Traditional Catholicism in 2024: Joys and Challenges

[00:00:17] Traditional Catholics face a number of challenges in 2024, but not as all dire in Tradville. Today, we're going to discuss some of the important issues to impact traditional Catholics today. Hello, I'm Eric Samming, your host, and Aaron chief of Crisis magazine. I want to welcome to the program. Also want to encourage you to smash that like button to subscribe to channel. Let other people know about it. We really appreciate that that helps the all knowing, all powerful algorithm. Let other people know about us, and we do appreciate that. In fact, I saw somebody on Twitter recently complain, because whenever they do the for you tab on Twitter, my name comes up and I guess they don't want my name to come up, so I thought that was kind of funny. So the algorithm must like me on at least some level, which is probably a bad thing now that I think about it anyway. So like and subscribe. Also, you follow us on social media at crisis Mag at the various social media channels. Subscribe to our email newsletter, just go to crisismagazine.com, fill in your email address, and you will get emails once a day with our two articles for each day. Okay, so before I get started, I want to a couple of things. First of all, if you're listening this live or the day I'm recording it, happy feast to St. Joseph. Today is a great feast day in the church. St. Joseph is one of the most powerful saints and most powerful intercessors we have. I really encourage you to look to him. [00:01:42] All you men out there, especially you husbands and fathers, look to him as our model. He is the one we want to be like more than anybody else and also ask for his intercession. I have recently completed a 30 day novena St. Joseph for a special intention, and it was granted in the final week of the 30 days. [00:02:04] St. Joseph didn't even wait until the 30 days was up to grant the request that I had made. So I just want to thank St. Joseph for that. Also, I was out of town again. I don't usually travel a whole bunch, but I've been a few places. I've been to Detroit, been to Steubenville, and recently I was in this past weekend I was in Lexington, Kentucky for a baptism, and I was able to attend the fraternity, the FSSP chapel there in Georgetown, Kentucky. It's a beautiful chapel, wonderful people there. [00:02:35] The homily was great on Sunday and I really do like getting out there. I talked to a number of people just, it's great to be out there and see people in person because we do sometimes get a little bit distorted views of the world and the church and others online. So it's great to actually interact with others. So thank you for that beautiful weekend in Lexington, the FSSP chapel there. [00:03:03] Okay, so today is going to be a little bit different as a podcast because I don't usually have one specific event or action or something I'm going to talk about. But this is more of a kind of a free flowing discussion about a number of things as they relate to traditional Catholics. And so a couple of things to note. First of all, I do know that not everybody who listens to this podcast identifies as a traditional Catholic, and that's fine. The crisis readership, most of it is traditional Catholics and quote unquote, conservative Catholics, people who would kind of identify as conservative Catholics. [00:03:41] And so I do recognize that. And so for those who do not identify as traditional Catholics, I think this would be an interesting podcast for you to listen to, to kind of see how a perspective from a traditional catholic viewpoint. I do identify as a traditional Catholic, and I'm giving my opinion on this. I'm not saying this is the traditional catholic viewpoint of things. This is the viewpoint of one person, one person only me. Other traditionalists might agree, might disagree or not. [00:04:12] Now, I do want to kind of say, before I really get going, I want to say that what is a traditional Catholic? Let's have some identifier here, because I know labels can be difficult. They're used in different ways. I would just identify it as somebody who really embraces the practices and the way the church taught things before the changes that were made in the 1960s, particularly after Vatican two. [00:04:42] I would say generally the practices from before that time. So the liturgy, all the liturgical rites, the devotions, things of that nature are things that traditional catholic embraces. And so I think that's kind of all how I identify it. I mean, I know there's a lot of things that go on, a lot of debates within the traditional world. It's not monolithic, I get that, but I would at least define it like that. So that's how I'm defining it. And that's why I want to talk about just kind of what's going on in the trad world. What are some things going on now, the first thing I'm going to bring up is funny, because I thought of this idea this weekend. I posted it to run yesterday. But the first thing I'm going to talk about is something I just found out about this morning, and that is the Catholics and communion conference from tradrecovery.com and here's a description of it. [00:05:43] If