What to Expect From the Conclave

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:11] Speaker B: So, Tim, how are you doing? [00:00:13] Speaker A: Christ is risen, all is well in the world. So. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Yes. Talk about nothing's happened lately in, in the Catholic world. We've been kind of bored at our jobs. Right. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I've been able to just, you know, pray and have my little retreat because the Vatican's just all quiet, so. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Yes. Like it has been for years, so. [00:00:32] Speaker A: I love that. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Avi, actually. Well, okay, I guess I'll say it. Well, there hasn't actually been any new papal controversies in the last two weeks, so. [00:00:41] Speaker A: True. Let's count our blessings right now. [00:00:44] Speaker B: We do have that. [00:00:44] Speaker A: So there has not been any airplane interviews or. [00:00:47] Speaker B: That's right, that's right. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Anything like that. [00:00:50] Speaker B: So, so I, well, we're going to talk about the conclave here. We're going to talk about, you know, who we think the next Pope might be, who, who are the different people who are kind of the most eligible candidates, who most likely might get elected, stuff like that. But before I even get started on that, I just want to ask you to give me kind of your brief assessment of the Francis pontificate. You know, what's going to be the legacy of Pope Francis? [00:01:19] Speaker A: What will be the legacy of Pope Francis? I, I mean, I'm sorry to say, Holy Father, rest in peace, but my first thought was John xii, who is the infamously worst Pope ever, who toasted the devil and all this murdered by his whatever. So he did a bunch of bad things. He was terrible. But then he confirmed the Cluniac monastery, which was the, actually the monastery that ended up creating the whole revival we called the High Middle Ages. So he was terrible pope, but then he did this thing that actually was all this great stuff. So I, I, I wonder if Pope Francis will do that because I, I wrote an article called 13 Good Things Pope Francis has done. And I think some of those things could be long term, really great things. In particular, we can mention two and three really quickly. One is confirming the fssp, which he confirmed in a very explicit manner. And he also gave the SSPX full jurisdiction for their confessions and perhaps more. And also I want to say his Sacred Heart encyclical, which I think is, we talked about this last time when we were talking about the synod on synodality of meetings. Of meetings. I, I haven't even finished it yet, but I think it's very, very profound and excellent. So perhaps there might be some long term good that we don't see right now. But in terms of his actual pontificate, I'm afraid to Say very negative in pretty much every category of analysis. [00:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah, and I'm with you there. I mean, I think it's true if you look at even bad pontificates, good things can happen out of them, which is kind of way God often works. And I do think his attitude towards the society. It should be noted that, you know, it's kind of the whole only Nixon can go to China type of thing. Like he was, he, he did loosen up any jurisdictional issues and, and kind of made it so, I mean, the next pope would, would have to remove them and you know, take an active step. And I don't think they would. I don't think no matter who we get will do something like that. So I think that's obviously a good thing. Anything we can do to kind of heal that breach, however you want to define the breach, you know, I think is a good thing to normalize all relations with the society, I think is good. That Sacred Heart and sickle kind of came out of nowhere. Like, I don't, I don't think there was any announcement of it really ahead of time. It just dropped. I mean, maybe there's a little bit. And it was just surprising because one of the frustrations I had with his pontificate is how little he talked about spiritual matters in any official capacity. I mean, he, he constantly brought politics into things. He constantly talked about the kind of the, the, the hot button issues of, you know, climate change and divorce and remarried and homosexuality, stuff like that, but very little, just okay, like devotion, Sacred Heart and accounts were that he had certain, certain devotions. It's not like I'm saying he had no spiritual life in him. I just saying that he rarely talked about, I mean, he was attacking, you know, traditional devotions all the time. So all of a sudden that to come out, maybe that will be a high point. Looking back on his pontificate, I hasten. [00:04:46] Speaker A: To add that there's two more things that might even be bigger long term goods. One is the consecration of Russia, which Bishop Schneider says that that is the real deal. In his opinion, that was the first actual real consecration of Russia. So that could be huge. We can't even overestimate what it could be if it was the real thing. And then the last thing I'll mention is his attitude towards Eastern Catholics, where I've learned that at his funeral they had at least two. They had Greek chanting and Arabic chanting, maybe more. And that was different than Benedict, actually. So there's a lot of good there. We're coming out with an article at 1 Peter 5 about from our Russian Catholic correspondent in St. Petersburg about Eastern Catholics and positive things there. So. And that's always long term because, you know, that's a dispute that's predates the SSPX by a few centuries, shall we say. [00:05:43] Speaker B: So, yeah, okay, this is getting a little bit off topic. Oh, by the way, for those who are watching live, feel free to make comments in the live chat and we'll try to address maybe some of them during the podcast or at the end. But okay, this is, I know we're going to talk about the conclave, but like, isn't it weird, wasn't it weird his relationship though with the. I'm blanking on the name the Ukrainian Catholic Patriarch. He didn't make him a cardinal, but he made the Australian 45 year old Ukrainian bishop a cardinal. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:16] Speaker B: He clearly, I mean, I just thought that was a bit odd because I mean, for whatever you think about the political world of Ukraine and Russia and all that Ukrainian Catholic Church is the strongest Eastern Catholic church by like, by a lot as far as numbers and everything. The guy, you know, clearly the leader. I mean, it just seemed odd that he didn't make him a cardinal. Personally, I think these Eastern Catholics should be full patriarchs and they're just automatically in the conclave whether they're a cardinal or not and all that. But just the fact that he's not going to be a voting member of the Conclave just seemed a bit almost like a personal thing or something. I mean, do you know anything about that? Why, why that was going on? [00:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it, at least as far as I know it was interpreted as a personal snub against Svetoslav and I, if memory serves, it was after Svetoslav opposed fiducia. So I, I think if I'm not recall, if I'm getting the timeline right, because as I understand it, Svetoslav was not made a cardinal nor were more Africans after they all opposed fiducia supplicants. So perhaps that was behind that. But I, to me consecrating Russia was an extreme because like unfortunately the Holy See very, very unfortunately has again thrown the Eastern Catholics under the bus since Vatican ii. They threw them under the bus before Vatican II in a different way and they've thrown them under the bus yet a different way because they're just kind of bending over the back words to like appease the Orthodox. And in a sense that's good. There's a good side to that. But there's been a far too much Sort of let's not offend the Orthodox, but let's just offend the Eastern Catholic brethren, because we don't, you know. [00:08:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:03] Speaker A: That's the serious. But when he decided to consecrate Russia to me, that was like, a huge choice in favor of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which obviously was also being invaded by the Russians. Now, obviously, that was, in a sense, that was siding with Western media, which was all pro Ukraine. So there was sort of a political aspect to it. So maybe he did this out of. For bad motives, but still, I think it was a very, very good thing in the same. In the same way. So there's a lot to talk about there, and it's extremely complex with all the different Eastern churches. [00:08:36] Speaker B: But, yeah, and I think a lot of it, Maya, just had to do with. He was tiptoeing a bit with Russia, didn't want to step on too many toes, offend them too much by having the Ukrainian Catholic Patriarch as a cardinal, because he's probably enemy number one among the Russian Orthodox and the Russians in general. So maybe it was just that, which is, I think, unfortunate. Like I said, though, I personally think they should change the rules so that the Conclave is all the cardinals and of all the patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches. But I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Okay, so let's just move on into the Conclave. Whoa. Give me your general kind of overview of what you see as the makeup of the Conclave, because a lot of people are fixated, of course, about the fact that there's 108 of the 135. I think there's actually only 130, 433 actually, now going to the conclave. But basically 80% of the cardinals have been selected by Francis. So people just kind of expect, you know, I think people who aren't really following very much expect a Francis, too. So what would you say, though, is more a more accurate description of the overall makeup of the Conclave? [00:09:54] Speaker A: Well, every. Every cleric, every bishop especially, and every cardinal, most especially, is the sum of their entire formation, which is decades and decades under multiple popes. And there's just not enough super duper Francis psycho fans to choose from, even if Francis, because, you know, he's just been pope for 10 years, so, like, there's just not enough people who are super duper psychophantic regarding him to choose, you know, all the Francis, too. I think there are particular guys that we know who are super, very, very, extremely Francis cheerleaders. We know that they're ideologically in line with. With their idea of what Francis is and what he represents and his potential and etc. So I think it's. It's far more complicated. I. What I wanted to say on the outside is that on the outset was that Anglophone media tends to kind of make this dichotomy between liberals and conservatives. But I, I'm going to claim here that I think that that is a non Catholic way to speak about the situation, because first of all, in the, in the English language, American media has an understanding of what liberals and like, progressives and conservatives are. And it. Which ultimately is a reduction of the Catholic faith because something like, you know, Cardinal Pizzabala, who's talking about justice for the Palestinians in the United States, that's like an issue that the Democrat Party has become. That's like a progressive issue, Palestinian justice. But it's not a progressive issue. It's just a Catholic issue. It's like, let's not treat the Palestinians, you know, genocide or whatever. [00:11:41] Speaker B: And he's talking literally about his own flop. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Exactly. This is his own flop. [00:11:45] Speaker B: This isn't like something where he's like, politically, you know, aligned with the Democrats. Exactly. He's just like, this is his people. That, that he's. That he's. I mean, it's his job to defend them. [00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And I would also, I, I've heard it a lot, even from Catholic sometimes where they talk about like, care for migrants or care for the environment are like the progressive issues. And I would also say those are also Catholic issues. I have a priest who, I know my good friend, who's a very strong Orthodox traditional priest, and he. And he works with immigrants. So he, he's working with all these people in the United States who are immigrants, and they're having a hard time because of the strong rhetoric against the immigrants. Now, obviously, we're not advocating any sort of open border or anything like that. But. But just the idea of that's a progressive issue. No, it's not like, this is a Catholic way to look at all this stuff. So I would prefer the dichotomy Catholic in the broadest sense. And then on the other hand, suspected of modernism because under the Catholic umbrella, there's various schools of thought within that. Okay. There's like, on the one hand you have like, somebody like Burke, who, I would say, who's the closest to a traditionalist because he celebrates the Latin Mass himself regularly, not just like at the request of a special event. That's his thing. And then you have more of like the communio type, where Cardinal Sirrah is more in that line. You have. [00:13:10] Speaker B: How would you define communiotype just for people who might not know what you mean by that? [00:13:14] Speaker A: Well, communotypes are those who are communicating, particularly formed by the Communio Theological Journal, which is basically like Ratzinger. Ratzinger is the biggest communio guy, as distinct from the Consilium Theological Journal, which would. That would be the suspect of modernist school of thought, where you have somebody like Hans Kung who openly denied dogmas, so therefore he's an heretic, at least materially speaking. And this is where. So people. People like Cardinal Fernandez is the head of the office formerly known as Holy Cardinal Fernandez, you know, talks all about. Let's, you know, and. Or others like him talk about. They don't talk about the doctrine of the faith. If you're talking about the doctrine of the faith, you're a Catholic. If you're talking about. That's. You're saying, oh, we shouldn't talk about unity. We shouldn't talk about truth. We shouldn't talk about doctrine of the faith. Those are rigid. You're a suspected modernist. Immediately if you think that that's not what the main concern is, you're a suspected modernist. Now, I say suspected because we can't really see per se, is he really a modernist? Is he culpable? Who knows? Whatever. I'm not trying to judge you, but if you think that that's wrong to talk about the doctrine of the faith, the professio fidei, you are not painting yourself as a Catholic. [00:14:37] Speaker B: So with communio, with the communio group, like on a liturgical view, they're basically kind of the reform of the reform type of. Of Catholics, as we would kind of sometimes define them here in America. Right. Like they're. They're accepting the liturgical changes of Vatican II and some of the reforms, but they're really. They're saying they're more against the spirit of Vatican ii. That took it too far. Would that be a general classification for them, or is that too simplistic? [00:15:03] Speaker A: That. I think that is a general. That is a correct way of generalizing the communio. I think I would say that all Catholics oppose the suppression of the traditional Latin Mass. All Catholics. Right. There's a lot of Novus Ordo Catholics who prefer, like George Weigel. Let's give George Weigel some credit. He loves this Novus Ordo. And I have personal disagreements with George Weigel because he's kind of a neocon. Right. But he's a great guy. Right? I mean. I mean, he has a lot. Great scholar, all due respect to you, George Weigel, if you ever hear this, like, you do a lot of great work, but you love the new Avatar, but you are against traditional Traditionos Cassotes. So I would say George Weigel is a Catholic in this very, very most basic general sense, because no Catholic can be opposed to or, you know, opposed to the very basic fundamental tradition of the Roman. Right, right. And so, you know, you have the reform of the reform guys who love the Novus Ordo, but they oppose Traditionis Custodis. And then you have somebody like Burke who's far more promoting the Latin Mass himself, more on the traditional camp. These are. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Would you say Sirah and Mueller are probably kind of the two. Two of the most prominent members of that kind of communio. Or does Mueller fall under that? [00:16:19] Speaker A: I think Mueller. Mueller is interesting because both Seurat and Mueller, they celebrated the traditional Latin Mass for the Chart Pilgrimage, which is the largest traditionalist. Traditionalist event in the entire world every year. And so by doing. It's not just like, oh, somebody asked me to do the tlm, so I'll do it. This is like a statement to the world, basically, that they did it there for that group. So to me, that's. That kind of puts them as one foot in this very traditionalist camp. Seurat, however, is a very strong disciple of Ratzinger. He was appointed by Ratzinger to be the head of the worship. He was sacked by Francis because he promoted the reform of the reform. He talked about the term reform of the reform, which was big. He wanted to do adorientum in the Novus Ordo. So Seurat is very much a Ratzinger. Yeah. Mr. Heaven here. Our brother in Christ, Carl. Yeah. Mueller more and more was saying his. His rhetoric, and not just rhetoric in a bad sense, but like the things he has said are extremely strong. Unlike Sarah. Sarah, to his. To his credit, you know, he has a book called Silence, and he's much more cautious of his words. And the book is great. I'm not trying to criticize him here. I'm trying to. I'm kind of like joking around here. So sorry if anyone is offended here especially. [00:17:45] Speaker B: It is a great book and I recommend it to everybody. [00:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah, Silence is awesome. But the things that Cardinal Mueller has said are so fiery. Yeah. It's just he. He's. He's talked about the Synod of Citality as a hostile takeover. He used those words In English. Those were his original words, hostile takeover. I mean, this is like the type of. I mean, there's really nobody. I mean, is there anybody more fiery than Mueller? I'm on the Cardinalet. Perhaps Burke isn't. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Burke will say some strong things, but Mueller's definitely more fiery and has. And it definitely has increased. Like when he was made head of the cdf, at the time, he was like, okay, that's good, and he was fine. But there was nothing about him that I, that screamed to me, okay, this guy is going to really push back against Francis that strongly. But then after he left and in over the past few years, he's become increasingly strong in his criticism, which, by the way, I think makes him not. He's not going to be elected. He wouldn't be elected. But still, he kind of has moved. I mean, like, he, I think he, he was firmly communio, but then I think he has moved at least to be more sympathetic if not having one foot in the traditionalist camp. [00:19:02] Speaker A: He also, I should mention too, he spoke for the CIC conference via recording, which is also significant because that's the largest traditionalist conference in, in the Americas. So these actions of his to basically take the traditionalists under his wing in the MO in the biggest sense of the word, very significant. I wanted to mention two other Catholic parties within the General, and this is where I think it can be really confusing because we mentioned Svetoslav. And I would just say there's. There's not as many Eastern Catholic cardinals, but they do exert a lot of influence in terms of their force because they talk about synodality in a different sense. And there's been Eastern Catholics who defend citality against the Synod of Citadelity. They say that is modernist. What we have is actually traditional. And so there can be difficulty where, you know, because of the issues are. That can be complex because synodality can be neo modernist and to some people, but it can be very traditional to an Eastern Catholic. And then lastly, I want to mention the African Catholics. I just did a podcast for the Mass of the Ages donors about Uganda, and we're doing another one about Cameroon. And it was interesting to see how much the African Catholics, for example, they're