What Can We Expect From the Next Pope? (Guest: Charles Coulombe)

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Well, Pope Francis is still going strong, but he's not a young man, and eventually his time here on Earth will be at an end. When that happens, what will the next Pope face in wake of this controversial pontiff? That's what we're to talk about today on Cris Point Home. Eric Sam is your host editor in chief of Crisis Magazine. Just want to encourage people to smash that like button. To subscribe to the channel, follow us on social media, subscribe to your email newsletter, do all the stuff that you're supposed to do that I tell you to every single time. And by now, if you haven't done it, why are you still listening? So please do it. So, okay, so we got Charles cologne today, which is great. I'm very excited about this. He is a contributing editor of Crisis magazine. That's his most important title of them all. He's the author of a whole bunch of books. My favorite, of course, and your favorite as well is blessed Charles of Austria a Holy Emperor and His Legacy. I should have grabbed it so I could hold it up. I seriously can see it on my shelf, that half the shelf is like Hofsburg related books. And it's all because of your book that I have all the other books because that got me fascinated into it grew my devotion to Blessed Carl. And so now I have like a half a bookshelf, which I know is nothing compared to yours, I'm sure, on the Habsburgs and upon Blessed Carl. So welcome to the program, though, Charles. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Thank you. Great to be here. [00:01:35] Speaker A: And before I even get started, we're going to be talking about the next Pope, but I'm going to ask you beforehand, before we are on air, but I want to ask you now so everybody can know you're currently working on a book about the wife of Blessed Carl, about servant of God Zeta. And I actually read a biography by her that was out of print long ago. But could you tell us about that project and kind of where you are and when we can expect that to. [00:02:01] Speaker B: Just finished the I just began the penultimate chapter of the book, so I'm hoping to bring it in within a week or at the tops, too. Unfortunately not unfortunately, because I'm glad I'm going, but I've got to go to Denmark and England tomorrow and then come back. So I'll be gone if I weren't leaving. I'm pretty sure I'd be done with the thing in a week as far as the last two chapters go. But basically I look at her life well, as I did with the Carl book. I give the prequel background information without which you simply can't understand the lady. And that's very important because she lived her life as a result of all sorts of occurrences in the past, her past, her family's past, with which most of us are simply not familiar. And if you don't understand the dynamics at work with her in terms of her background. You can't understand the woman as she lived her life without wanting to give too much away. Suffice to say that she found herself living the stories that she'd been brought up on. I mean, the best way I can epitomize this for you is if imagine that you'd heard your grandfather's stories about the trenches in World War I in the mud and this and the that. And then one day you found yourself a soldier in trench warfare with everything that Grandpa or Great grandpa or whomever talked to you, told you about. It would have a definite effect on you. [00:03:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:56] Speaker B: I also deal of course in the last chapter I'll be dealing with the great question which is why she and her husband are so popular in the United States which is the country more than any other single factor destroyed them. I mean Lord knows there are a lot of villains in their story. Carl Renner of course, the worthless trader who sold his country three if not four times to different buyers. Of know it's always best to keep a little bit of flexibility going there admiral Horthy, the famous admiral on horseback who broke his oath to the king as he was in Hungary. Count Chenin, the foreign minister during the war who betrayed him. Oh, I could go on and on and on. Cardinal Piffle of Vienna and Cardinal Chernobyl Budapest. Oh yes. Whole lot of blame to go around in the Carl Zeta story. You bet. But at the bottom of it all was our very own Woodrow Wilson without whom none of the others could have done a thing. [00:05:07] Speaker A: You'll be very happy to hear this story. I was giving a talk last year on the feast of Blessed Carl about his life and when I mentioned Woodrow Wilson literally went to the name there were booze from the audience. Okay, this is an educated audience. These people know what they're was. And I took a pause. I was like, yes, you're right he is the villain of this story. And so I was very happy that literally his name mentioned in the context of their life got booze from the audience. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Well, yeah, me too. And see, that's also very useful because there's been a revolution in writing about the Habsburgs. I'm sure you've noticed it's not just Catholics writing about Carl and Zita as a Beatrus and a servant of God. There's been a whole revolution in writing about the Habsburgs. Historically in English both in the States and in Britain as we've passed the century mark from the post war propaganda we're able to look at the whole thing honestly now this is still too tender a subject to have slipped into German yet. And so the establishment here still venerate Carl Runner who I mean that's very much like theologians still venerating Carl Runner but that's a whole other story. But nevertheless the fact is that the Habsburg entity was an organization that say, whatever else, forget your religion, forget this, forget that it worked. It worked better than anything before or since. And the destruction of it ended in misery and death for thousands, if not millions, of people. And it continues to the present day. The echoes of it are going on in Ukraine as we I mean, this has been the gift that's kept on giving. I will say, though, that I have stood beside the tombs of Blessed Carl in Madeira, of servant of God Zeta here in Vienna, and of Woodrow Wilson at the National Cathedral in Washington. I only prayed by two of them. I'm not telling you which one. [00:07:29] Speaker A: Yes, we'll have to guess which two of the three you prayed by. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Exactly. I can neither confirm nor deny. [00:07:37] Speaker A: Well, let's move on to our subject. So, anyway so people should be excited about this book coming. I know I am. Do you think it'll be out in 2024, or do you think it yes. Okay. [00:07:46] Speaker B: Yes. I don't know for sure. I certainly hope so. I was delayed last year at this time. I had some very bad health problems, and they're gone now. I mean, it was completely fixed, but I almost snuffed it, to put it nicely. I'm here despite everyone's best efforts. [00:08:15] Speaker A: So my mom wants you to write this book, then? [00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I figured. But it did delay it considerably by considerable time. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Is it going to be tan published? Okay, very good. [00:08:25] Speaker B: This is a tan book, unfortunately. I mean, the man, Jason Gates, who's my editor, is a fine fellow, but I have to admit I very much missed the late, lamented John Morehouse, who was my editor and guided both the Grail book the Holy Grail Book and Kaiser Carl through the process. I had worked with John before in other venues and, yeah, his death was a real kick in the head. It's interesting. [00:08:58] Speaker A: I did not know him, but it's interesting how his name has popped up many times in conversations over the past year or so, just like he did. This sounds amazing. So that was a definite loss. [00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah, he was an amazing guy. He was only 51, left behind a wife and some kids and just an all around great fellow. But anyway, as my late father used to say, god takes the good ones, leaves us. [00:09:36] Speaker A: It does seem to be the way. Speaking of which, not taking somebody, let's talk about Pope Francis. [00:09:44] Speaker B: Well, that's what I call a segue. [00:09:47] Speaker A: All right, so the Pope is not a young man. We're not here praying for his early demise or anything like that. We're just simply stating we know the body can only last so long. 86, 87, I can't remember exactly. But he's up there in years and he's definitely had health problems. I mean, most of the time he's in a wheelchair when he's out in public. And various health problems. So it's going to be before too long, in the next year, next two years, five years, whatever, that he is going to go to his reward. Such that it is. And so the question then becomes the next pope. Now, I would like, before we get into kind of looking forward, I have you listed there as a historian on the screen, which means that means you are if I say that on the screen, it must be true. [00:10:38] Speaker B: Okay, I'll try to live up to it. [00:10:40] Speaker A: So let's talk a little bit though, about the process of electing a new pope. And particularly, can you talk a little bit about the messy nature and the political to? I think Catholics want to have this idea of the Holy Spirit basically is there and everybody's praying and fasting, and then the Holy Spirit tells them, elect this man and then he's elected. But I think history tells us something different. Can you just give us a little bit of an insight on how papal elections have been throughout history and kind of the process that happens? [00:11:15] Speaker B: Well, it's been a very complex process and it didn't jump from the head of Zeus like Athena did. The selection of popes. The first Pope, St. Peter chose his successor, St. Linus. That was the only time that happened for a long time. The popes were chosen, remember, as bishops of Rome, they were primarily subject to the people and the clergy of Rome. And so they were elected by the people and clergy of Rome. From time to time, either the Byzantine or the Holy Roman Emperor would select one, the Pope, I mean, or confirm them. As time went on and the day to day universality of the office grew, the customer rose of even allowing other bishops to be elected Bishop of Rome. This was kind of a new deal. They didn't do it until the late seven hundreds. And the first one to be so elected was a man called Formosis. And later on, because his political sponsors were opponents of the lady that engineered the election of his successor, Stephen VI. Stephen VI had his body dug up and had the famous Cadaver Senate in which he declared that a, because Formosis had been pope of another city, he had never been validly bishop of Rome. And as I like to say, if that were true, the state of Acantus missed the bus a long time ago. Long, long time ago. But the second is even more interesting because he claimed that because he had never validly been pope, all of his sacramental administrations were invalid. Now, the problem with that is that that judgment itself is heretical and was heretical by the standards of the day. But you know how it is, if you're in charge, you make the rules. And who's going to say you're wrong? Well, this got a lot of confusion going, of course, because he'd ordained and consecrated a lot of priests and bishops, so they were all tossed out. But then Stephen died, the rival group came in again, and the next pope said, no, just kidding, just kidding. He was really pope. And so then and this, when you're speaking of papal selections, this is probably the worst way to do it. Much worse than having the emperor do it, much worse than having the people and clergy of Rome do it, and that is having the most powerful women in Rome choose their husbands or husbands, lovers or sons by those lovers to be pope. Personally, I don't think that's a good way. Very feminist. I mean, it's women power, all right. No doubt about it. The Iron Age of the papacy, the pornography it was called, was definitely the triumph of woman power. I'm no way around that. But it introduced almost 100 years of horror and chaos into the papacy, which, oddly enough, was not noticed or didn't bother the east, the Patriarchate of Constantinople. There wasn't a problem. Then finally, the Holy Roman Emperor Oto the Great had had enough of it. He came south to get crowned pope to Rome, who sees what's going on, and he forcibly reforms the papacy, which is kind of easy to do if you've got an army behind you. I've often believed that we wouldn't have had the Council of Trent if it hadn't been for the sack of Rome in 1527. Kind of wakes you up. People are taking your stuff and smacking you around. I don't know. It focuses. It helps. Anyway, from that time on, after the Iron Age was the Iron Age of the papacy was ended, slowly but surely, the electorate became concentrated in the cardinals. Now, bear in mind who these cardinals were originally. They were the cardinal bishops, who were the bishops of the local seas, the sub orbicarian seas, as they call them. I love that name. The cardinal priests, who were basically the pastors of the biggest parishes in Rome, and the cardinal deacons, who were the heads of the diaconal districts into which Rome was divided. In time, most of them became bishops, which are all three. And you had the emergence in order to staff offices that needed bishops in the charge, the emergence of the titular diocese and so on, which we're familiar with. But at any rate, that was how the cardinals as the voting bloc emerged, because they were, in fact, clergy of the city of Rome or the Diocese of Rome, which, incidentally, is still true. That's why when you've got, say, a very bad cardinal in a given diocese and his successor wants to punish him, he can't. His predecessor is a priest of the Diocese of Rome, answerable only to the pope, and that, believe it or not, has come up in the past few years under this pondificate. I don't want to name names like Cardinal Mahoney, but suffice to say that this is how such people have gotten away from being disciplined by their successors. [00:17:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:35] Speaker B: Anyway, eventually