you have been formally associated with or affected by traditionalism, or are seeking to understand the effects of traditionalism on our catholic faith, then this conference is for you. Space is limited. Register soon. And the speakers include Michael Lofton. He's probably the only one I actually had heard of before. Michael Lofton, Dom Dalmasso, Sister Mary Eucharista, Mr. Andrew Bartel and father Eric Gilbaugh. Now what was interesting, and this has got a lot of play, obviously, in the trad world already. [00:06:16] Now the first thing that, note about this as I pull, I have the conference flyer here on the screen if you want to see it. But note how it describes it says, if you have been formally associated with or affected by traditionalism or are seeking to understand the effects of traditionalism on our catholic faith, note, there is no qualifier before the word traditionalism. [00:06:39] It's not saying city of occantism. It's not saying rad trad or radical traditional, anything like that. It's just a blanket traditionalism. So taking them by their word, they're basically saying somehow traditionalism within the Catholic Church is bad because obviously, if you've been associated or affected by it and how it's clearly saying this is bad. [00:07:02] Now, as a Catholic, you cannot be against traditionalism. I get you might not identify today as a traditional Catholic, but Catholicism is based on traditionalism, so to speak. It's based on tradition. We cannot cut off ourselves from tradition. It's impossible as a Catholic to do that. Now, I know some people, probably the people at this organizer's conference say, well, that's not exactly what we're talking about, but that's how you identified it. You said traditionalism. You did not say sedative accountism. You did not say radical traditionalism. And try to define that some way. Now, if you look a little more closely at the site, tradrecovery.com, it has a few things about against SSPX, against sedivacantism, things of that nature. And the name of the conference, Catholics in communion conference, suggests they're saying that they're talking about traditionalists who are outside of communion. Now, I would argue that. You cannot say, I wouldn't just argue this. It's a fact. You cannot say the society of St. Pius X is outside of communion with the church, considering Pope Francis doesn't think that. [00:08:08] And so this conference, though, it really is somewhat of a joke, let's be honest. The idea that you have a whole conference about people about the effects, like the evil effects of traditionalism on the church is just ludicrous because it's literally cutting off the branch that you are sitting on. You would not have a catholic church today if it had not held on to the traditions, if it had not been traditionalist for a long time. [00:08:38] Now, that being said, I'm not claiming there aren't problems in the traditionalist world. We're all sinners. We all have original sin affecting us. Of course, the traditional catholic movement. Here's a radical statement. Hold on. I hope you're all sitting down for this. The traditional catholic movement is full of sinners. [00:08:58] Okay. I said, you know, let's have a poll about it. Let's have a response video. Somebody make a response video. Maybe Kennedy hall can make a response video against that. I'm joking, Kennedy. [00:09:10] And so obviously, it's silly to suggest that there's nothing wrong in traditionalist movement. I would never argue that. I don't know one traditionalist who would argue that. [00:09:20] But again, they're just giving this blanket all traditionalist. But the other thing that's crazy about this is the context in which this conference is going to be going on. And that is the complete and utter disaster that is most novus ordo parishes. [00:09:39] It's a complete disaster. And schools as well. Let me just give one example. I literally thought to myself, I need to give an example, and I thought of the most recent one. This is something that happens all the time. [00:09:53] It never makes all the papers. [00:09:57] How old am I? I am old. Never mind. I can say that it never gets online that much. It's not stories or anything like that, but it's an example of what happens all the time, week in, week out in the Catholic Church today. So I know somebody whose daughter was going on a field trip, organized a four day trip organized by a catholic school. So it's in a catholic school. The students are going to take them to Florida for four days from a Thursday through a Sunday. [00:10:26] Well, they sent the schedule a few days before the field trip, and the daughter noticed, God bless her, notice they had not scheduled going to mass. [00:10:37] This is a catholic school scheduling a field trip, planning a field trip to go to Florida from Thursday through Sunday. They wouldn't get back till late on Sunday, and they had not scheduled for the students to go to mass. [00:10:50] Now, some parents did complain about this. They realized it. They complained about it, and they did end up scheduling some time that you could choose to go to mass. But just think about that for a second. Here's just