pro Vatican too. And the reason they're pro Vatican 2 for one reason is because Africa is. Has so many religious and ethnic wars going on. And so let's talk about. Let's talk to each other in peace. Let's stop killing each other. Let's have a little dialogue. Let's end the Bloodshed. That message is very positive. But you could still be staunchly orthodox. You could be, you know, the whole continent of Africa was against fiducia supplicants. So it's a little bit more complicated than, oh, well, if you're pro Vatican ii, because Vatican II is very different in different places in the world. So I would, I would, I would say there's these different Catholic parties, but then like I said, there's these, this neo, neo modernist, so called progressive, but I don't like the term. And I would definitely put, I mean, anyone who is a fan of suppressing the traditional mass, who suppressed it himself, like kind of wanted to do it to, you know, be psychophantic to Francis. There are some, several people like that. Cardinal Cupidge in the United States. Yeah, go ahead. [00:21:40] Speaker B: I was gonna say I was surprised by the way everybody knows who watches this podcast. I mispronounce every name under there. So correct me if I mispronounce this. Arborelius. Cardinal Arborelius. Who? [00:21:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna mention him. [00:21:53] Speaker B: I thought he. When I first was looking at him, I was like, oh, this guy seems pretty good. He talks about, you know, he's. He was a monk. I believe he's a convert from Lutheranism. All this. Then all of a sudden I found out that he shut down, that he really implemented tradition as custodas pretty strictly. And so it's. Now, what country is he from? I think he was he Netherlands. No, no, he's not Netherlands. I thought he was Italian. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Let me look, I just found out about him today. Forgive me for not doing my homework. Better. [00:22:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I got it right here. [00:22:20] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:22:21] Speaker B: Anders. No, Sweden. Sweden. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:24] Speaker B: And so a lot of things about him, I was like, oh, this guy looks pretty good. He's the Bishop of Stockholm, Sweden. Although he's born in Switzerland himself. But the fact. I'm sorry, but to me it's a disqualifying thing. If you implement truth units, custodes harshly. If you did one or two little things just to keep. Embrace the Vatican, I don't support that. But at the same time, I'm not going to think you're going to be, you know, I'm not going to assume you're going to be wholehearted. But when you implement pretty harshly, I kind of wonder. But let me just take real quick, just to make sure everybody's following. So you're saying there's four. Basically four categories under the kind of the Catholic heading that overlap some and that's the, the communio party. The more Strict traditionalist party, you know, which is very small. The Eastern Catholic Party and then the African Catholics. Seurat kind of falls into all three of the four of those on some level. So like he checks a lot of boxes. But now we're talking about, you know, the suspective Modernism party. And I think like the question is, how big is this? That's the real question. Is it. I mean, I think if you look at those, if you look at these five groups, the, it's probably the largest of the voting parties. I think the communio one is probably the next largest of them. But is it big enough really to just kind of make things happen, you know, get, get the guy they want rather than, you know, you know, having to compromise somewhat and getting a compromise candidate. So just to go back to what you're saying, so who are some of the people in that group? I mean, obviously we mentioned Fernandez, we just mentioned our Borealius, I think is how you pronounce it. Who else would you kind of put into that category? [00:24:12] Speaker A: I, I just found, I mean Paralyn anyone? Carolyn Fernandez. I put Soupich, but he's not really probably. [00:24:21] Speaker B: But yeah, but he's obviously he's probably one of the most hardcore Francis disciples of any of literally of the 135 cardinals, he might be at the top of the list of being the most like Francis. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, so there we go. Tagle is another one. Zupi, Avileen and Bristlyn were all people that I thought, and this is some of these, I, I, you know, some of these guys I've followed for a while. So like I'm very familiar with Soupage. That's just three hours drive from where I live. I know where you know, I know a lot about Chicago, but I mean people like Avileen and Brislin, people I just learned about from the Penton, Montana website. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah. The College of Cardinals Report.com which is very good. You know, interesting. Zupi I think is an interesting one because from what I've been reading about him and I had some familiarity with him before the Holy Father passed away, but I wasn't like an expert on him or anything like that. Is, he's clearly ideologically aligned with Francis, but the, the word is he's just not, I mean he's not a jerk. He's not like a, he's like a good guy by all indications. And he's not necessarily, would be somebody who would necessarily maintain tradition as custodes. He might just be more like, ah, you know, let those guys do what they're doing. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna spend energy on them. I don't know, but I. Have you heard anything about Zoopy other than, you know, kind of what we, what I'm talking about here? [00:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Stephen Cox, he mentioned that the grand master Freemason, whatever, wizard, whatever they're calling themselves, said that Zupy would be a great Pope. [00:26:03] Speaker B: So, I mean. Oh, don't get me wrong, he's got like so many red flags. I mean, a bull would come charging at him. But the, What I'm saying though is like, I. Okay. In fact, let me just, let's talk about this for a moment. We've been talking about ideology, but to me, I feel like the chance we'll get a Pope who is mostly ideologically aligned with Francis is very high. But at the same time, I think the chances we get a Pope who has the same governance style as Francis is very, very low. And so my personal opinion is that we're going to get a Pope who is, you know, he's, he's going to have red flags. He's going to have views that are definitely suspected of modern, of modernism, but I don't think he's going to necessarily be like, let's just attack the trads all the time. Let's like do every. Basically a dictator pope and things of that nature. What do you think about that? Am I, am I, you know, smoking something or what do you think? [00:27:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's a, that is a very. I think that's an astute comment. I agree with the second part of it because it takes a particular personality to rule the way Pope Francis did. The. There are many credible rumors that in private Pope Francis was extremely tempestuous, angry, prone to swearing and cussing. And people inside the Vatican, behind closed doors, just like really hated working with this guy. Holy Father, rest in peace. So it was very dictatorial in all these sort of ways. And this is as Henry Sear says in his book Dictator Pope. He is, he was a Peronist. And so he. So he was capable of saying a bunch of orthodox, sort of quote, unquote, right wing things, which he did say, but he probably did them just for show he knew what to say. Perhaps I'm wrong, I don't know. But the other thing you said was that it's very likely that there will be a Francis too. I'm not sure if that is. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Well, just said that the Pope, the next Pope, will be ideologically more aligned with Francis than not, is all I'M saying he might not take the name Francis too, but that he basically has a similar view of, you know, he'll. Of kind of the church and the faith and things like that. [00:28:31] Speaker A: I think that's, I think that is possible. That's certainly definite possibility. I think, however, that it is less. I think it's less likely actually than in my, in my view, I think it's more likely to have somebody who's more like John Paul 2 or Ratziger. And the reason is because for, for one thing, Francis didn't there. There's just a lot of the stuff he said was so vague as to not really have a true meaning. Like C is basically like Cardinal Martini and his whole idea. Now he had particular hot button issues that he wanted to accomplish like female priesthood and whatever, and Francis got the ball rolling there. But then where are they going to go next? Are they going to just go after this particular hot button issue, this particular thing, that particular thing? I think that's highly likely. But I would say that the, the stronger. The stronger tradition, which I think is. Is more durable in a cultural sense where this is. This thing that can. Was disseminated throughout the world in all these different seminaries where these different men were formed and how they experienced the faith as they grew up and became a priest and a bishop. The stronger tradition is more the communio, sort of John Paul ii, Ratzker, they were pope for far longer together. Thinking of them together. And I think Francis had 12 years to try his best to sort of unearth a school of thought that had been very much suppressed and marginalized under John Paul II and Ratzger. Even though there was a. There's still a strong academic presence among, among these sort of neo modernist types. But I mean a lot of the people who embrace the priesthood, the people who embraced like the academics, you know, a lot of these guys are married, they've got pension, whatever, like, but the people who become priests and they get ordained in 1970, like who wants to be ordained in 1970 or 1980? People who actually can are concerned with the Catholic faith and they really want the Catholic faith. They're not really interested in the next progressive cause. So I think even though, you know, 80% of these guys are appointed by Francis, I would, I would say probably a lot more