Two Religions in One Church

[00:00:03] Since the 1960s, two separate religions, progressive Catholicism and Traditional Catholicism, have coexisted within one Catholic Church. What does this mean for the future of the Catholic Church? Well, I'm Eric Sammons and this is crisis. [00:00:32] Foreign. [00:00:37] I'm gonna do something a little bit different as far as typically I, I tend to be more of a white pill guy. I try to find some positive stuff. Yes, I'll have criticisms of various church officials or politician, whatever, but I try to, you know, not be too negative. I do think I'm going a little black pill today. I think I am kind of, I mean, I could call it red pill, but I'm more going towards black pill. If you don't know what all these pills are, don't worry about it. I'll stop using the analogy here in a second, but something happened recently and experienced recently that made me think a lot about the current state of the Catholic Church, particularly how there seems to be two different, completely separate religions, both alive and running inside one Catholic Church. Now I'm going to explain what I mean by that in a moment because I know a lot of people get upset when they hear that because you think, of course there's only one Catholic religion. What are you talking about? How can there be two religions in one Catholic Church? That makes no sense. And I will explain that in a second. [00:01:38] But I really, what I want to bring up first is recently, about two weeks ago, for various reasons I won't get into now, I decided to go to a local parish for daily Mass. [00:01:51] Now I typically attend the traditional at Mass of my parish, which is about half hour away. And I, I very rarely go attended Novus Ordo. I'm not somebody who refuses to attend Novus Ordo. I just simply, my parish offers traditional Latin Mass and that's what I go to. [00:02:07] And, but sometimes I'm like visiting somebody or I'm out of town, wherever, I, I'll attend a local Novus Ordo parish. And usually though, I make sure it's a unicorn one or a better one or something like that. But this was more a matter of I was just going to daily Mass and I, my option, I, I said go to the local parish. I had not been since before COVID I, I stopped going during COVID because they stopped letting you walk in without like their, you know, triple health check with four masks on or whatever. [00:02:38] And honestly, there's two different parishes that are about equal distance from me. I don't attend either of them. They're both about 10 minutes away, though. And I, I, one of them, I know has a reputation of being a pretty. [00:02:50] Pretty, just not very good parish. Very beige, even worse. [00:02:56] But the other one has a pretty good reputation. It's in a conservative area of town because I. I live in, you know, conservative area of. Of outside Cincinnati and this conservative area town. So I went to the local parish. [00:03:10] I honestly, you know, you might just be laughing at me and saying, of course, Eric, what are you thinking? Are you dumb or something? Aren't you. Aren't you paying attention? But I just. [00:03:21] It hit me very much. I go in, I start praying, and I look up and I see at one point there's an older lady, probably in her 60s or 70s, gray hair, and she's wearing what looks like a monk's habit, you know, with the hood and everything. And she's preparing the altar for Mass. And I realized she's the altar server, this older lady, the congregation. I was one of the youngest people there, and it wasn't even close. And I don't consider myself young at all. Nobody considers me young. I have gray hair, too, but not like everybody there. I mean, I literally, I would guess there was. There was probably 50 people there, which is a pretty good number for daily Mass. And maybe, yeah, maybe 40 to 50, something like that. And maybe five people there were younger than me, including the priest. The priest was actually younger than me. [00:04:08] And just. I won't go into more details, but it just reminded me, like, wow, this is the daily experience of Mass for the people there. And it's nothing at all like the Mass I attend on a regular basis. [00:04:22] I mean, it just isn't. I know people are going to get up in arms and say, oh, it's valid. It's the same Mass. You know, what are you saying? Whatever. But the reality is just the experience. If I don't know anything about theology and I just simply attend both of those Masses, the Mass I attended the other day and my own parish's Masses, the person who. A normal person would just think, okay, these are two different religions. They're not part of the same organization, the same institution. They can't be. They're so different. It's not even, you know, can't be the same thing. [00:05:02] And it really reminded me that the life in the average parish is very much degraded, significantly changed significantly. At the very least, let's not use even the word degraded. [00:05:17] Just. It's changed significantly from the experience of, let's say, 60, 70 years ago. It's just very different. And another. Another thing that happened, this was actually told to Me by a friend. [00:05:32] But at a parish, they had a May crowning and they had a bunch of altar servers, and they were all girls. They wouldn't allow boys to serve at that Mass because it was a May crowning. [00:05:50] They thought, for some reason, they thought having a bunch of girls up on the altar honored Mary better than allowing boys there. So not only we've gone from. It's kind of like how the gay rights movement went from, you know, tolerate us to you must accept us. It's kind of like that with