a regular catholic school, and they're scheduling a catholic school field trip that includes being there on Sunday, and they don't schedule the students to go to mass. [00:11:13] This is just the norm in the catholic world today. This is not like some crazy story. This is the norm. I mean, I could just go off a litany of things of local parishes, what I hear about what happens here and there, and everybody here could do that. [00:11:29] That's the state of the quote, unquote, nontraditional catholic world. [00:11:34] You cannot tell me there is one traditional Catholic parish that would organize a trip over a Sunday and not include holy mass in it. [00:11:43] I guarantee that would never happen. So the idea that somehow traditionalism is a plague upon the church, the real problem, the church, you hear this from Pope Francis. So, I mean, I will say to this conference's credit, they are hearing it from the pope. [00:11:59] And so if you think about that, the idea that somehow traditionalism is the problem, we need to have a conference about when literally the regular catholic world, whatever you want to call it, is falling apart. And again, I'm not saying every single novus ordo parish, for example, has these problems. I know a number of parishes, they would never do something like, they don't have these type of problems. But modernism is just completely dominates most catholic parishes, most catholic schools today. So here we have a situation of a silly conference with a silly topic, with silly speakers talking about nothing. That's really of importance. If somebody has been harmed while they've been living in the traditional catholic world, they definitely, sympathy should be given to them. They should be helped, prayed for and all that. But that's not an indictment. To think that traditional catholic movement in the Catholic Church today is the problem is a problem that needs to be addressed is just ludicrous. It's the solution to the problems of the church today. It's not the problem, it's the solution. And we need to recognize that sooner rather than later. [00:13:16] So, like I said, I'm just going to talk about various things related to traditional Catholicism. Right now. I want to start with. I mean, I just started with that conference, that silly conference, but I want to address the joys of being a traditional Catholic. There's a reason I identify as a traditional Catholic, and a lot of other Catholics do. Yes, we are a tiny minority in the church today. I get that. I'm not claiming we're taking over the church tomorrow, anything like that, but there's a lot of reasons we do that. And I will say this, and this is something I realized when I was doing the podcast a few weeks ago about if your mass is going to be shut down, and I was talking about Austin. I think it was, oh, I know what it was. The idea of a Reverend Nova Sordo replacing a traditional liturgy. I will admit a number of people wrote me and they said they thanked me for it. But I'll be honest, I didn't think I expressed myself very well, because I don't think I can express myself very well when it comes to expressing what it is. What is the difference of the traditional rites of the church, the traditional Latin mass, and also traditionalism in general. But let's just focus on traditional latin mass versus, like, the Reverend Novus Ordo. I've attended for a number of years, very Reverent Novus Ordos in the past. I'm not against the people who go to them or the people priests who celebrate them, but there is a fundamental difference, and it's one I honestly have a hard time expressing. I could talk about the prayers, how different they are, and they are different. I could talk about just the general ethos of the mass, how it's different, but it really is something deep that you have to experience to really understand, like just the idea that you're part of something that has been going on for hundreds and even over 1000 years. [00:14:59] I think that's something that it's hard to express in words, but I think it expands to all the different rights of the church. Because here's the thing. [00:15:10] Like I said, I attended a baptism this weekend, and it was in the traditional rite. It was at the FSSB parish. [00:15:16] And I think that the baptism right is the most clear, to me at least, of the difference between the Novus ordo rights, sacramental rights, and the traditional sacramental rites. Because at least the difference in the prayers, in the traditional baptismal rite, you have exorcisms that were removed in the new rite. And these exorcisms are very powerful. They're literally saying you were born into. I mean, not, this isn't actually literal, I shouldn't say that word, but it's basically paraphrasing, saying, or the essence of it is saying this child, you were born into Satan's dominion. That's what original sin is. You are not a child of Satan, but you are in his kingdom. [00:16:05] You are under the prince of this world being born in original sin, and we are rescuing you out of it. We are going in and we are taking you away from this kingdom, this kingdom of the prince of this world, and we're bringing you into God's kingdom. It's