the conclave grew up, and this was done to keep the cardinal electors from being influenced, unduly by outside influences. One of the important outside influences, however, that was permitted for a long time, till 19 three, was the liberum veto, the right of exclusion of a cardinal given to various Catholic heads of state, the holder of an emperor, the king of France, the king of Spain. Now, this didn't mean they could veto the pope once he was elected. What it meant was that if there was a particular candidate that the emperor or one of those two kings did not want to see his pope, if it looked like he was going to be elected, then they could drop the veto and say, no, anybody else? Not him. And it could only be done for one individual, the right of exclusion, only one person. So its most recent exercise was in 1903 at the conclave that gave us St. Pius X. It looked like the election was going to go to Cardinal Rampola, the really awful Secretary of State of Leo 13th. Well, Franz Joseph of Austria had the Archbishop of Krakowv exercise the veto against him. So that's why we got St. Pius X. You can thank Emperor Francis for that. Anyhow, as the years went by, the rules of the conclave became ever more vigorous. There was one period when I think it was a year or two or three, that the conclave went on and on and on in the papal palace in Viterbo, because in those days, it was the custom that you would have the conclave wherever the pope died. And so the pope was on vacation at the palace in Viterbo. He dies and there they are in Viterbo, they're away from Rome, they're having a good time, they're enjoying themselves. It's great. Why hurry? [00:19:44] Speaker A: We'll get to the vote eventually. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah, sooner or later. Not a problem. Well, after several years went by, the mayor of Viterbo and the townspeople got a little tired of it, so they took the roof off the palace and exposed the cardinals to the sun and the rain, believe it or not, within a few days they had a candidate. [00:20:08] Speaker A: It was very strange. [00:20:13] Speaker B: You've had some elections go terribly awry after the Babylonian captivity of the Church. When the papacy moved back at last to Rome, they had a conclave, but the French cardinals declared that they had been pressured by the mob outside, so they went back to France and elected another pope. So now you had two. And as the system went on, eventually a number of cardinals got tired of it, so they went to the town of Pisa, elected a third. So now you have three popes. And the only way it was solved once again was when the Emperor Sidious, one, the Holy Roman Emperor, said, you know, Christendom has suffered three popes long enough. I think we're putting an end to it now. And he gathered the cardinals at Constance and he had them elect a new pope who was Barton V. He didn't choose him, but sometimes these people need a little bit of outward help, a little assistance, the vocation of the laity in accord with Vatican II, as you might say. But at any rate, the conclave system that we know has been going for several hundred years, and by and large, it works as well as anything else. [00:21:37] Speaker A: I think one thing that Catholics underestimate is the role of acceptance in the election of a Pope or the deposing of a Pope. And by that I mean especially Western like American types. We have a very strict legalistic view of how things are, okay? You follow these rules and then you get the result. If you don't follow these rules, then it's an invalid result. But if you look at how and the rules are that no one can judge the Pope. An emperor is not above a pope. The rules are that the election has to go X, Y, and Z or else it's invalid. But if you look at history and this is what I mean about kind of the messiness of it, you'll see where essentially the acceptance of a Pope by the Church, basically everybody, not every individual, but generally by the leaders and by the lady, that is an acknowledgement. This is the Pope. So when Oto has no real authority and canon law to depose a Pope, but when he basically tells a Pope, you're gone, we need somebody else, and the whole Church says, yeah, we agree with that, then all of a sudden we have a new and you have. [00:22:53] Speaker B: The sense of fidelity. I mean, it's like Silverius and know, Virgilius engineered Silverius's overthrow, but he ended up getting accepted as rightful Pope anyway. And of course, to be honest, he did clean up his act considerably. But these things are messy, and because we would like to think they aren't, we kind of set them aside and put them back in history and put them to bed and pretend they never know. The downside, of course, is that we have no Otto, we have no Sidiousman, we have no Charles V. We have Sleepy Joe Biden. I mean, he's there. [00:23:40] Speaker A: But I think it applies, though, in the discussions about the last conclave that you'll see. Some people argue from canon law they didn't follow this and that therefore it's an invalid conclave. And so Francis isn't really the pope. But the fact is that Francis has been accepted as Pope by the Church, I know. Not necessarily by certain elements of Twitter or whatever, but by all the cardinals and the bishops and the laity. They all basically acknowledge Francis as Pope. And that fact alone essentially makes it that he's a valid Pope, because they don't accept it. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Don't forget that after Benedict died, a certain number of benevocentists as they call them, had a conclave in Rome and duly elected Pope Francis. [00:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that was highly mean. Everybody's expecting to vote themselves and they voting for Francis. I'm like, okay, well, they got there. [00:24:40] Speaker B: I it was an old joke. That state of accountism is wishful thinking. I think it's a certain amount of truth to it. Of course, I have to say, I knew one of the biggest state of accountants in the States, the late and much lamented Hutton Gibson, who was a state of accountant with a very, very keen sense of humor. And so after the current Holy Father was elected, I said to him, you know something, red you state of accountus, you are pretty tricky. What are you talking about? What an amazing tactic. No one saw it coming. What are you talking about? Getting one of your own elected Pope, that was just amazing. My hat's off to you. So he lost and he laughed pretty hard at that point. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's talk then about we've talked about the past conclaves. I want to talk about the next conclave whenever it may be. Kind of what situation is Francis leaving for the next Pope? What challenges is he going to like? Just let's talk about that generally. What do you think the next Pope is probably the biggest challenges that he has to face once he becomes elected? [00:26:00] Speaker B: Well, that depends on what it is he wants to do. I mean, Francis has spoken of himself very happily as possibly going down in history as the man who split the know. And if that's your idea of a good time, well, then I'm sure the next Pope will attempt to continue in his footsteps. But let's pretend we get a Pope who would like to save souls. I know it's an ironic concept. We don't talk about it. We don't really believe in it much as Catholics anymore. As Pope Benedict said, the vast majority of Catholics are universalists. And when that's the case, then really none of it matters at all. It doesn't even matter if you put money in the collection plate or the Church goes bankrupt and has to sell everything. It doesn't really matter, does it? Because after all, you don't need the Church to save souls. But let's pretend for a second we get a Pope who doesn't think that he's going to have a lot on his plate, because first and foremost, in a very real sense, I'm sorry to say, the Holy Father has destroyed a lot of the moral credibility of the office. Now, I know that we should all be wise enough to separate the man from the office and actually, objectively speaking, absolutely, you bet. We really need to be and that's true of Catholics at any time, any period, whether the Pope is St. Pius V or Julius II, who is a very modern Pope and would have I mean, he'd have loved a Grindr account. He would fit in beautifully. But that's all on one side. The reality of the situation is that for an awful lot of people, the credibility of the Catholic Church is all bound up with the personality of the sitting Pope. It shouldn't be that way. Life should be wonderful, everything should be perfect, but it's not. So he's going to have to be, I think, carry himself very well, be a very courteous individual. Do what Benedict started doing, which was retaking a lot of the Papal paraphernalia, because you see what the world needs, right? Now is not Pope Francis or Pope John Paul II or Pope Charles or Pope Eric or Pope Bobby Joe or Pope Billy McGee with or without Janice Joplin. What the world needs is the Pope, the man in the tiara, the father of kings and princes, the Vicar of Christ, the Patriarch of the west, sovereign pontiff of the Universal Church. In other words, we need a Pope who can subjugate his own personality to the office. We need a Pope who's not about him. We need a Pope who's about the office, who's about the Church, who's about being the Vicar of Christ and the successor of St. Peter. That's the first thing we need a Pope who sees himself as the great bridge builder, the Pontifex Maximus, as the man into whose hands the primary responsibility for the salvation of souls across the planet has been given. If we don't have that, then we'll have more of the same. So that's the first thing. [00:29:54] Speaker A: Now, it seems to me that most observers that the Vatican is so highly corrupt right now that most of the high level appointments are just friends of Francis who are just wreaking scandal, scandal coming out of the Vatican. And so I think when a new Pope comes, everybody, all the heads have to submit the the only way forward to be really successful would be for the Pope basically accept all of them and just say we're going to start new and just have a brand new Vatican with all new people in it. Or is there any way to redeem what we have now? [00:30:41] Speaker B: Well, see, that's the funny thing because what we have now is not what we had ten years ago. You've got to remember that in a weird way, the Holy Father has almost opened the door for fixing the process much more quickly than it could have been done before. Traditionally, Popes have inherited the machinery they've inherited and they have very carefully and very judiciously pruned it, added to it, changed it to push it in the direction they wanted to go. But until the spontificate we never saw wholesale firings and replacements and now we have. So basically what you ended up with, you know what the spoil system is, right? Well, we never had that in the curia before. We do now. So yeah, it's going to need to be cleaned, but only in the way that it was dirtied. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:43] Speaker B: I thought at the time when he first started doing these, wholesale said, you know, he's really not doing his minions any favors because he's establishing a precedent who will come up and bite? Not him, but them. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Because it's interesting because one of the criticisms of John Paul II and Benedict somewhat as well, was appointments were not all ideologically in line with Pontiffs, and Chris is more conservative, like, why did you make Mahoney a cardinal? Why did you elevate these? Why was McCarrick so high up? And things like mean, this pope has made no secret of if you're not his friend. And by friend, meaning you just do whatever you just go along with anything he says or does, then you don't get a high office. I mean, Cardinal Burke is no longer there. I mean, we saw what happened with just I don't know if there's any true loyal opposition, for lack of a better term, in the curia anymore. I mean, they seem to all have been pruned away. Well, no, another example. [00:32:58] Speaker B: Well, 6th is the fifth, but he did so in a good way. His election was quite interesting because it was during the Renaissance, just the post Renaissance period, and there was a lot of pressure on the cardinals to elect a reform cardinal, but they didn't want to. And the man who became 6th V came to the conclave on two sticks. His eyes were all roomy. He looked like he was death store, but he had a reputation as a reform cardinal, so they figured, right, we'll elect him. He's a reform cardinal. No one can complain. And he's obviously a death's doorstep. Well, they elected him. He threw down his sticks. He wiped the goo out of his eyes. He said, now, brethren, we have the papacy, and we shall set to work. And he did. They didn't appreciate it, I can assure you. He gave the holders of multiple seas 24 hours to get out of Rome or go to prison, things like that. I suspect that when next we get a pope who's of apostolic character, in the words of Vladimir Sloviev, he will clean with a new broom. [00:34:33] Speaker A: What do you think is most likely as far as the next pope who will be not a person necessarily, but I just mean a personality in the sense of will it be a Francis, too? Somebody who continues the project of Francis in much the same way? Will it be somebody who might be sympathetic to Francis but is more willing to be conciliatory with rival factions? Will it be a JP II that will be more like that, or a Pius the 13th that's going to go and really clean house? I mean, what do you think is most likely to happen in the next conclave, knowing that none of us really know what will happen till after it. [00:35:09] Speaker B: Happens, and bearing in mind that I have never yet correctly predicted. The outcome of a conclave in all the years I've been alive. So also bear that in mind. [00:35:17] Speaker A: So we'll just know whatever you say, we'll go the opposite. [00:35:20] Speaker B: No, well, if I was stupid enough to name a person, I've given up doing that, so I don't do that. [00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah, and I don't even mean because obviously there's names that get thrown out there and I think those often