altar girls. [00:06:06] At first it was like it was kind of snuck in disobediently. Then it was like, okay, allowed. Now it's like, no, we're going to have masses where only girls are allowed to serve in this misguided attempt to honor the Blessed Mother, the greatest woman, the greatest creation of all. [00:06:24] And so it really shows, though, to me, in my. In my mind, it was like just a perfect. These two things were perfect examples of how the Overton window has shifted so radically in the Catholic Church over the past, you know, 100 years. We'll say 60 years, wherever you want to say. [00:06:43] And it got me. This all got me thinking of the. I've said this before. I've said. I might have said on the podcast, I don't know, but I don't know if posted it before, about the two religions in one church. And what do I mean by that? What I mean and by the two religions, by the way, are Progressive Catholicism and Traditional Catholicism, which I'll define in a moment and I'll kind of explain what I mean by that. But I want to make sure it's clear what I mean by religion. I looked up the definition of religion, Webster's. It says a structured system of beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols designed to connect individuals to the divine, supernatural, transcendence. So note what it says. A structured system of what? Beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols. So four things. Beliefs, practices, rituals, symbols. [00:07:28] The reality is the beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols of somebody like a Father James Martin or a Cardinal Fernandez are not the same as mine. [00:07:40] They're simply not the same. I get that. We're both members in good standing, whatever you want to call it, of the same institution, the same Catholic Church. But the reality is we don't share the same religion. I mean, just think, and just to be clear, nothing I say here is to suggest that the new Mass is invalid. [00:08:01] And the reason I say that is because I don't. I think sometimes people, you know, Catholics on the. On kind of more traditional side, maybe the side those valid a lot even maybe ex members what they get wrong that the sack what I would call fragile the term used like software places idea you create that's going back to my create software that's anti fragile. What that doesn't crash. [00:08:47] I think I lost the connection there for a second, but I think I'm back now. [00:08:52] Hopefully let me know in the live chat, make sure I'm back and audio is good and stuff. It looks like it's okay on my end. I briefly had a break in the in my Internet connection. [00:09:02] But as I was saying, software is anti fragile. What that means is simply you want to make software that is anti fragile. I should say what I mean by that is if one thing goes down, one bug happens, the whole system doesn't crash. [00:09:18] So in the case of let's say an iPhone, if one app has one app can't bring down the whole iPhone. It can't brick the whole iPhone if one thing goes wrong in an app and even more so in one thing in an app doesn't crash the whole app if it's anti fragile. Likewise, the sacraments are naturally antifragile. What I mean by that is you can do a lot to kind of mess them up, so to speak. Like celebrate them poorly and not reverently, things like that. But it doesn't make them crash. Meaning they don't all of a sudden become invalid. Because yes, there are ways to make a sacrament invalid. Don't get me wrong. If you pour, if you use grape juice instead of wine for, for the, for the Eucharist, or if you pour soda pop over somebody's head instead of water, it makes a baptism valid. It's not that they can't crash. You know, I be made invalid, but it's difficult to do that. [00:10:06] So just I want to make sure that's clear before I go on. So like I was saying, religion is a structure system, system of beliefs, rituals, symbols. I'm sorry, beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols. And so I think in all four we see a definite difference. I think some more than others. [00:10:24] For example, beliefs, I would say definitely progressive Catholicism and traditional Catholicism have different beliefs. [00:10:32] A progressive Catholic would. Would look at like for example, Vatican II as the super council by which all tradition is interpreted, the lens through which tradition is interpreted. Whereas a traditional Catholic, by the way, I will talk about conservative Catholics in a moment where they, where I think they lie. [00:10:49] But a traditional Catholic would not see it. They would say Vatican II is interpreted in light of tradition. So the opposite, literally the other way around that's a very different belief. It also has different views of what authority is, what the highest authority is. The progressive Catholic, now that progressive Catholics have been Pope for a few years, you know, the last two Catholics, I think Popes, I think you would. You could classify Francis much more than Leo. But still, in this spectrum, I'm talking about progressive Catholicism, I think both Leo and Francis fall into it. [00:11:22] Progressive Catholics would say blind obedience to the Pope. Now, of course, if you get a Benedict or JP2, they'd change that. [00:11:29] But a traditional Catholic would say no, or even blind obedience to Vatican ii, for example, or the Spirit of Vatican ii, whereas a traditional Catholic would say no. [00:11:37] The deposit of faith as it has been handed on to us over the past 2,000 years, that's the supreme authority, because that's what Jesus gave to us. And even the Pope is subservient to that. Even the Pope