like a rescue mission, the special forces coming in. That's what the priest is kind of doing. The special forces coming in, and they're grabbing this child out of the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of light. And it's expressed very clearly now. Yes, a baptism in a new right is essentially doing that as well. But it's expressed so much more clearly and much more distinctly in the prayers of the traditional baptismal rite also. This is something I just. Okay. In the traditional rite of baptism, they put salt on the tongue of the child, and that was removed in the new rite. And the priest there told me something I had not thought of before. [00:17:02] I'm going to butcher. Probably how he explained it. So don't blame him, blame me if it's not explained well. But he was saying essentially that in the traditional catholic world, nothing unconsecrated should ever touch the sacred host, the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord. The host communion. And obviously we know that means only the priest distributes communion, that you don't have laypeople distributing it because they don't have consecrated hands. But there's something else to that as well. In the traditional Latin mass, you only receive on the tongue. You can't receive in the hand. Well, at baptism, in the traditional rite, your tongue is consecrated with that salt. Your hands are not consecrated. [00:17:45] And so even when a layperson receives holy communion in the traditional rite, who has been baptized in the old rite, they're receiving on a consecrated tongue. Now, I will say I was not baptized, obviously, I was baptized a Protestant. I wasn't baptized in a traditional rite. So I'm not claiming this is that somehow your communion doesn't count if you weren't baptized in the old rite. But at the same time, there's a beauty to this, a certain integral nature of all these different aspects of the traditional rights and how things are done that all fit together. And I feel like a lot of them were forgotten in the new rights. That just leads to a certain poverty in them. [00:18:27] Everybody who follows this knows I'm never claiming that the new rights are invalid. I've never claimed, I've never believed that. I don't think that's true. I think they're definitely valid. In fact, if you think they are invalid, you really undercut the Catholic Church mission, honestly. But that doesn't mean we can't say one is not superior to another. In fact, that's kind of something I've always thought, is that when they made the new rights in the 1960s, they were claiming these rights are superior to the old rights. Otherwise, why change them? If they're not superior in some way, then you don't need. I mean, why make a change? Obviously, they didn't think they were inferior. If they did, why create them? [00:19:09] And so I do think it's okay to talk about why I believe, for example, why these traditional rites are superior in many ways. And just seeing it in the baptismal right, I think, is where it's most clear, actually, just so people know of my kids, some have been, we're baptized in the new right. Some were baptized in the old right. So again, I'm not, like, judging you if your kids have been baptized in the new rite or anything like that. I'm just kind of stating what I see very clearly. And there's a certain beauty in this, a joy when you get to experience this, when you get to be a part of this, when you're at a baptism in traditional light, when you're at the Latin mass. Another thing is, I will say this. [00:19:47] When you just decide when you're traveling, you're just going to go to traditional Latin mass, it makes it a lot easier. I mean, my wife and I could tell you stories of all. We spent probably 15 years of our 1st, 15 years of our marriage. When we would travel, we just, we'd try to, we'd go to the local parish. We might try to do a little investigation to make sure it wasn't a toll loopy parish, and we'd inevitably end up with just a really irreverent, not clown mass, but not a great one, either. I mean, just really done poorly. [00:20:17] Well, when you just say, I'm going to find a traditional latin mass and you travel accordingly, it makes that a lot easier. [00:20:25] Another thing I want to mention when it comes to traditional catholic world is we've seen that traditional Catholicism, at least in this country, has been booming as far as growth in the past few years. And it's related to something that we're celebrating the anniversary of this week, and that is the COVID lockdowns. It's March 19, 2024, which means it's four years ago this week that the COVID lockdown started. But more importantly for us Catholics, the shutdown of the public masses happened. I think the last one was on March 18, is when it started on March 15, and by March 18, so four full days later, every single diocese in America shut down all their masses. Other countries did the same. But I'm just focused on America, and I think this was a key moment, obviously, in the church. There's a lot of tragedy to that moment, because it's been shown by many surveys that a lot of people, and I know this from anecdotal evidence as well, knowing