this is united Catholics along the spectrum of all, like conservative Novus Ordo traditionalists. I mean, this is not a trad thing. Only because I know so many Catholics who attend the Novus Oro regularly who think this is an injustice. [00:26:01] Reach out to a priest or spiritual director, walk you on your journey. In other words, get reprogrammed and it's like, renew your faith. Commencement Roman Catholic Church. As if, if you think the TLM is a blessing, you didn't have a firm enough faith in the Catholic Church. Think about what he's saying there. [00:26:20] If you thought that the Mass that has been celebrated and attended by countless saints, millions and billions of Catholics over the centuries, if you think that's a blessing, clearly your commitment to the Roman Catholic Church is not where it should be. That's what he's saying. [00:26:40] But nothing beats the last. [00:26:42] The last thing he says in this entire document. Remember, what can people do who find the TLM to be a blessing? He says, engage in some acts of penance and charity for the healing of the Church. [00:26:55] The more we go outside ourselves, the nature of love, the less we are tempted to demand that our own needs be the center of our lives. [00:27:03] He is saying, you selfish, self centered, uncharitable, unloving, despicable trads, you need to do penance for your sins. [00:27:16] You need to be like me, who all I want is unity and love. [00:27:20] You are terrible people. You need to do reparation for what you've done as if we've done it. As if people who tend to shoot Mass are the cause of division. This is something I realized, you know, a while ago, but it kind of came to the fore again. [00:27:33] If you look at most of the fights in the church between the trads and the hierarchy, whatever, the trads didn't start it. [00:27:42] The trads didn't start it. It basically was like, we just want to keep doing what we've always done. [00:27:47] From 1970 on, we just want to keep doing what we've always done. And they kept saying, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. And we're going to keep on attacking you until you get into line. [00:27:59] But saying that they should engage in expense and think about how little. Think about. I'm willing to bet. I'm willing to bet this Bishop Prize never asked people to engage in acts of penance. Never. [00:28:11] That's just not the language of the modernists. They never talk about acts of penance because they don't think that's necessary. [00:28:18] I mean, everybody's going to heaven, so why does it matter? But we have to do acts of penance. I noticed that the only time they ask for acts of penance from the laity is when we have to do reparation for things they've done. I mean, he said like, you know, for the healing of the church. [00:28:32] How is it healing of the church to basically cut off some of its most faithful members and to denigrate ghettoized and all this, some of its most faithful members? [00:28:45] And lest you think. [00:28:48] Lest you think that what this is is simply those mean trads, it's simply those TLM people online or whatever, we need to shut them down. [00:29:00] It then came out and I won't read this one. [00:29:04] You know, various reasons. I think it was Rati Chelli blog brought this out first that there was discussions and a plan by the bishop to basically remove anything from the celebration of Novus Ordo that would even suggest it came from the traditional Latin Mass. So, for example, no St. Michael prayer after Mass, no praying in Latin, no receiving while kneeling, no receiving the Eucharist while kneeling. No liturgical vestments that were popular before Vatican ii. You know, fiddlebacks, all that stuff. [00:29:38] Don't like women can't veil if they're going to be lectors or be participating anyway. They shouldn't be participating anyway. But the point is, they can't wear veils more than this. It was unbelievable. No ad orientum, of course, just get rid of alter rails completely. You can't even have a kneeler there. For people who want to kneel. All that had to be was going to be gone. [00:30:00] Now note none of this, none of the things they said that he is saying here were part of Vatican ii. [00:30:08] I'm not a cheerleader for Vatican ii, but at the same time, let's be realistic about what Vatican II actually said and didn't say. Vatican II did not say any of this. None of the council fathers were angling for this. I mean, there probably were a few, but they were such a minority that didn't really matter. [00:30:25] And it wasn't even Moses stuff. Wasn't even part of the initial Novus ordo implementation in 1970. [00:30:32] There was no discussion of like, you know, you can't have. You can't say in Latin because that, I mean, there was like the vernacular, but it wasn't like it was about. You couldn't say in Latin. There's no discussion about like, you have to receive in the hand. It wasn't required of the Novus Ordo. You can't kneel to receive communion. There was no ban of the St. Michael prayer after, after mass or anything like that. Yet this is what he wanted. Now, the good news of this is that so many. There was such an uproar about this internally there at the Diocese of Charlotte that they then came out the same as, oh, no, this was just a starting talking points. We were just starting point. We were not planning on implementing this exactly. We're in discussions, blah, blah, blah. Really what happened was, is the priests of the