has to serve that and has to abide by that. [00:11:54] Another thing is practices. I think this is very clear that the practices, religious practices of progressive Catholics is very different from traditional Catholics. We use different devotionals, a whole different spirituality. [00:12:10] And you see that the more you read, for example, if your daily prayer life is informed by something that's very popular, let's say, in the kind of the mainstream Catholic world versus if it's very popular in, and using the traditional category or was popular before the council or something like that, you notice they're very different. [00:12:32] I'm not saying that the devotional use by, you know, the mainstream church today is necessarily heretical. Often it's not. It just is very different. In fact, I tried. [00:12:45] I don't know why I do these things, but I do. I tried. Last year, I picked up a devotional I thought looked like it was pretty good. It's very mainstream. Wasn't like progressive in the sense of, like, it was a Father James Martin devotional or something like that, but it was just very mainstream. And I thought, well, that looked interesting. It was on the Gospel of Matthew, which is my favorite. And so I decided, okay, I'm going to try this and pray this each morning. [00:13:06] The problem, though, of course, is. [00:13:09] And what happened was, is I literally only lasted about a week or two before I had to stop and go back to divine intimacy, which is the devotional I like the best. It just was so, like, there was no call to repentance. There was no call real to fasting or to penance or anything like that. It was all a matter of, like, excusing us. [00:13:30] I think that's one of the big things. It's like excusing us for our behaviors, for things we do wrong. Like, oh, you know, it gave lots of excuses, and that was the main things. Whereas in the traditional devotional, it was very much like, no, you're a sinner. You need to repent. God loves you very much, and he will do everything to bring you to him, but you need to acknowledge that you're a sinner. Nothing in the mainstream devotional did that. And so we see practices of very different religious practices, rituals. Obviously, we know this is very different. [00:14:02] I mean, just the fact that I go into a. The local parish and there's a old lady who's the altar server. Yes. And they did the, you know, they. [00:14:12] They had three Eucharistic ministers come up for a daily Mass because they had. They had four stations. The priest, two stations for the. The. The host, and two stations for the cup. I didn't know we're back to doing the cup. I mean, I'm. [00:14:25] The few Novus Ordo parishes I went to that, you know, over the past. Since COVID they haven't had it. But anyway, this place does. And of course, they had two men and a woman come up, and the woman was the. Was of the host, of course. And then the priest was the other host, and the two older men were the. The cup. [00:14:41] So there's a, you know, ritual different, but just, you know, that there's. There's so many differences. I mean, you got ad orientum is gone. You know, altar girls is different. [00:14:51] You have all these different rituals. How things are done in. In the. In the mainstream church than it is from traditional Catholicism. And I would argue you might say, well, look at the differences between. Look at, for example, the, the tlm. The traditional Mass isn't the same as the Eastern Divine Liturgy. Right. That's true. However, there is no question in my mind that the TLM is much more similar and much more obviously in tune with the Eastern Divine Liturgy than the Novus Ordo. This is what brought me to the TLM originally was I was attending. I would sometimes attend a Eastern Divine Liturgy. This is in the late 90s, early 2000s. I'd never been to a TLM before. I've been Catholic for less than 10 years. [00:15:34] And I remember thinking like, wow, this is really different from what I'm used to. There's a depth to it. There's a beauty to it. I just don't recognize. I don't see in my. Just. I went to the local parish down the street from where I lived and then I attended a TLM for the first time. And the first thing I thought was, well, after I realized it had started, the first time I attended a solemn, a high Mass, I should say, I thought to myself, this reminds me a lot of the Eastern liturgy, the Eastern Divine Liturgy. It doesn't remind me of my, what my experience is at my local parish. It reminds me of the Eastern divine literature. There's so many rituals that are very similar and they clearly have the same ethos in many ways behind them. So we see, you know, beliefs, practices, rituals, and also symbols, just the symbols. And I, I think this is like the, the terms we use, what we exalt. For example, diversity and dialogue are talked about all. They're kind of symbolic of who we are. You know, dialogue is this ultimate goal and the ultimate, the greatest good and things like that. Whereas I think for in traditional Catholicism, it's much more, you know, penance, you know, humility, things like that are much more prominent in the symbols we use. [00:16:54] And so I will say, I don't like to say this, I don't want to say this, but I will say, oh, I just realized the comments were not coming up on the screen. [00:17:04] I'll turn that on here. Sorry about that. I will say though, that the, you know, you. I don't like to say this, but there is some similarities between what's going in Catholic Church and the reality of the Anglican Church over the centuries. One of the things that the Anglican Church takes pride in, they shouldn't