people in this situation, a lot of people stopped going to mass permanently after the bishops shut it down. Temporarily. A lot of people just said they kind of realized what the bishops are saying. It's not essential, so we're just going to go ahead and shut it down. [00:21:45] And they thought, well, it's not essential. I don't need to go back. And I will be the first to say a lot of these people probably were on the path to leaving anyway, but this accelerated it. This made it very obvious to them, and they left. There might have been a chance to bring them back, but we lost that opportunity. In fact, I would say if the bishops had been a strong witness during COVID Tide and said, we're not shutting down mass because it's essential. Yeah, we'll do some of maybe your song and dance of social distancing, whatever, but we're not shutting down access to the sacraments because this, of all times, is when we need them. Well, this is a time when, frankly, traditional catholic parishes, parishes with TLMs, they shined. I'm not saying every single one of them was great, and I'm not saying every single Nova sordo parish was awful. But I am saying on a whole, it's very obvious which parishes on a whole did better. It was the parishes that celebrated the traditional latin mass that were more likely to go out of their way to make sure their parishioners received the sacraments. I know I'm literally eternally grateful to my own pastor for making it never breaking the rules, but making it very clear that the salvation of souls was his utmost goal. That's all he cared about, was salvation of souls. And you saw us, and here's somewhere, I mean, I'm not a member of SSPX, I'm not a member of Society of St. Pius X, never even been to one of their chapels. But there are many stories of how they stood their ground. They refused to buckle, and they continued to give access to the sacraments to their people and to other people who started coming to them during COVID And so I think this is something that, frankly, I mean, we're not supposed to take pride, but I'm not taking pride in myself. But I do take a certain amount of pride in the fact that when the greatest kind of crisis of our day happened, traditional catholic parishes, traditional catholic priest came through at a much greater rate than the nontraditional catholic parishes and priest. And I think that's something we should remember and ask ourselves, why was that the case? Why was it that the progressive priests, for example, they folded? [00:24:10] Why were they much more likely to deny access to sacraments? Why were a lot of these kind of careerist priests? Why were they more likely? Why was it that the more traditional minded and also a number of the more conservative kind of sort of priests, why did they come through? That's not a coincidence. That's not just something that just happened kind of randomly. There's a reason for that. I think we should always remember that and focus on that. And it really comes down to, in my opinion, that Elias priests who celebrate the traditional at mass, they're very serious about their faith. They're very serious about saving souls. They do not look at the church as a social club. That's something I wrote about crisis the other day. They do not look at the church as a social club, but the instrument by which souls are saved. And they knew that's what matters more than anything during, during COVID Another great joy, and this is related to the COVID tide and stuff like that, is the growing parishes, is the fact that so many parishes that celebrate the traditional latin mass have grown astronomically over the past few years. I mean, I just hear story after story of parishes that before COVID they were growing maybe a little bit, but now you can't fit. I mean, it was funny when I went to this FSSP parish chapel in Lexington, I was warned ahead of time, you better get there a half hour early if you want a seat. And isn't that the case? That's the know, I said how it's nice when you travel just to go, I'm going to go traditional latin mass because that way I don't have to worry about it being just some loopy, crazy mass. Well, the problem, though, is often parking might be an issue or getting a seat might be issue. So you better get there early. And that was the case here. But of course, that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing. I would also say a reason why there's been growth over the past few years. It's very fitting. I mentioned this one today is the mass of the Ages trilogy. [00:26:09] The first episode came out in 2021, I believe. The second one, 2022 or 23, I can't remember exactly. And episode three, the final of the trilogy, comes out today, March 19, 2024. Tonight at 08:00 p.m.. Eastern time on YouTube. So I would encourage people to watch it. I do think that had a great impact, too, because people got to see, okay, there was this stereotype of traditionalists being crazies, being schismatics, being hateful, and all this stuff, and all of a sudden we had this beautiful film that comes out that just says, here's what we believe, here's how we practice it, and here's why we love it. That's it. [00:26:49] We're