Where Were Our Spiritual Fathers During Covid? (Guest: Kevin Wells)

[00:00:10] Speaker A: During the dark spring of 2020, it seemed that so many of our spiritual fathers checked out. We were denied the sacraments and other spiritual ages at a time when we needed them most. But there were exceptions. Priests who heroically ministered to their people in spite of the darkness. That's what we're going to talk about today on crisis Point home. Eric Sam is your host editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, I just want to encourage people to hit that like, button. Subscribe to Channel subscribe to us follow us on social media ismag also, you can get our email newsletter. Just put in your email address, go over to crisismagazine.com comma, put in your email address and we'll send you articles every morning from crisis. And we have today with us a writer of crisis. It's really the only bio we need, but I guess I'll give a little bit more than just the fact that you write for crisis. Kevin. So Kevin Wells is a former Major League Baseball writer and award winning journalist and catholic speaker. He's the author of priest and beggar the heroic life of venerable Aloysius Swartz. I'm just gonna interrupt her. Did I ever have you on the podcast about that book? [00:01:11] Speaker B: You did not. [00:01:12] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. That is on me. I know we had articles at crisis. Okay, I'm gonna rec. I don't have it sitting here. Right with me, but I'm gonna recommend that book before we're gonna be talking about another book. Some today. But the heroic life of priest and beggar. Is that Ignatius as well? [00:01:27] Speaker B: It is. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Okay. So go to Ignatius and look up Aloysius warts. That's a great book. Highly recommend it. Also the priest we need to save the church, which I think is Sophia. Right. And then your latest book, which is the Hermit, which is also Ignatius the priest who saved a soul, a marriage and a family. You live in Maryland with your wife and children and, you know, you're just an all around good guy. [00:01:53] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually, I get more compliments about your writing than almost anybody. I mean, Anthony Eslin's probably number one because, I mean, you know, he deserves to be. But I do. I mean, you're a great writer and this book is another proof of that. Now we might lose half our audience here. I don't care. But, you know, I'm a baseball nerd. You're a baseball nerd. You are a former baseball, major league baseball writer. And so I just gotta ask you, who do you like this year to win it all? Well, there's no, you know, I know you're just gonna say your Orioles, aren't you? [00:02:29] Speaker B: Well, no, I don't think it's gonna be them. I wish I could say, well, as you know, there is no dominant team, and I do think the team that has the most talent and the most potential, I can't stand, and that is the San Diego Padres. Now, I don't know if it's going to be them, but, man, are they loaded. My thought in the american league is there's nobody, the Yankees are playing terribly. The Orioles are sort of stumbling in, you know what? I don't have an answer because there's not, there's not a single dominant team in all of baseball. I hate to, I hate to answer that way. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you think that you want to say the Dodgers had the most talent, but they've just struggled in the postseason so much that it's hard to pick them. I mean, I personally like the Phillies, but, you know, we'll see. As you know it, a lot of times it's just a wild card team that gets hot in October that, that ends up going to the World Series. So really quick. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Last, so last year we saw that happen with the Rangers, but even the Dodge, I thought the Dodgers would have close to 100 wins at this point. They're nowhere near that. The Phillies are stumbling. I think the Phillies lost. They are. So nobody is, nobody wants it. I mean, injuries, obviously. So, so I'm going to say it doesn't matter what I say, but, but I think what you, what you prophesize is, right. It's going to be a team that nobody expects because, because no one's, no one is a dominant major league baseball team. [00:03:58] Speaker A: I kind of rooting for the Royals just because, you know, they're just so terrible for so many years since their last World Series run. It's like, it just kind of be cool to see, you know, a team like that just all of a sudden come out of nowhere. So. Okay, this is not a baseball podcast. I apologize. But anyway, I had to do it. I mean, I got you here. I mean, I actually did a podcast. I hosted a podcast for about a year or so with my son about baseball, and it was a lot of fun. We love we every once while we've kind of revived it, but it's, you know, just, it's fun to talk baseball, so. Okay, so, but what we want to talk about is really the church's response both kind of corporately and individually among priests and bishops, to Covid, because that is a major part of your book here on the hermit. People might not even realize that when they kind of first hear about it. They think it might be just about maybe your marriage or about one specific