take pride in, is the diversity of beliefs within it. You have your high church, you have your low church, you have everything in between. You have people who basically did not, you know, look at the Eucharist as a symbol all the way to those who believe it really is the Bible, soul and divinity of Christ. It's not if it's in the Anglican Church, but they believe it is. I mean, the liturgies are very different. Everything about it is very different. [00:17:41] Well, there's. That has happened in some ways in the Catholic Church in modern times. We have a diversity of beliefs and practices and rituals and symbols that we shouldn't have. Yes, there is legitimate diversity in the Catholic Church, obviously the Eastern Catholic Church is the ordinariate, things like that. [00:17:59] But then there's this idea of just two different religions, like where everything about it. Because the thing is, the beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols have some differences between, for example, a Latin Catholic and Eastern Catholic, but not the fundamental differences you see, between, for example, a Taylor Marshall and a Father James Martin as an example. [00:18:22] So what we've seen then is the fact that, you know, how did this happen? This doesn't happen overnight. It's not. If somebody in 1960 said, okay, we're going to implement everything that you would see In a typical 2026 parish, your average parish. I'm not talking about a unicorn parish. I'm not talking about the worst parish. I'm not talking about the crazy ones. I'm talking about your average, average diocesan parish in 2026. In America, if you had a parish in 1960 or even 1965 that tried to implement that. Exactly, do the, exactly. What I saw recently and what, you know, millions of Catholics see every week, it would be, I mean, it would blow everybody's mind. It would be incredibly scandalous. It would be just ridiculous, rejected wholeheartedly by everybody. The bishop would crack down, would, would probably, you know, suspend the priest who tried to do it and, and maybe even do exorcism prayers over the, over the parish, it just wouldn't be acceptable. [00:19:26] Because what's happened is, is that it's like the, you know, the frog in the boiling water. I know there's a podcast I used to listen to, would always say, that's actually not true. If you put a frog in boiling water, he will jump out. He's not stupid. But let's just say he is stupid and he stays in the boiling water and dies. [00:19:42] That's what we're seeing. That's what's happened over the 60 year period. It's not like all of a sudden overnight everything changed. I mean, like, look at the altar girls, how that slowly became the norm. Communion in the hand, the same thing, all these different changes and just, you know, the spirituality, everything that's happened has happened over time and slowly. So that you go to. There was the big change, of course, at your Vatican II with the, with the Novus Ordo Mass, obviously that was the big change and millions of people left the church. But after that, after the 1970, you know, major change and there had. But even that wasn't, that was a major change, obviously. But even that didn't happen overnight because what you see, if you look at the history of the liturgy in the 1960s, it actually would happen was there'd be parishes that would do a English Traditional Latin Mass. They do it in English or they'd add some English to it. They'd start doing minor things, small things. They'd have, maybe people do the readings and things like that. And then finally the dam broke in the 1970s, of course. But what we see is it's like this slow change over time so that you don't even notice it. But like I said, if you grab somebody from, let's say, you know, 1926 and you put them in 2026, it would just blow their mind. But if you took somebody in like 2016 and put them in 2026, it wouldn't be like, ah, you know, they only notice that much of difference. It's a slow change over time where it basically. [00:21:12] And it just becomes a different religion in practice. [00:21:17] A different religion practice. This, by the way, is why holding on to tradition is so important, because it allow, it prevents this slow decline, this slow change in what you believe and practice and everything. [00:21:32] If you consider tradition as kind of the guiding force to make sure you always stick to it, that you, you realize you've been handed on something that you don't have any right to change and so you're going to hand it on to the next generation and you don't feel like you, you can't change it because it's not yours to change. It was a treasure you were given. All you can do is hand it on the next generation. This is why tradition is so important. It's also why the two types of religion are traditional Catholicism, which obviously embraces tradition, and progressive Catholicism, which doesn't. [00:22:07] It sees change as a good thing. It says, you know, we live in a new world, we need to change things and make them differently. [00:22:14] And so the question becomes here, I think it's a question a lot of people might ask, particularly in the crisis audience, where do conservative Catholics fall? I'm Talking about the JP2 Catholics, the Benedict Catholics, maybe those who attend their local Novus Ordo parish. [00:22:30] They, you know, they orthodox in belief, they're friendly to traditional Catholics. They're not like they don't want to shut down traditional Catholics or anything like that. You know, where do they lie? Because often I've done this myself and you'll see kind of people divide up Catholics into three kind of labels, the