going to show you why we love this traditional expression of Catholicism. This is why we do it. And I think that had a big impact. I know a lot of people watched it, and they really had a big. I still get people today who come up to me and say they saw me in episode one and I was barely in it, but they remember because they watched it and they really took it seriously what it was. And he started attending the traditional mass. So I think this whole conjunction of things and God through divine Providence was working things out with COVID with mass of the ages, with all these various factors to really build up the traditional catholic movement. And I think that personally at least, I just see a lot of the joy in day to day in the real world. I see a lot of the joy of being a traditional Catholic in witnessing the life of other Catholics who attend the traditional Latin mass. I mean, I see it in how they take lint very much more seriously. [00:27:50] They very much are like, I want to make sure my lint includes fasting, prayer, and alms giving. They want to be serious about their fasting. None of this, like two meals a day plus another meal or something junk. They're like, no, I want to be serious in fasting. I want to make sure I do it right. I want to do it like our forefathers and our foremothers did, and they take prayer seriously. I mean, I just talked to somebody who reads divine intimacy a great. I have it sitting right over there for myself because I was like, okay, I read this years ago. I want to do it again in this lint. And it's just a beautiful expression. Divine intimacy is a great. That's just a book of meditations for each day of the year. For those who don't know what it is, it was written, I think, in the 1930s. Here's a good example of just how traditional Catholics just prefer to keep doing the things that people were doing before the changes that all occurred in the 1960s and beyond. And divine intimacy is just a regular book of meditations written in the 30s. That is so beautiful and so deep. And it's just something that you experience that. So these are all the joys. Now, I think we all know, though, and I think this is part of divine providence, why all these positive things happen, because we saw an unprecedented attack on tradition. Well, maybe it's not totally unprecedented, because, of course, it happened under Pope Paul VI as well, but we see an incredible attack on tradition coming from the highest levels of the church. And, yes, I do mean Pope Francis. I'm not trying to talk in code here against traditionalism, against traditionalism in general, not radical traditionalism or whatever you want to call it, but traditionalism itself. And we see that, of course, with tradition as custodus, which came out in 2021, the effort to shut down the traditional latin mass. And make no mistake, Pope Francis made clear his goal is that there would be no traditional latin masses or other traditional sacramental rites in the church at all. That's the end goal he foresees, because he sees it as the big problem. Even as I've talked about the beauty of it and how it's growing, how it's been affecting people, making people more joyful, making them more holy, all these things, he'll have none of that, and his minions will have none of that. The cardinal supiches the cardinal. Fernandez's the cardinal. Oh, the guy blanking on me, the english guy who is over divine worship, whatever. It doesn't matter. [00:30:18] They are doing this. And I think what we've seen is it's been interesting to watch how traditionus custodus has been implemented. We saw the first flurry when it came out. A number of diocese did shut down, but a lot of bishops ignored it. And I think what we've seen, though, over the past year or so, there seems to be a plan to do, like, pick off diocese one by one, because all of sudden, a. We'll hear of a diocese that was allowing it, like Austin or something like that, all of a sudden, they'll shut it down, or they'll restrict it more, something like that. We're seeing this in various places where all of a sudden, and I've got some inside information I can't really disclose. I know some other diocese where this is going to happen soon, where the traditional at mass is getting picked off, and it's very much focused on the diocesan parishes having a traditional at mass at them. For now, they're mostly leaving alone your ecclesia communities, like a fraternity, St. Peter, or Institute of Christ the king or something like that. They're mostly leaving those alone but they're really trying to make it where that's the only place you can get traditional latin mass to kind of bottleneck it so that only a few. So you won't have somebody accidentally infected by going to the regular parish. Like, all of a sudden, somebody normally goes to the 10:00 mass on Sunday and he sleeps in or something happens. He has to get to the 01:00. Oh, wait, that's a traditional latin mass. We can't have that happen. He might accidentally walk into a traditional latin mass, whereas if it's a Paris that only has traditional latin mass, that's less likely to happen. And so I think that's step one, and I think