than we think are a lot more conservative minded in some way traditional minded, just because that's the tradition that's far more endurable and disseminated, I think worldwide than the Francis fads that we saw this past do you. [00:31:12] Speaker B: Think, you think there's a decent chance we'll get a communio friendly Pope? [00:31:17] Speaker A: I think it is a decent chance. They say, what they say is. And again, all the, I mean people, if people don't know this already, you probably do. Viewers and listeners probably didn't know this, but everything that we say about conclaves and what happened in the conclaves is totally a non credible rumor because anybody who talks about conclaves is immediately excommunicated. So the only thing we know about these conclaves are from people who broke the seal. Okay? So what I'm about to say, you take that with a grain of salt, but this is the only thing we know about it. Okay? [00:31:50] Speaker B: Right. [00:31:51] Speaker A: So when you read Julia Maloney's book St. Gallen Mafia, she talks about how there was this, you know, the click. They were trying to elect Jorge Mario Begolio way back in the 90s. They were trying to get this whole thing going. And they say then the conclave of 2005, that Bergoglio was almost elected then, but instead they went with Benedict. So that was maybe surprising because Bergoglio had enough people and we know that John Paul ii, even though he had a lot of great qualities, he kind of just kept that same corruption going in the sense that he just appointed, he appointed McCarrick, he appointed, you know, these guys. So they, they still had a lot of those bad guys, if you will. They could have elected Bergoglio then, but then they've been elected Benedict. So we don't know. There could be a huge surprise. It could not be like, God knows, we don't know. [00:32:43] Speaker B: It is crazy to think about the 2005 if that rumor is true. And I've heard, you know, I've heard it as well. That's just crazy to think about that 2005, they thought about electing Bergoglio and they elected and said Rat Singer, when the two of them could not be more different in so many ways. And yet they, they, I mean, it's just like a. It, it does tell. You don't get too confident in your predictions because those are two very divergent paths. And they ended up just. They picked one one time, they picked the other one the next time. And it just, it's kind of like what the thinking was behind the cardinals in each case. I personally think that a lot of the number of the cardinals who elected, who voted For Bergo in 13 didn't really know who he was. And I think he was still a little bit. I think I think the people who pushed him knew who he was, but I think a lot of the people who voted for him were basically hoodwinked into thinking, oh, this is some, you know, South American, he's pastoral, love for the poor, he's humble, all that stuff. And then all of a sudden, and that's why I don't think a, at least a Bergoglio style will be picked this time, because I think they kind of learn their lesson. I mean, of course a lot of the cardinals are new, but you know, from even 2013, like I said, you know, 108 of them are. But I think there, there's a lesson that they probably will learn from that. The, so who are some of the, of the candidates that might be like they've been talked about at least? Who are some of the people who you think actually have a realistic chance of being picked? Now that we've kind of talked about the different camps and, and what they might be looking for, who do you think are, who are, what are some names? [00:34:34] Speaker A: I, I don't know. I, I, I. Let me, let me preface this by saying to, to confirm, to agree with what you just said, that kind of people, even the, even sort of the non traditional neo modernist side, kind of learned their lesson with Francis because Cardinal Pel's rest in peace, his anonymous letter to all the Cardinals a couple years ago, he said in that. So this was like inside baseball, we're going to talk only to us. And he wrote it anonymously, but we later found out it was Cardinal Pell who wrote it. He, he, he said, Pope Francis. He said, basically the, the unanimous opinion of this pontificate is that it is a disaster from every single viewpoint. Even the, he said, like he said, unless you're Antonio Spadaro, you do not like this pontificate. So he was like making a joke. Like there's only like a few people who are really, really super Francis. And there's certain reasons why even the native modernists don't like Francis or didn't like Francis, like his dictatorial style. His, his a very unfortunate and lamentable dealing with sex abuse. Because even the new modernists care about that because it's about their reputation with the secular media. But who has a real chance? I have no idea. But if you want me to make a bold prediction, I mean, let me, let me give credit to George Weigel because I feel bad that I, I kind of insulted him earlier. But he said, which I thought was really good. He said in, in recent discussion, he said the choice of the conclave is between Germany and Africa. Those are the choices. I thought that was very astute because he mentions how the German church is rich but spiritually dead. You know, 2% mass attendance, whereas the African church is materially poor but very much alive. As I said, I just did this podcast. The increase of the church in Africa in past 100 years was 6,000, thousand percent. It's more than. It's more than the entire history of Christianity combined. Like, that's how intense the African conversions are. They got African priests that are being sent to America. They have so many. My friend lived in Tanzania. They said that they have so many priests that the bishop was turning away the seminarians because he said, we don't have enough doctors. You got to be a doctor. We've got too many priests. I mean, like, they have too many priests. That's how intense it is in Africa. Now, Francis was very much a German, which was interesting. He was very German. [00:37:03] Speaker B: He's not. Weigel's not saying the next book will come from Germany or Africa. He's talking more about the. The kind of. The ideology, the center of gravity. Center of gravity, that's right. Yeah. And there's no question Francis's center of gravity was. Was German. Was aligned with Germany. [00:37:19] Speaker A: So, like, one of the first things Francis did, he promoted the arch enemy of Ratziger, Casper. [00:37:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:37:26] Speaker A: So most of the Germans are bad. I said in my. My outline, if you're. If you're German, you're a suspect of neomodernism. Sorry. One of my favorite guys is German Hildebrand. But unfortunately, many of the Germans are neomodernist. Mueller is an exception. Rasker is an exception. Perhaps Cook. Cook is kind of. I think there's Walecki, another exception, perhaps. But unfortunately. And this is the situation. But so what. So all of that to say we have a. We have a. A difficult problem because the Vatican is very much bankrupt. There's all sorts of financial, sexual. All sorts of problems with the Vatican. They're. They don't have money, so they actually need Germany in terms of money. But then that's not really a good financial plan, because you can't just fill the churches with money, because eventually there won't be anybody in the churches to pay the bills. So you have to invest in the people. You can't just get the money. So then if you're talking about people and souls, then you want to go with Africa, because Africa will populate the whole church with priests and bishops. And this is where. So this is where you have like somebody like Cardinal Sarah. To me, this is like one of the most likely candidates in my opinion, because he is such a spiritual force. He is widely respected. He was respected under the Ratzagar. He comes from Africa. He comes from the more dominant church in terms of spiritual power, numbers of souls, numbers of priests and vocations and all that. So there's sort of a charismatic influence of Africa that's influencing the Cardinal. It. I think even though the biggest chunk of cardinals is still from Europe, 40%, even though Europe as a whole is spiritually dying, dead or dying. So it's kind of a difficult thing because they might go with somebody who's going to try to keep the bankroll running, whether maybe the comm. The Chinese Communists have given them money. I think that's a likely. I have no evidence of that, but I think that's a likely explanation. The, the Communists are paying the Vatican. That's why they made that deal. So they might actually say, hey, like, we can't continue the Vatican unless we get somebody who can keep bankrolling us, because the bottom line, ultimately, at the end of the day, we got to pay for our water bill. And I love. [00:39:56] Speaker B: I just want to say that is what you're saying, I think could be a bigger, bigger influence than people want to acknowledge. And it scandalizes us. So we don't even want to. We don't even want to mention it. We want to think of this as a bunch of holy men getting together, praying the Holy Spirit and whatever name comes in their heads from the Holy Spirit is who they vote for. But the reality is, if you look the conclaves and papal elections over the past 2000 years is often there are these outside forces. So the idea that the Chinese government is bankrolling the Vatican in many ways and that the next pope needs to be somebody who continues. That is a real thing. I mean, I don't think that that can't be dismissed as, as just kind of conspiratorial craziness. Worse things than that have happened in the history of the, of the, of the papacy. But so I think we, we. That. That, that is a fear of mine. Another fear of mine is that as far just on the topic of, of foreign governments is that I think Israel would keep Pizzabala from being elected, that they would have influence because they have influence on Western governments very strongly and therefore on many Western cardinals who are going to be influenced by their own government. And they would not want Pizzabala, who has been willing to criticize them and speak out against them as the Pope, I think that would hurt his chances greatly as well. So these are the type of things that you almost. I