diocese were like, this is ridiculous. We're not going to do this. We can't do this. [00:31:18] And I think the bishop realized he had even. He had gone too far, at least so far. He might try it again later. Sounds like he will. I mean, the whole thing has been a PR disaster for Bishop Martin and the Diocese of Charlotte. Like I said, what young man would want to be a seminarian in this diocese now? I mean, it would not shock me if they had zero seminarians next year. I mean, they might have some in the pipeline that decide to stick with it, whatever. It would not shock me though, if their number of seminarians next year, the next full year under Barton is just zero. [00:31:49] Because what young man would be like, yeah, that's where I want to go. Where a boomer bishop is going to just basically make sure I'm following the boomer 1970s religion that he has concocted out of thin air. Has nothing to do with Catholicism. Has Nothing to do with the Vatican II even. [00:32:05] I mean, it's just, it's like I'm just going to go to neighboring diocese, and one of the things I want to, I kind of want to focus on here is the fact that the injustice of this action, yes, we know it's uncharitable. We know it's, it's, it's deeply against charity for what he's doing. Because even if you think the traditional Mass people, that they're like, they're just living in the past, they're nostalgic, they're, they're just kind of stuck in their ways, the charitable thing to do would be, okay, just let them have their, their little, their parishes, their Masses. They can have, they can go there. [00:32:42] And as long as they don't cause any real problems in my diocese, which they weren't, then just leave them alone. And that's what, honestly, that's, that's what most bishops did at traditionus custodes. They found ways to basically be like, you know, these guys aren't. They're not my problem. They're not the problem. [00:32:58] I don't want to add to my problems. I'm just going to let them kind of do their thing and we'll kind of act like we're abiding by tradition's custodes, but we're not going to implement it too strictly. [00:33:09] But it's not just uncharitable, it's truly unjust because Catholics have a right to the Mass that their ancestors attended, that their ancestors handed on to them. If you look in First Corinthians, chapter 11, when St. Paul talks about the Mass, when he's actually talking about the institution of the Eucharist and celebrating the Eucharist, he says, for I have received from the Lord what I also deliver to you. [00:33:35] In other words, it's handed on from the Lord, how we say Mass on a very basic setting. But then also it's handed on like a lot of the things that we find from the early Church that were added on and how it was adapted was handed on for generation after generation, for century after century. This is not something where it's like the lie that Paul v and the seven in the six. No, sorry, 1500s, just like, instituted the Trinity Mass and didn't exist before. That is just it. That's what it is. It's a lie. It's existed for centuries. If you look at the, if you actually know the history of the Latin liturgy, the Latin Mass, when I say Latin Mass, I mean, of The Mass of the Right of the Latin Church, you know, that it basically was in its essence like the traditional Latin Mass is today. By the time of St. Gregory the Great, he was kind of the finishing touches on it. And he lived in, he was Pope in 600 A.D. so that's how far back it goes. It had developed over time organically, and then by the time of St. Gregory the Great, it was basically fixed. Yes, there were changes here and there, minor adjustments. In fact, even in Europe, there were different, they said it somewhat differently in different locations. And that's actually what Paul vi, Pope Paul. I'm sorry, Paul V. I said Paul earlier, didn't I? I mean, Pius V, I apologize. St. Pius V. [00:34:57] In the 1500s, in wake of the Reformation Council of Trent, he said, okay, we're going to standardize this some more, a lot more. Because the fact that with the Protestants rising, we just don't want to have, we're going to have problems if we don't do this. If essentially what happens is, is that people are celebrating different local variations of the Mass. It's, we know what's going to happen. It's going to be fall to the Protestants influence and just become potentially invalid even. So let's standardize it. We'll keep the, the ancient ones, the ones over 200 years old, like the Dominican. Right. Ambrosian. Right. Things like that. But everybody else, you got the Latin, you got what we call, we would call the Traditional Latin Mass. [00:35:36] So this has been handed on to us. Now, I'm not saying the Novus Ordo is invalid. I've never said that because I don't believe that. I think it is valid. [00:35:43] But the, but you cannot simply look at it and celebrate it and see it and not recognize that there's, there was some, there was massive changes made. It wasn't handing on what was received. [00:35:57] If the Church, if people hand on a Mass, a liturgy and some tweaks are made here and there by the hierarchy, that's still handing and, you know, receiving, celebrating what you were hand was handed to you. That's still the case. But when you make a whole scale change is like basically you radically change it. Like what's happened to Novus Ordo, it doesn't invalidate it. I mean, it could if you're like the cram there in like the, the Anglicans. But it