that's what's happening. And there's a lot of talk now among traditional Catholics, and this is probably our biggest challenge. What do we do if our traditional mass gets shut down? I've talked about this in the past. I'm not going to go into it in depth here, but I do think it's a real issue. It's a real challenge, and I think we should be praying for those who face this terrible dilemma that they should not have to face. I mean, think about that for a minute. You're being told you cannot attend the liturgy that millions of Catholics have celebrated for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. That's no longer allowed. That's ludicrous on its face. [00:32:35] And so I think we need to pray for them. I also think we need to be careful for those of us who still have a traditional mass to attend, not to be too quick to judge the decisions they make. Let's not be too quick to judge and say, oh, you have to do this. You have to go to underground one. You have to go to society. You have to go to this city of a contest chapel, something like that. No. Let each one of them pray about, discern, and determine what's best for their family, what they should do. I think that's the way to go. And let's pray for them that they make that discernment and they're able to do the right thing. [00:33:10] I do want to say one thing. The one thing I would argue is, I don't think the answer is not to attend mass regularly for the long term. If the only mass available to you is some really poorly celebrated and everything, no sort of mass, and that's your only option. I do think, frankly, you should consider moving rather than just, I'm not going to attend mass at all. That's the long term solution. I know it's not an easy solution, but I think that's the long term thing you have to do now. Another thing that I think is going on in traditional world, like I said, I'm just kind of hitting different points, is there was some controversy recently because it was suggested that the pope was going to ask, had asked the fraternity of St. Peter to participate in conseelbrating the Chrism mass with their local bishop. This is something that's gone on for a long time. This is not a new issue. I remember hearing about this 15 years ago. The idea is, should a member of one of these ecclesia, their charism is to celebrate the traditional rights of church. Should they participate in, like the Chrism mass consebration? And I am adamant that they should not be required to do this. And that is not a judgment on the validity of the Noah's ordo. It's not a judgment on being out of communion. I just think that these people joined, these men joined a recognized institute of the church whose charism is to celebrate the traditional rites of the church. And this is a papally approved, I mean, in case of eternity. I mean, John Paul II kind of can be considered a founder of it almost. [00:34:54] So you have a Saint pope basically founding this order, in a sense. And they're approved to only celebrate the traditional rites. That's their purpose, is to do that, to force them to celebrate in the Nova Sordo. Frankly, in my mind, and I know people are going to freak out by this comparison, but I honestly think it's like a pinch of incense. I know that the analogy is not perfect. I'm not saying the Nova sorrow is pagan worship or anything like that, but I am saying forcing them to do that is the evil. I'm not saying a priest who decides to do is evil. I'm not saying a priest who decides not to do it is evil. What I'm saying is the request by the church authority to make them do it, the command to do it is evil. That's what's evil. And it should not be done because why not force Novus Ordo priests to celebrate traditional latin mass? You don't do that. Why do you have to force a traditional latin mass priest to celebrate the novus ordo? I think it's wrong for them to do that now. I think we should pray for priests who are put in that situation as well, that they would discern the proper thing to do. I'm not going to judge their decision. I'm just going to say the command to make them do it is what's evil. [00:36:07] Now another challenge. That's a major challenge. Another challenge, I would say, in the traditionalist world. And this is something that is overblown by the enemies of tradition, but it is a reality. And that is we do have to guard against the quote unquote schismatic mentality. Now, I kind of think the whole word schismatic has become worthless. It's thrown around so easily. That doesn't mean there isn't some truth in the situation that traditional Catholics do need to be concerned about this. I have found that mostly the longer somebody is involved with traditional catholic movement, they have this danger a little bit more. I think Satan really goes after them because you can get this idea that you're not really part of the overall catholic church. I think there's something we always have to fight against and resist to make sure we don't have think. And I will say, obviously the major way this comes out is when you declare that Pope Francis isn't the pope. I'm not going to beat on this drum much here, but everybody knows what I think on