don't know about you, but I kind of feel dirty even talking about them because I want to. I want to believe it's just a bunch of holy men, you know, praying, but I know it's not. Not. That's not. That's not the case. But. Yeah. Who would be somebody who walked out there, Carolyn, obviously, who walked out on Logia, and you thought, oh, China really had an influence. I mean, is there any other cardinals other than. I mean, Parolyn, I think, was one of their guys. Are there any others that are. Are probably their guys? Would that just be like if they picked a kind of a Francis insider type? Is that. Is that who they're looking for? [00:42:03] Speaker A: Well, Perlin would be the guy if they want to keep the. If, if, if it's true, what we're speculating, the Chinese are bankrolling. Perlin was the main guy who kind of put that through, and he's the main guy and he's also the Secretary of State, so he's already this, quote, unquote, Vice president of the whole Vatican. So Paralyn might be a choice on that side of things. And I do want to emphasize, too, that even though, you know, we even good bishops do have to think about the money too. So that's the tricky part here, you know. So I'm. I'm glad that Cardinal Fernandez is not considered a pop hobby, but I, you know, I wondered what. I wondered, Eric, was. Did Carol Voitiwa. Was he considered a pop. Hobbly, you know, because he was kind of like this random guy from Poland. [00:42:58] Speaker B: He was. [00:42:59] Speaker A: I mean, like, was he. [00:43:00] Speaker B: Okay, it's like kind of a myth that he was. Just came completely out of the blue. I don't. He was definitely not the front runner. And just because everybody just assumed an Italian at that point. Remember, no, Italian had not been elected in 400 years. And so. But at the same time, he was definitely on people. People's, you know, mouse. People talking about. On their tongues, talking about him. So. But I definitely was an. He was an outside shot. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:26] Speaker B: Fernandez, I think Hernandez is. Comes across as such a weak, like, symp. Syncopatic, if I pronounce it right, man, that I don't think anybody has any respect for him. Like, I really think everybody knew he was just going to be a mouthpiece that he was going to. Just. Just because you did this with somebody else, I think already. I just want to know the document they produced on artificial intelligence was actually very good. Fernandez signed that, that came out a couple months ago. And I'm, I, I, I've read a lot about artificial intelligence, looked into it a lot. That was actually a very good document. So I want to give credit, I like to throw out, you know, if I can. But we all know what Fernandez is. He was just a, a mouthpiece for Francis who had no, he does not come across as a very bright person or a very holy person, anything like that maybe is, I don't know. But the point is, I don't think anybody has any desire to see him as Pope. I mean, even the people on his side wouldn't want to see him. And I think somebody like Cupich, aside from being American, I think people look at him, the other cardinals look at him the same way. This isn't a man who's very bright, who could be a leader. He's just somebody who was just, you know, repeating the, the company line, essentially. [00:44:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just, I mean, in terms of, what's interesting is one thing I, I should note, not as much topics. I mean, Mueller himself was created a cardinal by Francis. Right. [00:44:57] Speaker B: He was a head of PDF, though, when Francis became Pope. And so it was somewhat of a profone, profone pro forma appointment, I think, although Francis stopped doing that later. Like, he never made archbishop of, of Philadelphia or Los Angeles cardinals and things like that. But at first I think he was still following kind of like, oh, he's ahead. I got to make him cardinal. [00:45:21] Speaker A: Right. So, and I, and I. And Pizza Balla was also made a cardinal by Francis too. [00:45:26] Speaker B: He's made a cardinal just less than two years ago. [00:45:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So very interesting. Who gets what. Go ahead. [00:45:37] Speaker B: I was just going to say, you know, going back to what Weigel said about the conclave between Germany and Africa. I think that's right. And I would, I would put a little bit more generically as maybe Europe versus the world. And I include actually America and Europe and Canada and Europe, you know, but just, it's a whole different. That's why I think people really need to not be fixated on how many cardinals Francis appointed, because I honestly think he had two different categories. If he's appointing somebody in America or in most of, like, Western Europe, he picked an ideological ally. If he was picking somebody out in the peripheries, he just picked somebody out in the peripheries because he liked the idea of, oh, we have a, now a cardinal who's the Bishop of Baghdad or in Sri Lanka or wherever. You know, he just liked to pick, you know, people out there who he thought kind of gave a good. Because I think he sincerely want the periphery thing. A lot of us joke about it, we make comments about it, but I think he sincerely was like, let's expand the influence of the Church outside of Europe, expand their influence in the universal church. I think in law is a good thing. So I do think that, you know, Africa is probably the strongest kind of voting block of those peripheries. But I think if you look at the cardinals in Asia particularly, and other places like that, South America, Latin America a little bit, I think that they might be more likely to maybe join together in, in a coalition to try to get a candidate, maybe not their own candidate, but at least force a compromise, you know, with. With instead of a. A strict modernist type candidate. [00:47:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So like, this reminds me of at Vatican ii, most of all the bishops were from Europe, obviously, but there was a general coalition that formed among the northern Europeans in particular. And I was just looking at the map here on the College of Cardinals report, and it is true that the biggest chunk of cardinals is Europe, but that's only 40% of the cardinals. So what if we had a coalition of non European cardinals? If that happened, they would easily gain a majority, if not the 2/3 required, but at least they could be a much more dominant force. I mean, they're sort of charismatically speaking, because this is thing that people have, number of Vaticanista people have mentioned, they've mentioned how the force of charisma and the sort of spiritual force of preaching and whatnot had a significant influence on Bergoglio's election and Benedict's election. They mentioned Bergoglio made this speech during one of these conclave meetings. Everyone's like, wow, he's really cool. Let's get him. And then Benedict, obviously Benedict already had a pedigree and everything. I mean, that was the whole, whole legacy. But I just heard this on Raymond Arroyo. He mentioned how Ratzinger made the funeral homily too. And that was where people were like. [00:48:55] Speaker B: Oh, that was a huge switch. In fact, people literally the day before that said, ratzinger has no chance. People were saying, Ratchet has no chance. He doesn't want to be Pope. Nobody wants him Pope. He's considered like this, you know, bookish kind of distant person. We don't like him. And he made that spe. The homily at the funeral. JP2 and literally it was like a switch was flipped. And all of a sudden he became the Leading candidate. So I think, like, these meetings are having right now the general congregations, and then, of course, in the Conclave itself, it could be that somebody gives a very good speech and that's enough to sway. I mean, it's happened before recently. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, my question is, like, who's more likely to give such a speech? A European or an African? And I. I say this as somebody from. Of a European descent in America. Like, obviously, the Africans are going to win the day. If we're talking about like a. A rap battle, preaching war sort of. [00:49:45] Speaker B: Thing, you know, it would be interesting. I don't think anybody's looked at who are the best preachers of the. Of the Cardinals that are kind of in the running, because. [00:49:55] Speaker A: Good question. [00:49:55] Speaker B: I could very well see, I don't. And I don't know. I. I don't know. I've never heard Perilin, for example. But if he gives. He gets up there. Of course, he had that medical issue the other day, but if he gets up there and he gives a real dull kind of speech about the state of the church, maybe he gets. Maybe people are like. Whereas all of a sudden you get somebody come out of nowhere who is, you know, just gives a great speech. I mean, that's what happened. I mean, literally, I was. I was very much following it in 2005. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:29] Speaker B: I love Rat Singer. He was my favorite by far. In fact, I. I mean, I was a rat singer, you know, fanboy. Since. Wow. [00:50:37] Speaker A: When he got it, what was it like? [00:50:41] Speaker B: It was just when he would. Literally when the. When the. When the Cardinal said Joseph. And I was like, it can't be. Because, I mean, because I was like, okay, oh, yeah, I want. Oh, yeah. I was watching on TV live, and, like, my family had gone out for some reason to run some errands or something. My wife and the kids, and. And like, I'm literally jumping up and down, cheering. They drive in, a few minutes later, I throw open the garage door and I'm yelling, rat Singers pool. Right? And my kids. My oldest kid at that time was like, maybe eight or nine or something like that. So, like, my kids are just like, dad's gone insane. My wife, of course, was very excited. Nowhere near as excited as I was, but. Because she's not stupid. She's not crazy like me. But no, and one of the things that got me so excited is I honestly, I knew there was no chance he could get, like, go before. When. When JP2 died, I was like, well, he's got no chance. He's gonna go off for retirement, and then all of a sudden, when things start building up, it was just like, holy cow. I mean, it really could happen that that Ratzinger could become, you know, pope. And so when he did, yeah, it was very exciting. And, like, I had the exact opposite. Well, not the. I had in. In a way, opposite reaction. Borgolio was elected because I was, like, who? I had. No, I wasn't following. I was working for a diocese, but I wasn't really following, like, who's who at that point. So. Okay. So, yeah, so I think that you're giving me more hope that we're not going to get a disaster. I want to say something I said in my previous podcast. I do think it's important, and I want to make sure. And I know you believe this, too. No matter who walks out there, I am going to be in communion with him. And I am assuming all the cardinals agree that he's the man who should walk out there. You know, if all of a sudden, like, 40 cardinals say, no, this was, like, stolen and he's not really the Pope, okay, then we're all bets are off. But let's just assume the college cardinals are like, yep, this is who we elected. I'm going to be in community with him, and I am also going to give him the benefit of the doubt and give him a long leash in the sense that that probably is wrong way to put it. The point is, I'm not going to assume, okay, I'm not going to go and say, look, he said this five years ago. Oh, my gosh, he's going to be terrible. No, I'm just going to be like, let him be Pope. And if he starts to say things like, who am I to judge? And things like that, okay, then we have to be critical when necessary. But I just want to make sure that's clear. So when we talk about somebody walking out that we don't want, that's human, that's fine. But we ultimately remain in communion. We ultimately are faithful Catholics, so. But I was going to say something about that, and I ran off the tracks with that. But the point is, you know, you're giving me more hope. That's what it is. That the man who comes out might be a little bit more acceptable to kind of our way of thinking than. Than I expected. I thought, I predicted when I said Sarah was probably my top choice of the voting cardinals to be elect, you know, who I would want. I think, though, that I kind of was put it, like, very small percent chance, like maybe 3% chance like that. But you're, you're making me believe maybe there's more of a ch. Sense because he could be somebody, you know, the cardinals and periphery. See, he's, he could be our guy. He's, I mean he's, he's kind of got the combination because he's been at the Vatican for years, but he's from Africa, so he's got that combination. He's older, so it's like someone might be like, what's the worst he could do? How much damage could he do from their perspective? He's already 79. He might have, he's probably gonna have a less than 10 year pontificate. He's obviously very eloquent, very, you know, you know, deeply spiritual. And I do think, number of the cardinals, you know, that that's important to them. So maybe. And I do think they would say the, the idea of an African black Pope, I think that to. Even to the progressives. Yeah, yeah. There's, I mean, not the Casper racist, but like, you know, the other, you know, I mean. [00:54:36] Speaker A: Germans joke. [00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So I do think that would be though. Like I could see, for example, a, A Dolan seeing that and being like, yeah, that's somebody I could vote for. He would, and he would understand the media, the, the, the, I mean, because I think somebody like Dolan, just to bring him up for a minute, I'm not anywhere near as anti Dolan as most trads. I, I will say that I'm not a fan of his, but I'm, I'm just kind of like. I think, I think Dolan sees everything through the lens of perception. And, and I, I'm not saying that not even in a bad way. Like he might think that's the best way to evangelize, whatever, but he sees very much like, okay, what are the, the media kind of action? How does this look and appear? And I think somebody like that would say, oh yes, Sarah would come out very. That's somebody I can sell to New York, so to speak. And I think that, I think he's not the only one. Yeah. Some of the, the cardinals. How many? There's a couple cardinals from England, I can't remember. I'm blanking on the name of the, of the one, the Westminster Cardinal. Anyway. I think people like that also. So I think it's not maybe my, my chances, my, my running odds that he would be elected maybe have bumped up a bit since talking to you because I can see how he ticks some boxes for people that, you know, that that they would like. So who are some other, some other names of people that you think are likely, whether or not you think it'd be a good thing or not? Who else are you thinking? [00:56:14] Speaker A: Well, let me first say this part. I think you really brought up another party just now with Dolan. And I don't know if Dolan's a part of this sort of block and that is the status quo party. Because what we saw with traditional custodians, we saw a very ideological document which was very, you know, neo modernist, basically, to destroy the, the Latin Mass. But what you saw was the vast majority of bishops did nothing. And that it's not because they love the Latin Mass, it's because they love the status quo. Yeah, they saw that the TLM parish was paying their bills. So like, why should I stick my neck out and do a bunch of. Cause a bunch of headache for me that's going to mess with my budget. That's just status quo. So, like, another factor is how many of the cardinals are just sort of status quo cardinals. So like, I just want things to stay the same. I want to continue to do. And, and part of that is Francis is not status quo. He's not status quo. He did not just continue. He just made a mess, as he said himself. So that I think that's a very strong momentum is that people just want to be left alone and continue to do what they're doing and continue to do whatever it is, even if they don't even care about the Catholic faith. One wiota. They're just doing this as a job. It's a status quo. So I think that is another reason to have hope because people just don't want this upsetting of the static quo, which is what Francis did. [00:57:47] Speaker B: And that, by the way, that is kind of what I meant by when I said earlier that they don't, I don't think they'll take someone with the governance style of. [00:57:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:57:56] Speaker B: Is because the, they. The job of a bishop and the cardinals, you know, is whack a mole is just like, okay, what's the latest crisis? I got to put that down. And Francis created crises for them and they just were like, they want somebody who's like, can you please just make it so my job's easier. And I'm not even saying that in a bad. Like, I mean, some of it's bad. I think some of them are careerists and things like that. But, but like, I understand that because they're like, I want to do my actual job and I Can't do it because I continually. However they perceive that to be, I'm continually. These new crises I have to address because of what the guy in Rome is saying. I don't think they want that. So. Yeah. So status quo. I think that's a good way to put it. [00:58:37] Speaker A: So. But it's answered to your question honestly. I. [00:58:42] Speaker B: If. [00:58:42] Speaker A: If I look at the 20 probably on the College of Cardinals report, I only really know, like, you know, half a dozen to a dozen pretty well. These other guys are. Are pretty unknown to me, and I'm just getting to know them for the first time. Like, you know, Cardinal of Myanmar. Like, I. I don't. You know, Cardinal Malcolm Rajich from Sri Lanka. I don't know anything about you. And I also. [00:59:08] Speaker B: You brought him up. I got to bring him up. This is the guy I'm actually rooting for. [00:59:12] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:59:13] Speaker B: Of Sri Lanka. Okay. So I say that there's some, like, you know, lightness to that. What I'm saying. I kind of was, like, looking through him, and I told my wife, I said, this is the guy. I kind of feel like I'm pulling for that. I think he is. Okay. So. And I. I'm not claiming to be an expert on him, and I've learned most of this in the past, you know, week or so, although I. I did. I was familiar with him beforehand. He's a rat singer guy, definitely Ratzinger guy. And he's got. He's, like, worked with the poor, but he's. He's a scripture scholar. [00:59:45] Speaker A: He banned female altar boys. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Wow. Alter. Female. Female. Female. [00:59:50] Speaker A: Female altar boys. That's what I. [00:59:52] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. I thought you misspoke, but I'm like. No, I. I get what you said. Yes. And that's why it's kind of like, people know he's fluent in 10 languages, which include Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He is, like, he. He's a conservative, but he's got real pastoral experience. And I kind of say that, like, I do think it matters. By the way, I don't want to act like pastoral experience doesn't matter. I. I do think it's nice to have pastoral experience in this, in that position, but I also think that sells him to certain. Certain parts of the conclave if he has that. But he's got. He. He's a communio. He's a reform of the reform kind of guy. I don't think he would be anti, you know, TLM or anything like that. He's Novus Ordo guy. Don't get me Wrong. [01:00:33] Speaker A: He did. He did oppose. He opposed tc. [01:00:37] Speaker B: Right, exactly. And. And so, like, they banned altar girls. And I just think there's some, you know, divine. He's got experience in evangelization, divine worship, things like it. So I'm not saying I think he's got a great chance. What I'm saying is, is, like, that's the one I decided to pick. I'm like, okay, this is what I'm gonna pray for. And, like, maybe he'll be the guy. You mentioned him, so I gotta throw him out there. And I do think he would be. He is one of my. I listed seven people I'd most want to see be pope in my podcast earlier this week, and he was one of them. I think that that would be a. A big. A big improvement over what we've had. But. Sorry, I interrupted you just because you brought him up, and I'm like, he's my guy right now, so. [01:01:16] Speaker