progressive, the conservative, and the traditional. And you know, you have different people who represent each of those factions. And it's true those factions exist. But I've just said there's only two religions really existing within the Catholic Church. So where do the conservative kind of JP2 Catholics reside? I think one thing to note is that I think those who, those conservative Catholics who attend the unicorn parishes, you know, where you have a Novus Ordo that's well done. It's Reverent they stick to the, the. The missile. They have beautiful music, they have orthodox preaching, all of that. They only, maybe they only use altar boys. Maybe they have an altar. Maybe they ad orient them. I mean, that's, you know, getting more and more unicorn each thing I say. [00:23:28] I honestly think people who attended unicorn mass parish, they often, maybe through no fault of their own, they don't recognize how bad it is out there, how different it is between the progressive Catholics and the traditional Catholics and how they're in an oasis. [00:23:47] And so I think that's something. They don't have a good view of what it's really like in the church. And I think traditional Catholics can fall into this as well. You get in your traditional enclave and you don't realize what it's like. That's why maybe it was good for me. Maybe the Lord wanted me to go to the local parish to, to see this stuff. But the point is, is like, you know, we hear that conservative Catholics are kind of the. I mean, we just had this recently, this. Let me put this a little bigger on the screen. That Ryan Boot. What's his last name? Bruges or Bouge or something like that. I'm sorry, Ryan. He did. He. He published a study that showed that, like this, this chart shows that new priests are far more conservative and identify as conservative rather than identify as progressive. In the 1960s, it was like the majority identifies progressive. Now it's like 84% identify as conservative. And so everybody was, you know, saying, yay, this is great. And I was too. And I do think it's good. Obviously, it's better to identify as a conservative than as progressive. [00:24:45] But the question is, what do we mean by conservative? [00:24:49] I mean, the truth is, in 1960s, progressive got a good name and it meant, like, good things. But now conservative kind of has the good name among Catholics who actually attend. And so what does that mean? Does conservative Catholic mean 1990s Catholicism or 1890s Catholicism? [00:25:05] And if you think those two are different and they should be different, I mean, there's part of the problem. [00:25:10] I mean, the reality is conservative is not the same thing as traditional in the way it's actually being practiced. I mean, conservative obviously means conserve what you've received. So technically it should be a synonym for traditional, but in reality it's not. I mean, look at the political world. [00:25:28] The difference between a progressive and a conservative is just a conservative is five years behind. That's all it is. The conservative is just in the slow lane, going in the same direction as the progressive I would argue that a lot of conservative Catholics fall into this as well. See, I told you I was black pilling in this episode. So my apologies if you didn't want to go down that path. [00:25:49] I mean, I love, I mean, you know, most of the Christ audience probably identifies conserved Catholics. I think they're beautiful, lots of beautiful people, you know, holy people, great people doing great work. [00:26:02] But ultimately where do conservative Catholics reside? They kind of are in both camps in a sense because what you see is in like teaching, in like belief, like doctrine, dogma. They're obviously fall more in the traditional side. They accept, you know, the perennial teaching about the death penalty, about abortion, about gay marriage and all that stuff. They're against all those type of changes, but often they don't. But in practice they don't. They kind of go along with the progressive like presuppositions. [00:26:37] Like a lot of them don't have a problem with altar girls. I know a lot of quote unquote conservative Catholics who have no problem with altar girls. [00:26:44] And you know, frankly that is an innovation that is contrary to our tradition, has lots of theological problems with it. [00:26:51] But you'll, you'll get, I mean Catholic, you know, homeschooling, conservative, good soul, the earth Catholics who have no problem with altercres. Why? Because they grew up with it. They don't, they don't know anything different. [00:27:02] They don't think anything about the Mass being versus populum rather than ad orientum. [00:27:08] They really just, I mean there's a lot of things that a conservative Catholic in the 1950s would have rejected completely, they have no problem with. [00:27:18] So in a lot of ways it becomes a progressivism, just slower because the presuppositions that things like that can change are accepted. I mean there's a lot of conservative Catholics who, who believe now that the death penalty is, is immoral. Now I'm not saying like you can, you can believe the death penalty, practically speaking isn't, you know, should be abolished in some country, in some situation, whatever, fine. But we're talking about, is it inadmissible? Is it actually an intrinsic evil? There are conservative, quote unquote conservative Catholics who now think like that. Most Catholic bishops think like that and some of them are considered conservative. I mean we just had a, in Ohio here, all the bishops signed a letter, well, it's probably a little while ago, signed