this. I believe if you don't, it's that I do think of vicantism is wrong, and I think it is really an evil in the church today because for a number of reasons. The point is though, to deny communion with basically the bishop of Rome as declared by the authorities in the church is a ecclesiastical and spiritual dead end. And I do think it's something, as traditional Catholics we need to guard against. Now here's the thing. I have a great deal of sympathy and empathy for those Catholics who simply are thinking, I can't believe this guy is pope. I can't either. [00:37:53] And I understand where your thoughts might go, and they've gone there for me. People think I've just rejected savacantism out of hand. I've never even considered it. No, I've looked into it because I do think that what this current pope is doing is very problematic, and we should look in that. We shouldn't just dismiss something at hand. However, I do think it's not the answer. It's those who proclaim definitively he is definitely not the pope. That's the people I have a problem with, not the people who are just like, oh man, I don't understand how this guy can be pope. I mean, I've said before that I think that one day a future pope or council will declare just by everything Pope Francis did as null and void. I don't think they'll declare him not a pope or an anti pope but I do think they'll say, yeah, we're going to skip over that. We're not going to follow that anymore. [00:38:40] And so I really think that that's a major challenge, and I don't think we should. Like I said at the beginning, the traditional catholic movement is made up of sinners. We're all sinners, and so we're going to have our specific temptations. The idea, though, that you shut down the mass because of this is just ridiculous. Because if we did that, why don't we shut down the Nova Sora? Because of the Father James Martin's. For the embrace of homosexuality, for the embrace of modernism, for the embrace of all the evils of this world that is rife within your typical nova's aura parish. Here's a story real quick. I was driving to mass about a week ago, and as usual, I pass. I mean, I go by about a dozen parishes, catholic parishes, to get to mine, and the one that is actually kind of closest to my parish. [00:39:26] I was driving there, I was getting near there, and it was right in front of me was a guy, a car, and it had the bumper sticker that woke. Bumper sticker of, in this house, we believe love is love, science is real, women's rights, whatever. Black lives matter, all the woke statements. And I was like, oh, what a joke. But it's in downtown. You see this type of stuff all the time. However, what I realized was they were pulling into mass not at my parish, but at this other Catholic parish. Why don't we shut down the novus ordo there? Why don't we do an investigation and say, okay, we need to stop having the novus ordo at that parish, because look at what they're believing. They're believing all this nonsense, this anti catholic nonsense, but of course, we don't do that. So the idea, yes, traditional catholic movement has sinners in, it has issues, but that's not a reason to shut down the traditional rights. And I have seen firsthand in my own life that people who have grown in their faith, grown more deeply in love with Jesus Christ because of them participating in the life of a traditional Catholic. And I think that's the most important thing we see here. [00:40:37] So I'm going to wrap it up here in a minute. The last thing I just want to bring up is the idea that we're going to have a new pope eventually. We all know that. He's 87 right now. He could die this year, he could die today, he could die ten years from now. We don't know and I think we don't know what the future holds. But I would just urge, my fellow traditional Catholics, I would urge you, do not be anxious about tomorrow. The Lord will provide. We saw that with what's happening under tradition as custodus, how the Lord provided and gave us the example of these beautiful catholic priests responding to COVID the right way and the mass of the ages just providentially coming out right when traditionist custodus is getting released. [00:41:22] The Lord provides. He takes care of us. He's not going to leave us forsaken. And so, while humanly speaking, there is a good chance that the next pope will be just as bad, as far as how he treats traditionalists, I don't think that's as likely, but is possible. I'm not naive. The Lord's going to take care of us. Listen to Bishop Schneider talk about his life, living, growing up in the Soviet Union, and how they didn't even have mass available to them most of the time. But the Lord provided. The Lord provided for them. He's going to provide for us as well. So with all that's going on, as we finish up lint here, finish strong. By the way, everybody, I think what we need to focus on is the joys and the beauties of traditional Catholicism. Them make that our focus and not be anxious about the challenges, but just face them head on and face them on. Face them with joy. Okay, well, that's it for now. I appreciate you tuning in. Until next time, everybody. God love.