doesn't invalidate necessarily. But it does mean that you did not, you did not hand on what was received by you. [00:36:31] You created something new. And so this is, by the way, what I'm saying is not. Pope Benedict would have agreed because he. He'd said that the TLM cannot be abrogated. It never was. It can't be. [00:36:46] And so the idea that we're just going to try to shut it down, it's a sin against justice because we have a right to injustice to receive what's handed on to us. And this is not happening. This is being stopped by our bishops. [00:37:02] Okay, so what can we do about this? [00:37:05] Obviously we have to pray and fast, do penance. I mean, the funny thing is he said do acts of penance. We really should do acts of penance, but not in the spirit that he is. [00:37:12] He is saying, but instead we do acts of penance for the sins of the hierarchy. Let's be honest here. This is the sin. I'm not saying that every trad. [00:37:22] The trads don't sin, that there haven't been crazy trads that have done things that make us look bad, blah, blah, blah. [00:37:28] Of course, you don't shut down the entire an ancient riot of the Church because of that, even if that was as true as they claim it was. [00:37:35] But ultimately we should do penance for their sins and beg God to bring shepherds that will actually shepherd us and not be wolves in shepherd's clothing. [00:37:47] I also do think it's good to make our voices heard. I think it's great that there's been a huge backlash to this. I think that's a great thing. I feel bad for actually the Catholics who have lost their traditional at Mass in other parts of the world, and there wasn't a big backlash because they're like, hey, what about us? I mean, I guess we just can't know about all of them. [00:38:05] But I do think, and of course, not all of them were quite as egregious as this one. [00:38:08] I have seen some people, Catholics, who are like, oh, no, you cannot criticize a bishop publicly. You can't say anything like this. That's hogwash. That's nonsense. I mean, look at. I mean, if you just know the history of the Church, you'll know that's hogwash. Yes, it's true. In the early 20th century, there had developed in the Church this idea that you can never criticize a cleric or a priest or a bishop. That's called clericalism. [00:38:31] Obviously, we shouldn't be looking to criticize our bishops, but when they do something this egregious, there's nothing wrong with saying it's egregious, it's evil, it's wrong. [00:38:39] And so we do I mean, if we don't do that, it's how we get the abuse crisis. I mean, let's be honest. We know the abuse crisis occurred because of the clericalism that had developed in the church in the early 20th century. By the way, this doesn't mean we don't have a high respect for our priests, that we don't realize that they are image that they are in Persona Christi. All those things are true. But when they act outside of that, then it's okay to call them out on that. So obviously, we do it in charity and clarity. Charity does not mean we never say anything mean or we never say anything that that's critical. It just means we make sure we do it in the right way. [00:39:16] I also think that we should try to urge American bishops to do something about this, to step in and kind of like, pressure Bishop Martin, obviously, the one that matters the most in some ways is the Archbishop of Atlanta, Hartmeyer, because he is a metropolitan archbishop over Charlotte as well. I don't think, from what I understand, that's not going to really go anywhere. But I think getting friendly bishops, like, for example, Archbishop Corleone in San Francisco and other places to try to put pressure on, maybe at the next USCCB meeting, they put pressure and say, this is like, way beyond what we think that should be done about the traditional Latin Mass. And Archbishop Corleone, by the way, he has been excellent on this, and he has been doing everything he can to maintain kind of the Benedictine balance of having both rites celebrated in the church. [00:40:11] He actually has a conference coming up on the liturgy that's going to be very friendly tradition. [00:40:15] So I do think urging your own bishop, hey, if you know he's friendly to tradition, like, hey, can you. Can you do something about this? Can you talk to Bishop Martin? Now, of course, the first thing people would think isn't, they're bishops. But how about the Pope, obviously? I mean, he's an American Pope. Leo, I think. [00:40:35] I'm not saying we should not contact the Vatican in this situation. I don't think we should blame Pope Leo for this. I don't think we should expect him to do something, to ride in on his white horse and overturn this, like, overnight. I just don't think that's the way the Vatican has ever worked. I mean, Pope Francis did a few times, things like this, but I don't think it's the way the Vatican should work. In fact, it's possible he doesn't even know about what's going on here. It's not like, we know that he's, we don't know if he's like on social media himself or, you know, and who knows, he might know about, he might not. At this point, there's just, it's just too early to act like, okay, he knows about, and he's glad about it. In fact, these restrictions on the Novus Ordo that Martin wanted to implement, Pope Leo violates them himself. I mean, he does things in Latin. He has all the things. [00:41:26] He does a lot of things that are more tradition friendly in his own liturgy. So