a letter saying to abolish the death penalty in Ohio, just abolish it. And it basically used language to suggest that it was no longer admissible. And one of the best bishops in the country, most conservative. Bishop Fernandez of Columbus, who I think is great by the way, he signed off on it. [00:28:18] I mean, you know it because it's just a matter of you start, you, that Overton window has moved. And so you don't, you start to accept things that previous generations wouldn't have accepted. That's not traditionalism, that's progressivism. [00:28:32] And so what you see is you have the all in, all, all out progressive Catholics like the Father James Martins, the Cardinal Fernandez, whatever. You know, the all out traditional Catholics, you know your sspx, you know, your, your Taylor Marshall, your Michael Matt, something like that, Peter Kwesneski. [00:28:47] But then in the conservative camp you really have progressives, often progressives. They, they accept the, a lot of presuppositions of progressives, but they just go slower and they accept more. And so they're more in a traditional camp in a lot of ways. But they don't have any problem with like the changes they made to the mass and things like that. [00:29:09] Now to be clear, it's not that I think they have bad intentions, you know, the ones who accept Ulta Girls or anything like that. I, I absolutely think they, I mean that is one difference between people who kind of identify as progressive Catholics. I don't think their intentions are good because their intentions are, their intentions are to change the church radically. Whereas a conservative Catholic does have, I think good intentions. They just have bad formation, frankly. And I know this because I was one of them. I mean I, I had the same formation when I converted Catholicism. The things I read and studied for so long. So it's not like saying that they're, you know, I don't think, I don't think I had bad intentions and I don't think they do either. [00:29:47] And again, if you attend a unicorn parish, you're the reality what's out there is hidden from you. You might not, your, your parish might not have Ulta girls things that, but there's lots of Catholics mainstream, just regular Catholics who compared to a Father James Martin, are conservative, who accept all these things except the altar girls. And you know, they don't have a problem versus populum. They, they, you know, all these different issues, you know, the, the books they read, the devotionals they read, I mean, are just often very, the whole thing. I was talking about the modern idea of that, that the modern idea that, you know, you not really a sinner, you're not really that bad of a guy. And as opposed to the traditional spirituality which says, yeah, you are a Sinner, you are a bad guy and you need to repent. I mean, that's a key part of it. And also much less looking at the saints as much and things like that. [00:30:49] So I think what we see here, like I said, there are two religions living in the one Catholic Church. And I think the extremes you kind of see. This also is the whole situation with the SSPX right now and the German bishops. So we have these two different, radically different sides. Both, you know, I mean, I know some people might say that the society is not in communion, but the Church doesn't say that. The church, at least as of right now, says it's just imperfect communion or irregular canonical status, whatever. The point is you have these two extremes. [00:31:20] And I do think it looks like, I will say Pope Leo has spoken out against the German bishops for what they're trying to do, but you can't help but notice the tone is different. [00:31:30] There's very much a sense of, with the sspx, we're tired of you people. You just need to obey. You need to shut up and obey. I mean, I've literally seen Catholics say that, whereas with the German bishops, it's much more an attitude of like, oh, you're going too fast, you're going too far. No, we don't go that far. They're almost apologetic for saying, we disagree with you German bishops. [00:31:52] They're like just, you know, you're pushing, probably not comfortable. And often that is what a conservative Catholic ends up being is just, he has a line drawn of how much progressivism he will accept. And he thinks going beyond that is too far. [00:32:08] But up to that point is fine. [00:32:11] But you shouldn't have accepted any of the presuppositions that things, that things can change just because the modern world is so different or whatever. [00:32:18] People are always the same. So I think that the reaction, the way people are looking at the, you know, how the Vatican is treating the SSPX versus the German bishops is very telling because ultimately, as long as you accept the progressivist presuppositions, then you'll be treated gently. Yeah, they'll say, don't, don't go too far. You know, it's, it's like with the, the blessing of the gay couples, they realize they went too far with, with their fiducious. Because what was the supplicans, whatever. I, I, I'm trying to forget it. So, you know, Fernandez's document went obviously too far, so they pulled back. But it wasn't that they were saying, you know, what we did contradicts tradition and we can never do it. And they're saying. They basically were just saying with a wink in an eye, not yet. Once those Africans get on board, and we'll get them more on board over time, we'll work our magic on them so they'll start to accept it as well. So, I mean, what does this mean? Like, kind of, what does this mean for the future of the Catholic Church? I think this is a very important question