A: Well, that's fantastic. I mean, I'm glad you brought him up. And I. I just want to emphasize, like. Like, what I learned from doing this pot. This African podcast, is that the world. The world outside Euro America, Euro. United States, I should say Euro. Like Canada, United States and Europe are very similar. But then when you go south of the Rio Grande, you go into South America, you go into Africa, you go. Asia is a massive country. Huge, massive country. Like, I don't know anything about the church in Sri Lanka. I have no idea. So how. So these. These issues, like, citadelity, like, what does citadelity mean in Sri Lanka? What does that even mean? How do they apply that? Like, if he's cheering on citadelity, does that actually mean that they had a bunch of ethnic wars and they want to actually try to, like, get along with the Muslims because they're killing each other? Like, maybe that's what they mean by ecumenical dialogue. They're not trying to say, oh, well, there's no. Jesus Christ doesn't need. You don't need to be baptized. Like they say in Europe. That's what ecumenical dialogue means in Europe. But ecumenical dialogue. Yeah, go ahead. [01:02:18] Speaker B: I just want to say that's a great point. I just think that the. The world outlook of what people are dealing with. This is something I was talking about with somebody that, like, the Bishop of Baghdad does not care about female deacons or altar or, like, you know, homosexual marriage. I'm willing to bet what he cares about is his flock is about. Is in danger of being destroyed, and he wants to do whatever he can to make that not happen. So when he goes to the conclave, that's what he's thinking about. Now. I actually don't know anything about him. Maybe he does care about women deacons. But in general though, my point I think stands that if you look at these periphery, these people outside the European, American orbit, the way they look at things. So if you might see, you might find for example, a cardinal in Asia who might have said some things that might make us a little uncomfortable about like echo dialogue. But is it because he's basically like, I gotta basically do what I can to keep them from killing my people, or is it because he's a complete modernist and a heretic, you know, like of the American or European mold? I think that's why as Americans we need to kind of slow, slow our role about like, okay, let's not be too quick to be like, okay. And I think that also comes up like, I think there's a good chance no matter who the Pope is selected, they're going to be way more pro migrant and migration than, than MAGA movement. I mean, I just think that's just what's going to happen because I think in general they just have a different perspective you talked about at the beginning of the podcast, but they have a different perspective on it. They're going to look at from a very Catholic viewpoint. Hopefully some might be more. I mean, I think Francis was political about it, but the fact is, even if you get somebody who is not political about, but just simply looking at from different perspective, they're not going to be on board with, with the Trump agenda, for example. And to me, I don't care that much if they promote like, you know, if they're willing to allow the traditional Latin mass to flourish, if they promote orthodoxy, if they have a few views that are not aligned with certain American political views. I don't care. I mean, honestly. [01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah, as far as I know, I mean, I don't, I'm an American, so I, I don't know much about the non American world and how the rest of the world sees things as much as I do in America. But I do know that after the American government invaded Iraq for the second time, the Iraq War two I, I do know that many countries were rather shocked in a, in a bad way because of the mendacity of the Bush administration and the way that the American government has just vetoed again and again and again UN resolutions in favor of Israel, et cetera, et cetera. So like, I think that Americans should be considered, should consider the fact that a lot of Non Americans don't like American foreign policy. And this also includes Pope Francis, by the way, because south of the Rio Grande, the American foreign policy has destroyed Catholicism in a great way. And this is why there's been Communism, because communists like Che Guevara, whatever, like Fidel Castro are like, let's fight against America. Even Oscar Romero was begging the president to stop sending weapons to the El Salvadorian rebels because he's destroying the Catholic Church. So, like, there's an aspect to that with Francis. Like, Francis hated America. There was no joke about that. [01:05:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:05:40] Speaker A: Part of that was because he just, you know, it seems that he just had no idea what we were about. But at the same time, Americans like us, we should be like, well, there's actually an argument to make here that, you know, Argentinians might not like us for a good reason, because American foreign policy is horrendous in a lot of places. Not to say that there's a lot of good things. Our armed forces are, you know, giving blankets out and building roads and all that good stuff. That's all. [01:06:03] Speaker B: The CIA is not the friend of the foreign people. So I don't blame these people for being very kind, suspicious of America and America foreign policy. So that's kind of why I'm saying is, like, I think no matter who gets elected Pope, with very few exceptions, they're not going to align very closely with American foreign policy in particular. But even some of the other things of the Trump administration, and that's fine. I don't want a Pope who's just a sycophant of Trump either. I mean, I want him to stand up to Trump when Trump does something stupid or does something wrong, and that's okay. But also be willing to praise him when he does something good, which Bergoglio seemed to have a very hard. Pope Francis seemed a very hard time of doing. So. Yeah. Now, just the conclave itself, the last number of, I think five or 10 conclaves have all been, like, basically aside within 10 votes and within three, three to five days. Do you think there's a chance we could get an extended conclave this time? That we'll. We'll get those enough division in the, in the, in the ranks that we could. That it could. They could go further than just the. The kind of two to three days we've had in the recent memory? [01:07:13] Speaker A: That I do. I do think that on the one hand, because there has been so much division under Francis and there's been an intensity of emotions running hot and all this controversy so Many more controversies. However, let's like, let's think about the conclave of 1978, when Paul VI died. You know, there was quite a bit of division at that time as well. I mean, there's a great division in 1960. Was it 62 or 63 when John XXIII, but like when John XXIII died. I mean, think about the division at that time. Vatican II had just begun. We also have John Paul II conclave because John Paul 1 had just died after less than a month. I mean, like craziness going on in those conclaves too. So hard to say. I, I do think that there has been in terms of like, this is, I think we mentioned this before. Yeah, you mentioned this at this, your CIC speech, like two years ago. You said, I want to thank Pope Francis for bringing us all together. That's what you said. And, and I think that on the other hand, even though there is a lot of division at the same time in terms of, like I said, the charismatic spiritual force of the bishops coming together in defense of the faith, this is where you have formerly acrimonious parties working together, namely the two Latin right parties in particular, like the more traditionalist side of things. And this is particularly led by somebody like Athanasius Schneider, who is not a cardinal, but one of the most traditionalist minded in his speech. And he, you know, he came out of this cradle catechism. His cradle catechism was. Got the imprimatur from the local bishop in New Hampshire and then it was promoted in Rome by Cardinal Serra. So we have a very. And this sort of thing, these different parties used to be quite much more intense tension with each other. So I think under Francis there'd been more and more unity for the faith coming on. And that I think is the stronger force when we talk in the spiritual life. And we also talk in terms of charismatic ecclesiastical politics. Will that bring about a shorter conclave? Who knows? I don't know. [01:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's. Is obviously these things are impossible to predict. So make your prediction right now. Who's it going to be now? I think. What's that? [01:09:45] Speaker A: Pizza ballot. [01:09:46] Speaker B: Okay, just bring up pizza ball real quick because he's like the, the sexy pick of a lot of people. I mean, really, it's like. And I, he was on my top seven. I mean, of my, the seven men, I, I thought I, I included him. I have been very impressed with him. But let's also be honest, we don't know that much about him. We don't actually know that much about his own views of. Of a lot of. On a lot of issues. And I think that's important to remember. I said in my podcast earlier this week that one of the things I like about him is he's comes across a very masculine man. And I think one of the biggest problems in the Catholic Church today is the effeminacy that is rife within the clergy, within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. We have so many men who are just. I mean, I mean, look at how many were picked by Francis to move up. I mean, most. I mean, almost every. I think every cardinal picked by Francis from America, I would probably classify in that effeminate category. If I'm forgetting somebody who's actually pretty good. Take that back. But. But most of them. Whereas Pizzabala is actually, you know, he. He's. He's masculine. He's. He comes across as a strong, courageous type of person. And I think that would be. That alone would be a good signal for the world to have a Pope like that. But at the same time, we just don't know. He could go in there and be like, you know, actually, I am for women deacons. I mean, you know, I don't think