are silly. Not one person threw out jorge Borgolio. Really? In 2013. I remember Benedict, when Rat Singer there's no way they'd pick Rat Singer and all of a sudden he gets too old. [00:35:41] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:35:41] Speaker A: He has one speech and they're like, okay, he's our, uh and of course, JP too. Watiwa. Obviously nobody guessed, so but I mean, more just like what do you think the cardinals will be looking for in an expo? [00:35:57] Speaker B: Well, there are a couple of things. Firstly, I don't think you may have someone of, like, mind to Francis, but because he's not the same age and is not trapped in 1968, whoever he is, he is not going to have the same fire in the belly to drag us back into polyester. [00:36:18] Speaker A: Right, that's a great point. That's a great point. I don't think people realize how much just his age and when he was forming his views impacts how somebody goes about things. [00:36:30] Speaker B: It's huge. See, the thing is, when I was young, little, in fact, in the immediate wake of Vatican II, every parish seemingly had a priest like the current Holy Father, the Vatican II priest. He wasn't always the pastor, but he didn't need to be because he did what he wanted to do. And if you didn't like it, he'd get all upset and he'd shriek. And I was blessed to have a father who knew how to put that kind of person in his place. It was always fun to watch, but you'd be amazed how many people let themselves be stepped on in those days. And that's why in seeing the sorts of things that have occurred during this pontificate, it's not really been that much of a surprise for me because I lived through this. It's like having one of the priests of my childhood as pope. I've seen this movie, but when he goes to Pope heaven, you won't find anyone with that kind of fury in him. He may have the same ideas. You may get, God forbid, a cardinal, seepage, sort of slipping through the rocks. But the other thing is that although he has appointed a number of cardinals who are the sorts of creatures he likes having around him, I think calling them perverse and criminals is a very unkind thing to say. And I don't think people should say that. But seriously, they are a minority of his appointments. Most of them are people from obscure seas, I think, appointed primarily to annoy people and bishops of larger seas that traditionally would get the red know, you don't get it. But the Bishop of Flatwood Mesa gets, you know, that's great. If you want to insult that major of metropolitan, that's fine. You've done your job. The problem is you probably don't really know the Bishop of Flatwood Mesa. [00:38:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:38:50] Speaker B: And he doesn't know you, and he doesn't know the other cardinals. And you're going to have a horde of these rubes from out of town, as they used to say, in the big city descending on Rome for the next conclave. [00:39:05] Speaker A: It seems like his most ideological appointments to cardinal are in America, which is because he hates America the most. It's like almost every cardinal he's picked in America is an ideological ally, which makes, I think Americans think that's what he's doing with every cardinal appointment. But I think it's mostly restricted here because, you see, when he picks McElroy, for example, in San Diego, which is a nothing diocese, I mean, it's subordinate to Los Angeles. And he won't pick Gomez. He didn't pick. So I do think in America we get a little bit of a special treatment. Yeah, special treatment that makes it skewed that we think all of the cardinals I think there's 120 right now that are electable age or something like that. They're all like that. But I think what you're saying is true. That's not true worldwide. It seems to be more true just in America. [00:40:04] Speaker B: No, worldwide, he tends to choose people from obscure seas, just apparently for their obscurity. And the danger for his side in that is that a lot of them may be Catholic, you don't know to some degree or other. And the other thing, too, to remember is that the St. Gallen mafia isn't with us any longer. [00:40:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:30] Speaker B: They've gone to cardinal heaven, as St. John Chrysostom describes it so beautifully. And I would not be surprised if at the next conclave, the Burke Miller, Sarah Click are the best organized and certainly the most diverse. And if they can convince enough obscurities that the faith needs to be safeguarded and not destroyed, then we may get quite a surprise out of the conclave. But even if we don't, whatever we get, even if it's inclined along, francis'path is not going to have I mean, let's take a real nightmare. Cardinal Siepage. All right, what do we know about Cardinal Sipage? We know that when he is faced with a real challenge, he backs down how do I say this? Well, thanks to trash can custodians sorry, chidiziones custodians. My mistake. He forbade the Institute of Christ the King to offer public mass in their own headquarters. So we know he's a petty little person, which is fine. Nothing wrong with being a petty little person in charge of a large archdiocese. Why should there be anything wrong with that? If religious liberty can't begin with bishops, why bother having but notice that when he was going to shut that church down, because the damage he did, that he took them on because he had the Pope behind him, but when he was face to face with their lay and wealthy sponsors, he backed down. So similarly, I am willing to wager that if he were elected pope, which, God forbid, if enough bishops with enough money behind them told him, you know what, Your Holiness? You really want to do this? You get to do it on your own dime, and we'll see how you do it then I suspect you'll back down. [00:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like there is a I might just be making this up, but among the episcopacy, there is a certain fatigue, francis fatigue, that even those who are supportive of his goals, or at least some of them, aren't really a fan of his methods because it makes their life miserable. I mean, just traditionalist custodus is a perfect example. Most of the bishops weren't, like, huge fans of traditionalists. It's not like they were like, hey, let's all have Latin Masses. But at the same time, they were happy to just leave them alone and be left alone by them. Just have little Mass over there, and you stay quiet and you donate to the diocese. Sometimes everybody's happy. Now all of a sudden, I have to go in and tell them, oh, I'm going to now tick all you people off greatly, make my life harder when I have these other pressing issues I care about, and I just feel like that might be a major factor in who they elect for the next one. [00:43:59] Speaker B: Well, yeah, don't forget, depending on the diocese, it varies, but in a number of dioceses, traditionalists are a major source of income. In a post COVID era, when the Church is being well rewarded financially for all it did for everyone, all of that pastoral care is being paid back. [00:44:24] Speaker A: Yes. It's getting paid back what it earned. [00:44:27] Speaker