because this is the reality of what we're facing today, these two religions. The reality is it can't last forever. I mean, the Anglican Church has lasted forever, it seems like, for five years, but it's obviously falling apart. And the Catholic Church, just simply because it's being the true, one true church and actually is the church, it cannot last forever. One or the other will die off immediately, eventually, not immediately, eventually. Now, the reality is, like, this is where you see the fact that there's two. [00:33:46] There's different ways to approach this, you know, the two religions in one church, because everybody recognizes it. And you see that by the cardinals in the last year's conclave, almost a year ago today, who they chose and why they chose who they did for Pope. They chose Robert Prevost, Pope Leo, because they felt like he could be more of a uniter. [00:34:07] He could unite the factions within the Catholic Church. Unlike Francis, who was doing everything he could to separate people and divide people, they felt like Leo would be better set to unite people. And they were right based on their presuppositions. [00:34:21] Leo clearly has a personality that's much better than Francis's to unite people, to bring people together. [00:34:30] But I just think the project is doomed for failure because it has a false presupposition that is that we're all the same religion. [00:34:39] That's the presupposition that somehow Father James Martin is the same religion as me and he's not. Yes, we're in the same Catholic Church. I recognize that we are in communion, in even, but we're not. We don't practice the same religion. [00:34:53] And so we can't be united just by a, you know, somebody with an affable personality as pope. And no matter how hard he tries, it just won't happen. What has to happen is we need to be united around a core religion. [00:35:09] A core religion. And what is that religion going to be? The only one that is the true religion, which is Traditional Catholicism. And by the way, those who are kind of. They get a little bit uneasy when I say Traditional Catholicism, because the first thing they think of is maybe society, Pius X or the traditional Mass or something like that. [00:35:25] I mean that in the, in the, the broadest sense of Catholicism is fundamentally traditional. You can't be Catholic and not be traditional. I'm not saying what Mass you go to right now or whatever. What I'm saying though is because Catholicism is based on the three pegs of scripture, tradition, magisterium, tradition is very important. It's fundamental to who we are as Catholics. So if you're Catholic, you need to embrace traditional Catholicism. And I'm not even one who's hardcore about how that has to be like you have to be part of the SSPX or you know, whatever. I'm just simply saying is that they're two different religions. So the Catholic Church has to accept, has to really unite around one religion which is made up of what beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols. Until those four things are united, which they're not today, we're not going to have unity in the Catholic Church. It just isn't going to happen, no matter how nice the Pope might be. [00:36:20] Again, I'm black pilling today, much more than normal. I just, it triggered me, I admit, when I, when I went to the local parish about a week or so ago. Go. Okay, let me get to the live chat here. I appreciate everybody who's contributed. Let me put up here TKO Tradish says 50 for daily mass is good, but I'm willing to bet that parishes come with several formal parishes. Yeah, I mean it's a pretty broad area and I do think that, I mean, like I said, it was mostly older people. So what's it going to be like in a few years? I don't know, but it's not, it's not bad. I mean, I've seen a lot less. [00:36:53] James. Martin Martinelli says I've attended a Mass on Miami beach several times and I don't know if the altar server is male or female. Oh my gosh. Is male or female. It's like when I go to the local staples, there's always somebody, for some reason they hire a bunch of trans people at that church. There was an announcement not to take the host home to give to others. I mean, and I, it's, I bet you, James, you didn't like try to find a crazy parish. It wasn't like you were like, oh, I want to go find the most radically crazy parish. No, you just went to the, the, the local parish and that's what happened. James also says, also we were told not to give the host consecrated to Pets. Can you just imagine, by the way, there was a woman in Mass holding a dog. The dog barked a few times. I mean, people like, what will happen is somebody, something will go viral online about some crazy parish, a clown Mass or, you know, some crazy heresy being preached, some crazy, you know, liturgical dancers. And it's the same thing will happen. The traditionalists will show it and we'll get upset. We'll say, this is the way it should be. Then all of a sudden you'll come in. The, the more conservative progressive Catholics will come in, say, oh, that's just. You're taking this crazy option. At my parish, we do this great. Blah, blah, blah. [00:38:06] I'm not talking about the craziness. I'm just talking about if you go to your local parish. [00:38:11] I, I am willing. If, if everybody just went to the local parish, like everybody who's, who's watching, who watches this podcast, who just went to a local parish. I'd be willing to bet that that 80% of them, if not 90 of them, at least have fundamental issues. Pro. Things that. I'd say 100, frankly, if it's not, if it's not TLM have things that a Catholic in 1960s would