clearly he's not that supportive of it, at least in his own practice. [00:41:36] I also think long term, it is a problem. If the Vatican is solving every problem, I really think we need to get away from that, because what it does, it leads to a Pope Francis who can cause every problem. [00:41:47] And I think it would be better if the problem was resolved here in America that the fellow bishops took care of it. And the backlash was so great that Bishop Martin recognized his mistake and repented for it. [00:42:00] Now, it's true Pope Leo might act at some point, but we have to be patient. There's a lot of things on his play. He just became Pope a few weeks ago. [00:42:08] He can't. I mean, I, I just, to be clear, I think this is an incredibly important issue. I think it's very, you know, key. I mean, I live in America. I know people in the Diocese of Charlotte, like I said, and I think this is egregious. It's a terrible thing. It's going to destroy vocations. It's going to harm the faith of many Catholics, both who tend to church on Mass and don't. And so I think it's awful. [00:42:30] That being said, I understand we have a universal church of over a billion members and Pope Leo is only one man. So it's gonna, and everybody at the Vatican, you know, is, is Francis's people at this point still. So I just think we have to be patient with Pope Leo on something like this. [00:42:50] Finally, I just want to make it clear, we need to pray for the cat. The good Catholics of Charlotte, in the Charlotte diocese, they obviously have a wolf in shepherd's clothing as their shepherd. And so we need to pray for them also. We need to pray for those particularly who attend the Latin Mass and no longer will be able to, or it'll be an incredible hardship for them to do that. I mean, it's just things that people don't realize. I mean, online you just get a view of traditionalists sometimes that, you know, you just See, maybe them complaining about stuff online, stuff like that. But the fact is TLM parishes have often, usually have beautiful and wonderful communities of people who are friends, who help each other out. They, they, when somebody gets pregnant, they bring meals to them. When they, when they are, you know, somebody dies, they help them out. All these things are, are very true. And I know I'm not saying that's not the case in non TLM communities. My point is these communities have built up over time. And remember, most of them build up before traditionos custodes when the church was saying it's fine to do this. [00:43:56] And so it's like if all of a sudden you yank the community away from them. [00:44:02] I mean, the importance of community cannot be understated. It is so vital to the faith. We don't get saved by ourselves. We get saved in community as a communion more exactly. And so like the idea that these communities are just getting ripped apart because of a petty, vindictive, dictatorial bishop. It just really breaks the heart. I mean, it really breaks the heart. I can imagine if that happened to my community, what, how I would feel and so pray for them, particularly those whose communities have been destroyed not because of like a natural disaster, but because of a, an evil bishop. There's no other way to put it. So. [00:44:42] Okay, let me look at the live chat. Thank you all those who join in the live chat we have Christopher Case says I am predicting within the next 20 years maximum, the papal authority and the church will eliminate the TLM completely from the church and it will be only SSPX and others who celebrate. I pray and hope you are absolutely wrong, Christopher. I'm not saying I guarantee you wrong, but I pray you are. I don't, I actually don't think that's going to happen. I don't think so. I think we're going to look back and we're going to see that the Francis pontificate was the high point of the anti trad kind of movement in the hierarchy. Because the fact is we're the ones who are growing the most and we're, you know, being faithful and all that stuff. And a lot of novice oral parishes are dying. Not. I know there's some good ones out there. I'm not saying there aren't, but a lot of them are dying. And so we're just gonna, we take over just by the demographic solution. Eventually it takes a long time. I know we've been saying that for a long time, but I think it is eventually true. So hopefully you're wrong, Christopher. But I understand why you say that. August TV123 says we have seminary and seeing inquire at my non teal and mass last Sunday. And he was wearing a Beretta. That's a good sign for the future. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is even little things like that. I see that very much. It's very true that, you know, the younger generation of seminarians, they're very much attracted to tradition, all its trappings, and also more importantly, the deep aspects of. Of a traditional Catholic spirituality in life. I think that's a very good sign, which is why I don't think that the. The church will be. Will eliminate the tlm. [00:46:12] I. [00:46:13] It's. I'm sorry. Rude. Duarte, I think says just subscribe. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that also. Okay. Patriarch Pooh Bear says, can you take donations in bitcoin? Who do you think I am? Do you think I would work for an organization that didn't take donations in bitcoin? I literally have a book about bitcoin coming out in a couple weeks. By the way, there's my pitch. Moral Money the Case for Bitcoin. Somebody actually showed on. On X today that they already got their copy. It's in the warehouse. I know it's in the warehouse at the publisher. And they already got theirs sent to them. I haven't gotten mine yet though. But if you want to get a copy of Moral Money the Case for Bitcoin, you can go to my website, ericsims.com pre order it. I'll ship it to you as soon as I get them. You can go Sophia's Institute's website as well, or the big box place. But to answer your question, yes, we take donations in bitcoin. If you go to the donate page, Crisis Magazine, just Crisis magazine. You go up to the donate page, it's a link at the top. There is a way to donate in bitcoin. [00:47:14] Okay. Barbara Thomas. I do not go to a tlm, but I do not want to see the Mass end and see our brothers and sisters leave their church. It is so sad for me to see. Thank you, Barbara. I really appreciate that. And I think people who attended TLM do. My parish actually celebrates both the TLM and the Novus Ordo and we are very united together. I remember when Tradition custodians first came out, the people who attended the Novus Ordo masses, they were very upset. [00:47:39] Why? Because their brothers and sisters at their parish were being potentially being persecuted. And so I think that is the way forward, that we work together. And so I appreciate the sentiment, Barbara. [00:47:52] Okay, Tyler, Texas. Charlotte, North Carolina. What's the next target? Yeah, and we didn't really realize Charlotte was the target, but obviously it was. [00:47:59] How long before the 14th responds? I hear a lot of checkbooks closing. Yeah, I think that's. I already talked about that. But, yeah, Leo, the 14. Leo, you know how he respond? We don't know, but I. I just don't think he's a Francis, too. I'm not saying he's nothing like Francis. I'm just simply saying he's not. I don't think he. He doesn't come across at this point as somebody who's actually trying to hurt people like Francis did. [00:48:24] Daniel Acero says Pride Mass woke. Masses are. Yeah, I mean, they're okay, supposedly. I mean, the stuff that you see, and this was part of the whole debate on acts on social media was like, you know, what about the liturgical abuses that they don't do anything to stop in the Novus Ordo? And people like, oh, there's not liturgical abuses. Give me a break. [00:48:43] There are many, many liturgical abuses. And, and, and within. No sort of. And there's never been any effort to stop them at all, whatsoever. [00:48:53] James says St Michael prayer not allowed by the Bishop of Charlotte. Charlotte, yeah, exactly. I mean, we wouldn't want to invoke the mighty Saint Michael against the devil, now, would we? I mean, I guess if you're working for the devil, you wouldn't want that. So Christopher K. Says, problem is, the Church has become so dependent on Vatican II and authoritative magisterial decrees that reversing this would invalidate the Church. I mean, it's. It's okay. I've written a lot about Vatican II over the years. I'm kind of tired of talking about it, to be honest. Personally, I think we're. We're just. We move beyond. We move past Vatican ii. It's a. It's something. It's like, we don't all talk about what happened at the Third Lateran Council, do we? We don't try to gauge everything in the Church by the Third Lateran Council. Why? Because it had a purpose at its time. [00:49:38] Maybe it succeeded, maybe it failed, but it no longer is really applicable anymore to the real life of the Church. I think the same thing's true of Vatican ii. I think it's true because I think that Vatican II was very much a product of its time, the 1960s. I think things have changed a lot in the world since then. In the 60 years since then. So I just don't think it really, even if you want to say it was a great council, and it did wrote a lot of great things, and I wouldn't say it was like, awful or anything like that. I think, I think there was good in it and some bad in it. But the point is, either way, it doesn't apply today. And so I just think that, you know, that idea, the hanging on to that. I mean, this, by the way, this, this is a boomer bishop. He's born in 1961. [00:50:18] And I think they're the last generation to cling on to it. I really hope that even priests and bishops in the future who are maybe, who aren't maybe like, you know, real conservative or super chair or something like that, they're at least not going to be beholden to. We have to keep the spirit of Vatican 2. We. Because really, that's. That's all that's been implemented in the church today. I'm not one of these guys who thinks we just implemented back into, right, everything be fine. I don't think that's true either. But the fact is, in the life of the church, vacuum two really means a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with Vatican 2, the stuff that came in the wake of it. And I just think the further we get away from that, the better things will get. [00:50:56] Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. I appreciate you joining again. Please donate to Crisis magazine. Go to crisismagazine.com you should get a donation box that pops up if you don't just click on the donate link up at the top and I think on the right side and, and please donate. Like I said, I'll stop asking after. In fact, I think this is the last time I asked because next week is June. So I'll stop asking after this. But I really do hope you can donate. [00:51:20] Okay, everybody, until next time, God love you.