I. I haven't looked at close enough, but I think there's a lot to like about him. But I think his chances. There's parts of him that make him a. A good compromise candidate because he's not that well known, that lets people kind of put their own thoughts on what they want onto him. So I think people could do that. The fact that he is kind of got a. A. A strong presence on the world stage at this point, I think is. Is very good. But ultimately, he's 60 years old. He literally turned 60 on the day Pope Francis died. That's a young Pope. That would be a potentially very, very long pontificate. And I'm not quite sure if they're ready to pull the trigger on something like that at this point. So I think that that alone could really take him out of the running. [01:12:01] Speaker A: I'm glad you brought up masculinity, because that, that might be the single charismatic factor. And the reason I said is because of the way that universal fatherhood in the church changed dramatically, especially with Paul vi, because before that, there was. The Popes were sort of. There was a ma. At least a masculine ethos to their fatherhood. And Paul VI famously was accused of homosexuality. It's probably a false rumor, but I think that what that showed was people were not seeing him as a masculine father. And because of what happened, because of all the crisis. And like, what would happen. What would a masculine father do in the crisis of 1968, 69 and whatnot? Paul VI was very hands off. He said a lot of things. He didn't discipline. And that's, that's, this is what we've promoted at 1 Peter 5, is that the charitable anathema is the way out of the crisis, is that when, when a, when the bishops, you can, any bishop can do this, but the Pope in particular, when the Pope as a father disciplines, that's, that's the main thing that makes a father so much different than a mother. Because the mother teaches. Mother teaches, you know, she's teaching the faith. And the mother disciplines too, obviously. But the father is the one who really brings that stronger discipline that is needed in the family. And that's what we have not had. Even though John Paul ii, lots of great qualities. Even Benedict, he, he had a lot more discipline than probably any pope since Pius 12, perhaps. But what we really need is this strong fatherhood who can really, you know, crack some heads, so to speak, and, you know, get the kids to stop fighting and killing each other. You know, fight the wolves. You know, you cannot be a father. You got to be able to fight those wolves back and be a good shepherd. Lay down your life for the sheep. [01:13:58] Speaker B: And I think even cardinals who might be themselves weak in any ways, they will be attracted to that because I think it naturally attracts people. And it might come back to the speech we were talking about. What if one of the cardinals gets up there and gives a very strong masculine type speech where he's like. And isn't apologetic, isn't like, oh, we gotta, you know, whatever. He's really strong. Maybe a pizza ball, maybe somebody else that could sway things. Because people would be like, that's what we need. We need somebody who is strong right now. In a time when the Church is, you know, at kind of a low point in the world's view, I think that's what we need. I think that I could see that, that, you know, and that does not necessarily mean the person will be theologically okay. I mean, they could be somebody that could qualify. I mean, somebody who's suspected Modernism could qualify. Now, in general, the more orthodox somebody is, I think the more they're likely to be a masculine type personality. But it's not a one to one relationship. I do. There are some of the more neo modernist types that also could project that. And so they could be it. But I think that might be a Something to look at for as far as personality goes. And Pizza ball definitely seems to fall into that. But again, he's got. I think the biggest thing against him is his age. I just have a hard time seeing them picking somebody who's only 60 years old, because they know that means especially how long people live now. I mean, Ratzinger lived into his 90s, Francis 88. If he lived to be. I mean, it could be a 30 year pontificate. That is a very long pontificate. So, you know, I think that that would disqualify him. So. Okay, we're gonna wrap it up here, but I want to get some more. Any kind of concluding thoughts of what you think will come out of the Conclave and, you know, kind of what we should be looking for? [01:15:55] Speaker A: Well, in my opinion, I, I think we should. There is a temptation in modern times to hope that politicians will fix everything. There is a. Obviously, I, I voted for Trump three times. I, I like Trump, but a lot of people think that Trump will just fix everything. And I think that we have a temptation for the Pope as well, because we have a temptation that if we can just get this Holy Pope, he'll just be able to fix everything. I think I see Catholics be saying this, even traditionalists saying, like, oh, we just need a holy Pope. He'll just fix everything. I do not think that that is. I think that's a wrong way to think, in my opinion. My view, looking at history, I think that really what really changes things is a mass movement of repentance, because I believe that we are suffering from the wrath of God that's been poured out on us. As Fatima prophesied. We had the world wars, but now we have this ecclesiastical crisis, which is also the wrath of God, in my view. And I think that a single Holy Pope is not enough. I think Fatima said, yes, the Pope has a role, obviously consecrates Russia and all that. But there's also the first Saturday devotions, by the way, tomorrow's first Saturday. God is first Saturday. So I think we need to have a massive movement of repentance. I mean, where are the saints of today? Where are these living saints? Where's a Padre Pio? Where's these saints who are leading our church? We don't really have a lot of those saints, unfortunately. And I think that's because our own lack of penance, our own lack of repentance. So I think that it's easy to hope, or perhaps not easy, but, you know, we want to just, oh, good Pope will Just fix everything. I don't think that's enough. I think God really wants, you know, only reason God pours out his wrath on us is that we may repent, that we may truly draw closer to Him. So, yes, of course, First Friday, that's. I mean, we have our first Friday reminder today that this is our crusade of eucharistic reparation. That's why we promote that lay sid Elodie at 1 Peter 5 is that we want everyone to offer at least one hour of eucharistic adoration reparation per month, at least. And that's the type of mass movement that we want. And I think that as long as God's people do not repent, we will not see change. I think that's the long and short of it, in my view. So that's what I would emphasize here. But. And part of that is what you said earlier, like, we need to really love the Holy Father and love him and adhere to him, and adhere to him in a filial sense and try to increase in our charity towards our brethren. So those are some of my thoughts. [01:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good thing to kind of end it with. And I'm in complete agreement. I do think, obviously a Pope is more influential than a president. But at the same time, I think the fact is that expecting everything to be fixed by a Pope or destroyed by a pope is just not a Catholic way of looking at it. The Pope is important. He's the Vicar of Christ. All that is true. I'm not denying any of that. At the same time, though, the fact is that the way the Church comes out of the morass it's been in for the past 60 or so years isn't going to be just one. One man. No matter what man it is. It's going to be, like you said, saints being raised up. People. Like, I see her peeking out in the background, Sister Wilhelmina, there's a saint, a modern saint. You know, for today, we need more wil in the church that I think we have more of those. It all bubbles up and eventually we get a holy Pope. A very great, you know, because of the prayers and the sacrifices and, and, and the, and the fast and everything of the people. So I think that's where obviously we should be praying for the Conclave, praying for the cardinals, but also praying for more saints to be raised up like Sister Wilhelmina and, and people of that nature, of course, we should try to become the people as well. So less influencers, more saints. Is that what you're saying that's what we want. [01:20:10] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. [01:20:12] Speaker B: Okay, Very good. Well, I appreciate this, Tim. Also appreciate everybody on the live chat for contributing with your comments as well. We always do appreciate that. And like I said, today's first Friday. Hopefully you went to Mass today. Tomorrow's first Saturday. Do the first Friday for Saturday devotions. Conclave starts on Wednesday. Be praying. I'm, I'm personally praying in novena right now for the conclave. There's a few of them. Cardinal Burke has issued one. The Society of St. Pius X has issued one. I think Bishop Schneider may have. And so pick one. Just make sure, you know, whatever it is. But I think by this time next week, there's a chance we'll have a Pope because. Yeah, two to three days, I think. Okay, here's just before I get off, I'm actually going to be traveling to Steubenville that next weekend for my son's graduation, which means I might be like, you know, when the, the white smoke comes, I told my son, I said, I might be at your graduation when the white smoke comes at Steubenville. Which would be kind of funny because everybody in the graduation ceremony would care about it. He said, if that happens, I'm just, I'll run up, grab the, the mic and I'll just announce it to everybody who the Pope is. I was like, there you go. So don't think that actually happened. But anyway, so we, you know, we'll see. So keep bringing everybody and, and everybody just follow Tim's work over at 1peter5, that's our sister publication, doing great work over there, 1peter5.com just, you know, make sure you go over there and kind of keep track of what they're doing, follow them on social media and all that stuff. So, okay, everybody, until next time, God love.