be aghast at. I think I can say that with complete confidence. But even I'm willing to bet that 80% of them have things that Catholic in 1970 would be a gas. Even 1980. [00:38:47] It's just that's. That's where the Overton window has moved. [00:38:50] Okay. Giovanni says I am old enough to remember the pre Vatican II church. Well, God bless you. I have come to the conclusion that we now have a new Mass for a new religion. I mean, those things are true. [00:39:01] I do. Like I said, I talked about the sacrament scene. Anti fragile. I don't, I'm not saying that I think it's invalid. I don't think it's invalid. And it's not like something. I'm just like, refusing to say it's invalid, even though I think it is. No, I, I think there's good theological reasons why it's not invalid, but it is a new math, and it's literally why it's called the new Mass. Novus Ordo means new order, new Mass, and it's a new religion. [00:39:22] Laura Heater says lackadaisical and irreverent Catholicism cannot survive because new priests are coming out of the faithful, traditional Catholic families. And I think that's. That's shown in that, in that chart. I showed that. Showed. Which is too small on the screen. Sorry. About that, that showed that most new priests can identify as conservative. I do think things are moving in the right direction in many ways. The old GAR is clinging to their, to their, their progressivism, you know, desperately. [00:39:51] I would just say, though, and this is where my black pill comes in, I would just say a lot of the new conservative priests, they've been formed in a progressive church and I think they, they possess some of the, the presuppositions of the progressive. Here's an example. I just saw this. [00:40:12] How many conservative priests entertain at Mass. What I mean by that is they kind of make sure they ham it up a little bit. Maybe they say the Eucharistic prayers is more like force, maybe the readings a little bit more or something like that. Or they're looking out at the crowd. Maybe they're smiling at people when they're walking out in the procession. A lot of quote unquote conservative priests do that. And that is very much not a traditional way of celebrating the liturgy in either east or west for 2000 years. [00:40:43] If your priest is walking out in procession, he's smiling to people, he's shaking their hands or whatever, even if he's very Orthodox. And I'm not saying he's not Orthodox or whatever. I'm just saying he's been formed in a progressive era that impacts him. So I am hopeful for the future. I think things going right direction, but there's a long road. Road to hell. [00:41:03] James Pavlick says, I'm glad you're back to discussing topics that matter such as this and staying away from hatred of Israel. Thank you, James. Because if there's one thing that's true about me is I just hate Israel. Your show is great when you talk about Catholicism. It's a lot less great when you talk about hatred of Israel. Yes, I mean, obviously this comments from Facebook because I always get the more pro Israel comments from Facebook. Obviously I'm laughing because it's a ridiculous comment because I've never expressed hatred for any Israel wants. [00:41:30] Okay. [00:41:31] Anna Kate says the USCCB is basically a Democrat. Democrat ngo. Yes, it is. I mean, that's where, you know, progressive Catholicism reigns and and, and thrives is in the usccb. Elizabeth says, I don't like this new Catholic American Bible that's being released next year. I am so glad I don't go to the Noura because it's going to be used as a lectionary. It plays down sexual sin. Honestly, I don't know a lot about this one. I've heard of it, but I don't know a lot about it. I'm assuming it's probably not very good. I mean there's nothing wrong with the old translations. [00:42:05] And, and so I honestly though the New American Bible is so bad that I'm not, I'm not sure this one's going to be worse because the old one was terrible. The New America, I mean the, the, what they use in the lectionary is like a Hodge budget. It's the New American Bible, but not exactly. [00:42:22] And it's terrible. So maybe it'll be better. I don't know. [00:42:26] Marianne de Road says they chose Prevost to follow on in Pope Francis's footsteps. I actually don't think that's true. I disagree, Marianne. I think they, they chose him. [00:42:37] Yes, they, they want somebody in continuity on, in many ways with Pope Francis. I'm not disagreeing with that. [00:42:44] But they didn't want a replica of Pope Francis. They did not want a Francis 2.0. [00:42:49] They, I think most of Carlos genuinely not somebody like a soup bitch, but like somebody like a Dolan or something like that. They genuinely wanted somebody who would try to unite the warring factions at least somewhat and make have less division in the church while still going along with a, you know, post Vatican ii, I think people just don't recognize there are nuances between like the, the various factions among the cardinals on what they think post Vatican II church should look like. But I think ultimately most of it's all progressive Catholicism anyway, so. [00:43:24] Okay, well, I'm going to wrap it up there and maybe that might be my next podcast. I will talk about my deep hatred of Israel over and over again to make James happy. But was it James? I can't remember now what the guy's name was. What was your name? Let me look this up. [00:43:37] Yes, James. You know, my hatred of Israel, my die undying hatred, Israel. That's all I think about all the time. [00:43:44] Okay, obviously I'm joking. Until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the poor.