B: Yes. One of the things that I really was struck by during COVID were the number of parishes I knew back home, and they would say, make a perfect contrition, make a spiritual communion, donate here. [00:44:45] Speaker A: Yeah. It was just unbelievably. I remember so well going to these websites of diocese and parishes during COVID like, yeah, we're all shut down. We're not going to do anything for you, but here's where you can still donate to us. Like, the tone deafness of it that they thought that Catholics would just be like, oh, okay, sure. Of course I'll keep giving to you, even though you've completely I know we're not paying for the sacraments, but the fact is, there is a certain understanding of we will pay to keep the church open so that we can continue to go to church. We can't continue to go to church. Why should we pay to keep it open? [00:45:21] Speaker B: If the milkman stops bringing milk, do you still send money to the dairy? [00:45:26] Speaker A: Right? [00:45:27] Speaker B: And I don't think so. There's the old thing about why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free. Well, why pay for the milk when you're not getting anything, right? [00:45:40] Speaker A: And I think you're right, though, that I think a lot of people have been saying this for a number of years, that you see just the demographics, that the more traditionally minded, even just conservative minded, are the Catholics that are staying and everybody else is leaving. And so eventually you start to the demographics start going our favor. Now, I think for most of us, it's gone way slower than we thought. Francis was not exactly what was expected by a lot of people, but I think COVID did really accelerate that trend where you just see it in a diocese where look at the parish numbers. The ones that are increasing in number and continuing to give are the traditional Latin Mass parishes or the kind of the unicorn nova. Sordo parishes and which ones are not, and that's everybody else. And so, like you said, the bishop knows this. The bishop sees the numbers, and it's like, why am I trying to tick off the very people who are keeping the doors open in the rest of the. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Really, if I may use the phrase stupid move. And it's funny. Cardinal Sarah made a comment about it, which he doesn't generally do, but he did, and he said that it will certainly achieve the opposite of what it's attempting to. And of course, the question was asked in your sister publication, one Peter Five. It was said that TC hadn't gone anywhere. Several bishops were called in for questioning afterwards. Whether or not there was a causal connection, I couldn't say. [00:47:24] Speaker A: When we look at the statistics, the analytics, there are readers in the Vatican. [00:47:30] Speaker B: But here's the thing. Even if that were true even if that were true, my parents were in Angel Street. The play that gave us the name, the phrase Gaslighting. Oh, right, okay. I know what gaslighting is. I grew up with my parents joking about it constantly. And I'm telling you, blaming Trads for not being grateful for being constantly kicked in the teeth is not helpful. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:06] Speaker B: And for that matter, I agree, frankly, that Trads could be a lot more helpful in real mean. I remember when Benedict was inaugurated. I hate that phrase, but that's what he used when he was inaugurated. I remember I was covering it for ABC News, and I remember his comment, pray for me that I do not flee for fear of the thought, what's he talking about? Where's he going to go? And then when he abdicated, my first thought was, well, I guess we didn't pray enough. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Right? [00:48:49] Speaker B: And he was constantly being sniped at. He's not doing enough. Well, see, and there I can see where people would get annoyed with the Trad attitude, right? But the fact remains, Trads did not create this situation. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Right? [00:49:10] Speaker B: Trads did not surround the Holy Father with pervs and criminals. Trads did not sell out the underground church in China. See wouldn't trads who did that? Can't blame them for that one. Got to come up with some other patsy. [00:49:31] Speaker A: That is what's amazing though is that traditional Catholics are blamed that they're the barrier to the new future great church, yet we have these issues all around us that I mean trans are a minuscule part of the church. [00:49:49] Speaker B: Let me clear you in on something. I spent most of my youth without any Tridentine Mass. From 1966 it was still quote unquote, the old Mass. But by 1966 it looked like the new Mass. [00:50:05] Speaker A: Right. [00:50:06] Speaker B: From 1966 until 1985, I did not see a traditional Mass other than Cardinal McIntyre offering at the side altar at St. Basil's on worship. Alabama. What kept me in the faith with three things, okay. Four, my parents, Cardinal McIntyre, whom I got to know very well. I was my professor, the then Romeward bound Anglo Catholics of St. Mary of the Angels, who ended up, some of them becoming what ended up being the prequel to the Ordinarians and then the Russian Catholics in El Segundo. My Catholic school was horrible. My Catholic parish was horrible. It was awful. Tramits had nothing to do with anything. Most of my classmates in high school leaving the faith had nothing to do with trans, nothing. It had a lot to do with our textbook Christ Among US, which ten years later John Paul II ripped the imprimatur from. Oh yes that. But I don't think there were any trans present for choosing that as the major catechetical work of the heart of the archdiocese. I don't know, I just don't think so. [00:51:41] Speaker A: And I think the average bishop who thinks that too, they realize it's not they know trades aren't the enemy. They might have be like, yeah, they have a little bit of an attitude problem at times, stuff like that. But it's such a small number of people and typically they do relatively just donate and keep quiet and kind of keep to themselves and they donate out. [00:52:04] Speaker B: Of proportion of their numbers. [00:52:06] Speaker A: Right. Okay. So the question is let's get back then to the next conclave. I'm going to ask you a question know, I was going to ask you a question. What would you do if you were pope, elected pope? The first thing you would do resign. That is the right answer. That is the correct answer. Okay. Who do you want to be the next pope? Like if you could pick out of know, eligible people, who do you think would make a great next pope? [00:52:44] Speaker B: Well of course I don't want to jinx them, but I'd say Cardinal Sara. [00:52:52] Speaker A: I would get down on my knees in Thanksgiving and praise if that happened. [00:52:56] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. Well, I mean I did when Ratzinger. [00:52:59] Speaker A: Got it with Ratzinger, I jumped up and down screaming. I think I've gotten to the point now where I get down on my knees. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Well, I almost went off the road. I heard it on the radio, okay? When ABC called me and said, you got to get out of the studio right away. They've got white smoke. Then I've got the radio on, right? And then they gave the name just before I got to the studio and said, Carlo Ratziger, I started singing the Know from Henry V. Yeah, right. It was what a wonderful day. But at any rate, no. What I would suggest the next Pope do, if he's Sarath or Burke or Seepage or Tobin, any of these guys, if they're serious about being Pope and saving souls, the first thing they have to understand is that in church, in state, and everywhere, what the world needs and lacks is leadership. That's the first thing we need a steady voice, not one that's explaining his own views, but that is grounded firmly in the truths that he's inherited and speaks not with his voice, but with the voice of his predecessors, and specifically the voice of whom he is vicar. And I think that using the tiara, having a coronation, would be the first step in asserting the papacy. And there'll be. There will be, but not for long, because that's something Benedict discovered as he started bringing stuff, the the red shoes. Everybody made fun of them. Oh, they're from Prada. Ha. But it was reminded people were reminded that the Pope's shoes are red because of the blood of the martyrs. He brought back the know and all this sort of thing, again, because it was about the office. It was about Benedict XVI, not Joseph Ratzinger. [00:55:23] Speaker A: I personally would love for the next pope to mostly be silent. What I mean by that is we don't need to know his opinions about anything, because none of those really matter. And honestly, they don't really amount to anything more than my opinion or your opinion or anybody's opinions. If he just would just simply restate Catholic teaching and just stick with that. [00:55:48] Speaker B: If he quoted, see? One of the keys to realizing the difficulties today, if you pick up any papal document from 1750 to the prison, look at the footnotes. Not just this pontificate, but very much this pontificate. Time and again, you'll have quotations from himself. [00:56:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:56:15] Speaker B: We don't need that, right? We need the fathers and doctors quoted. We need the councils need. One of the things that Benedict did that I really, really liked were his Wednesday audiences, where he'd go out these long teach did. First he did the books of the Bible, then he went Father of the Church by Father of the Church. Then he went through the doctors, and then he resigned. But that kind of teaching, maybe not specifically that way, maybe an expiration of the four creeds. Most people know there are two they don't know the last two. A bully pulpit to explicate the faith and without trying to explain it away or well, we don't have to unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you shall have life in you. Unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall enter the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't need explanation. It needs repetition. We've had two millennia of explanation, and you can find it anywhere you want, from St. Thomas to St. Bonaventure to I mean, we've got all kinds of explication. What we don't have today is the dogma of the faith itself preached at the highest levels of the church. [00:57:50] Speaker A: And that's what I mean. We're in a crisis right now partially because most Catholics don't know the dogma. We actually have a need for it. It's not like we're a bunch of well catechized people who now we can talk about our opinions about climate change or whatever. It's like, let's stick to just the basics. That okay. People really know what the Trinity is. I mean, people don't know what, like, you say, like baptism, what it means, or the Eucharist, as we know, 70% in America at least, don't even believe in the real presence. And so just go back. [00:58:23] Speaker B: One of the most pathetic moments in American Catholic history anyway, was reached when Barack Obama became the primary teacher of the church's teaching on contraception. He was against it, but he knew enough about it to talk about it. Yeah, he'd read Jumani Vite. Boy, that puts him way up above most clerics whoo. [00:58:49] Speaker A: So I got a story about who I want to be the next pope. I was doing interviews around interviews for my last book, Deadly Indifference, and I was this nun, I can't remember her name. She worked at, I think, in a New York school system, just a regular you know, she wasn't like some traditional nun or anything like that or a liberal nun, just a regular nun. And she's interviewing me, and she was saying how she liked the Ford. That's always an interesting thing to say to an author because it's like, you like the Ford probably better than the actual book written by somebody else. But the ford was written by Bishop Athena Schneider. And she goes, I really, like know I'm going to pray for him to become the next pope. And I just cracked up because she had no idea who he was. She had never heard of him before she saw the Ford in my book. And so I was like, okay, we got some nun in New York who's praying for Bishop Schneider to be the next pope. I'm going to just go double down on that and say, yeah, that's what I'm going to pray for as well. I realize picking a non cardinal has not happened, and I don't know how long. And the likelihood of him being the one is I mean, the chances humanly are zero, but I'm going to go ahead and pray for it because I tell you what he would bring back. I'm sure a lot of the things that you're talking about, but also he would stick to in fact, I'm going to say it here. It's not a huge public announcement yet, but it will be soon after this goes live, is that Sophia Institute is publishing a catechism written by Bishop Schneider. [01:00:20] Speaker B: Oh, excellent. [01:00:23] Speaker A: I have it. I can see it right now. It's in the office. I have a copy of it. It is excellent, but it's exactly what we're talking about sticking to. Okay, here's what the Church believes. But it also addresses new controversies like the transgenderism, stuff like that, because we do have to address this. But it does it by just simply restating what the Church has always believed, not theories or anything like that. So it's wonderful. So that's my vote when they ask me, as you know, they will, and the conclave calls me up and says, eric, hey, who do you think we should vote for? That's who I'm going to put my pitch in for Bishop Athens Schneider here. You heard it here first. [01:01:00] Speaker B: Well, from your lips to God's ears. [01:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's the only way it's happening, the direct intervention. Then you know how people falsely think that the Holy Spirit picks the next Pope, and we're like, no, that's not how it works. Well, if Bishop Vaccination Center became the next Pope, then I would say the Holy Spirit picked him because that's the only way. [01:01:18] Speaker B: That's the the thing you gotta bear in mind is that when you say the Holy Spirit picks them, it's not as though they put the names out on a plate and he grabs one of them and there it is. But there is a sense, however, in which we get the Pope we either need or deserve. And one thing you got to remember when you're looking at our current Holy Father and his predecessors and his successes for that matter, when they come along, do we deserve better? [01:02:02] Speaker A: Right? [01:02:04] Speaker B: Again, I don't want to be gaslighting, but part of the problem of writing. [01:02:10] Speaker A: Out of this church, I mean, he was formed and developed by the church we're in. You were just saying he's 1968 still. Well, 1968 was happened. We have to live with the consequences of it. [01:02:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And one of the things about writing about Charles and Zeta, with the background of Central Europe as it is today, and as it's been for over a century, when I look at current political leadership, even with Sleepy Joe, I think, gosh, they're horrible, they're disgusting. Well, yeah, but once upon a time, we had a couple of saints upon a throne. And how do we treat them? How did their loyal subjects and their governments deal with them? One of the telling realities of history is back in 1905, nine years before the war began, kaiser Wilhelm II and Zod Nicholas II, who were cousins, you know, they were first cousins, they went for a cruise together on the Baltic. And when they finished, they were in Helsinki, in Finland, which was Russia, then Russian territory, and they signed a peace treaty and a treaty of peace and alliance between Germany and Russia, which was to take effect as soon as the Russo Japanese war, which was waging, then ended, that Russia would endeavor to get France to join. And then they went back to their capitals, and both of their governments immediately denounced it, both the Russian and the German prime minister telling their sovereign, if you don't withdraw this, I'm resigning. And so they did. So that's what we have ruled by the brightest and the best the political classes could possibly produce. [01:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah. That's how we end up where we are. [01:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Of course, the sad thing, really, more than anything else, of course, is that we're likely to give even more of the same to our successors. [01:04:42] Speaker A: Yes, that's true. [01:04:44] Speaker B: However, I do have good news for you. I actually have two pieces of good news, not related to the topic, but you might find them amusing. [01:04:50] Speaker A: Okay, good. Let's hear some good news to finish it off here. [01:04:54] Speaker B: All right. The first is an old joke of mine during COVID Was that when they had us put on our masks, they took theirs off? [01:05:04] Speaker A: Yes. [01:05:06] Speaker B: So that's just a little thing to throw out there. But I have learned a whole new word this past week. I never knew it before. And you'll appreciate this, being involved with think, you know, if you live in La. Or if you're from La. You go to a movie, you'll sit through all the credits and watch them because you very often know people. And I remember going to a movie in the Midwest a few years ago, and I did the same thing. And when the whole thing was over, I looked there's this one couple left in the theater. So I went over to them and I said, say, you guys from La. They looked at yeah, how'd you know how indeed. Well, similarly, you know what you were saying, how authors will always read the forward. We also read the acknowledgements. [01:05:55] Speaker A: Right. [01:05:56] Speaker B: Well, I just read a novel, and the author thanked the sensitivity readers at his publisher. I didn't know what a sensitivity reader was, but fortunately, Wikipedia source of all truth, it showed it is a thing. And sensitivity readers are the people who make sure that if there's a character or more who are characters of color, that nothing offensive or triggering or bad is in there. We used to call those censors when I was a kid. [01:06:33] Speaker A: Right. [01:06:35] Speaker B: Just like we called the people that are now equity officers. In my day, we called them political commissars. [01:06:42] Speaker A: Right. [01:06:43] Speaker B: So the thing to bear in mind is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. [01:06:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, let's end it there. What we want to do is obviously pray for actually, I've gotten a habit. My pastor mentioned that we need to pray for our bishop, but also for the next bishop. And I think that's a good habit for obviously pray for your bishop, the next bishop, but also pray for the Pope. And the next pope. The next pope is alive. He is active right now. He is doing something. And so we should be praying for him right now that it will be somebody, like you said, who actually cares about saving souls. [01:07:23] Speaker B: And we have to pray. Remember one thing, any Pope like that is immediately going to be opposed by the great ones of this world. [01:07:34] Speaker A: Yes. [01:07:35] Speaker B: So we also have to pray for the courage of the Catholic people around the globe to back them up. [01:07:40] Speaker A: Right. [01:07:40] Speaker B: Who get into a fight with China straight away, likely to get into a fight with United States, Russia. I mean, you realize there is not a major government on the globe today that means well by the Catholic Church. Not one. Not a single one. So for a Pope, and this know, when we look at the Holy Father and we say, oh, he's such he surrenders and all stop and think a Pope who didn't do that would be like Pius IX basically fighting with virtually every major government of his time. It takes guts of steel to be able to do that. And how many of us have them? [01:08:25] Speaker A: Right? [01:08:25] Speaker B: That's why I told you I'd resign first know, Mark Coulomb didn't raise no moron. So that's one thing to remember, that we should also pray for ourselves who have the guts to back him up. [01:08:39] Speaker A: Yes, that's a great yep. Because if we get a Pope who actually wants to do his job well, that will mean he is attacked and hated. And so we have to be willing to and we will be attacked and hated then, therefore, for supporting him. [01:08:54] Speaker B: Supporting him. As will our bishops, as will our priests, as will our sisters. And the way they'll attack us at this moment, we can't predict it, but it'll be something unusual, something unexpected. [01:09:07] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. [01:09:08] Speaker B: They'll get us in ways unless you subscribe to this, you don't get a huge cut off your income tax. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Right. [01:09:18] Speaker B: Some weird deal that you've never heard of before. That's what they'll do to, you know, what the hey, what matters is saving our souls. None of us get out of here alive. In the words of that great theologian Jim Morrison. [01:09:34] Speaker A: Yes, very good. Okay, charles, I appreciate this. This has been a great discussion, and let's just keep praying. [01:09:43] Speaker B: That's all we can do. [01:09:45] Speaker A: Okay, till next time, everybody. God love.