priest. But really it's broader than that. I think it's a good thing you and I were talking on the phone the other day that there hasn't really been a reckoning. There has not been a reckoning of what the church did during the time of COVID And I think I'm hoping that this book kind of gets that started. So before we really get into that, though, I just want to ask you, kind of like, where were you? Where was your family kind of spiritually, in every way before COVID happened? So. Because as we all know, the whole world changed in March 2020. I mean, most of us were just kind of going along, whatever. And what were you guys up to? [00:05:24] Speaker B: Well, it's explained in the hermit was just released a week or so ago by Ignatius. My story is unique, Eric, and I know we're going to get into the heart of this podcast is going to be on the church's response during that time. But I do feel compelled to say that I was in the dark night. I mean, it's easy. Well, it's not easy to throw out those type of terms, especially if you've not read John of the Cross or Teresa Avila and really understand it. Until you go through it, you really can't, can only guess what it is. But just in brief, in 2009, I had a brain aneurysm and should have died. I had invasive brain surgery and the surgery failed. And anyway, long story short, in the ICU room, if the priest and his assistant were on this podcast right now and told you what they experienced, they would say something supernatural happened in that room. And I recovered, and there was no explanation. So in the aftermath of recovery and when you have brain surgery, you're messed up. Like, I had to learn how to walk again. I couldn't see. I mean, I was a. I was a rag doll. So during that time, you know, I was this close to death. And I was thinking a lot about my judgment. And part of me said, you're not the right stuff. I mean, you know, you're not bad, but you're not the right stuff. And. And when I came back, I really began to intensify, I think my relationship with prayer, with God, you know, all the things that you would expect, Eric. You know, more holy hours, more daily rosaries, new ministries, a prison ministry, all the. All the things that I thought would bring me closer to God. And, you know, I wanted to love God. Anyway, during this time, my wife Krista, we've been married 25 years, how do I say this? A wound of shame from her past, we'll call it a mother wound, opened up. She didn't know about it. I didn't know about it. And because she was scared, she felt like, ah, Kevin's going places and I'm not with him, so I feel shame. It was the mother wound of shame that she knew as a little kid. So she began to binge drink red wine for many years in secret. And, and the dark, the dark night came in like a rumbling black storm clouds into my life, into our marriage, into our family, and it lasted. And I kind of get into that, into the book, the hermit. Now to get to the point at the very time that Christa began to recover, it was when she met a holy priest who is now a consecrated hermit named Martin Flume. The very time she was kind of getting to that place of healing, bishops worldwide said, shut your doors, lock them, because Covid has come. Scared me to death because I knew that the herald from the television stations and Anthony Fauci and the medical doctors was isolate, isolate, protect your body. I knew that it was. Isolation was the very thing that allowed Christa the secrecy to binge drink for all these years. It was, it was the hidden ice. So I said, I'm sunk in the water. I'm dead. But one priest that I know of said, my door's open. Matter of fact, not only is it open, I'm going to intensify everything I do as a priest. And I could expound on that for hours, but. But I'll just say it was during that time, early March 2020, that rather than considering the body, he considered the burden of his identity. Father Flume did. And that was, who are the travailed souls? Who are the addicts? Who are the ones right now where ghosts are sort of rising up from their pasts, from their woundedness, et cetera? Well, I'm going to protect them during this time of isolation. So that's what father Flume did for my wife Krista, and during that time of COVID was when my wife became healed. And now, four or five years later, our marriage has never been better. And my wife is healed today, I would say, because God worked through a holy, now consecrated hermit in a forest who saved my wife. He sort of took a staircase down into my wife's shame and just stayed there until he plucked out the wounds and walked back up with Krista healed. And I. Every day I give, I thank God for sending father flume into my life. And Krista does as well. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that something when Covid hit, it's like the laptop class was like, we have to do this to save ourselves, to keep all this from happening. And unfortunately, so much of the church went along with that. And so shut down mass and sacraments, all that stuff. But I think we need to realize that there are a lot of souls out there that are literally on the edge. They're hanging on by a thread. And if you take away their lifeline, which might be the mass might be just. It might be the community of the parish, it might be. It's something, you know, related to the church. They could fall apart, they could fall back into sins. They could, you know, whatever the case of depression, whatever the case may be. And so, like, just this complete. Okay, we're gonna just, you know, shut everything down. Like, not recognizing that. Because I think a lot of us who were maybe in. I mean, none of us are saints really, but like, we're. That's not gonna happen to us. Let's just say that we just kind of ignore that. Like, okay, that's not really, you know, that we don't think of that. It's like the laptop class who didn't care about the small business owner who is going to just lose their job. I mean, lose their. Not their job, but lose their business, their whole livelihood that they've invested their whole life and life savings in if we do this likewise. There's that. There's those souls that are very close now. Yeah, go ahead. [00:11:30] Speaker B: Just very in brief, Eric, I need to respond to that and put it into illustrated at that time, January, February 2020. Leading up to Covid, Krista was every day attending daily mass, making at least two, sometimes 3 hours of adoration. And she was making weekly confessions and having intensive spiritual direction because father Flume knew that she was essentially in love with this demon inside of her. And he told her, hey, the only way you're going to loose this thing is you got to stick your nose in front of the sacraments. You've got to stick. And Krista obliged it. So the fact that bishops didn't take into consideration people like my wounded wife and said, slam the door, that's exactly what you're saying. And that's why my head was on fire. I'm like, what? How. How dare it doesn't make sense, right? [00:12:25] Speaker A: One thing I want to be clear for. We go on just for people to know, and you say it in the book, is your wife has given you complete permission to talk about her struggles. And so I just. You say it in the book. I just want to make sure people listen to podcasts. Know, you're not like, you know, just talking about your wife, you know, having issues and like, what the heck is he doing? [00:12:43] Speaker B: I like putting my wife's junk out on the street. [00:12:47] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:12:48] Speaker B: So actually, just for your viewer, I, Krista told me to write the book. Like she said, kevin, what she said, eric, was this, Kevin, I want you to expose my former life so a holy priest can be exposed and how he behaved during COVID I said no. And five, six months later, she kept saying, kevin, you can keep praying on writing it, but your praying is just delaying. Write the book. So it's her junk. She said, kevin, write it. Because she's a new creation. She doesn't care about that. Her desire was to show father flume during COVID Right. [00:13:20] Speaker A: I mean, that's a, that's beautiful humility on her part. Okay, we're going to talk later about the kind of the bad response, but let's talk about father Flume. So, like, who was he? How did you get in contact with him? You've mentioned, I mean, the title of the book is the Hermit, but he wasn't a hermit then. And so kind of who is this, this Father Martin Flume? [00:13:41] Speaker B: Well, if you lined up 200 priests in the archdiocese of Washington today, and you asked them who for 20 years was the most ascetic, ascetical priests, the most prayerful priest, the priest who really grinded the hardest for souls. If these priests were honest, 80, 90% would say Father Martin Flume. So this was a priest who from his earliest days in seminary, he understood that God had called him to save souls. So what does he do when he's in seminary? Well, every day he began to. To commit himself to a holy hour. He said, mary, now I'm your slave. I will take no days off. I will grind now, I will mortify my body. I will deny meats, I will deny alcohol. Because in his thinking, he's one who believes or has read the church doctors or the ascetics like St. Anthony in the desert. And he knew that meats and beers would sort of inflame the passions, and he didn't want to do that. So he amputated. At least he tried to amputate every measure of anything that would get in the way of him chasing down souls, like my wife Krista. So he was a holy archdiocesan priest in Washington for two decades before COVID came, well, after Covid in 2021. And he began to see, I've come to believe, and I think he would say as much, that the way the church responded worldwide at that time, and also our sort of collapsing social norms, our moral norms, that it came to him. I'd like, Mary, I want to offer the remainder of my life as a holocaust. I want to turn myself over as an expiation for the church, for recovery of the priesthood, and for this world to be turned around. And if you're one who doesn't believe in penances and mortifications, like what John Vianney did for 50 years as a priest, if you don't believe in the supernatural warfare or what a priest can offer, then it's hocus pocus. But if you do believe that God responds to a single man who has turned over his life to help heal a broken world and a badly broken church, then you're like, yeah, thank God for Father Flume, because not only is he helping the church, but he's helping me because I'm part of the church. [00:16:18] Speaker A: So he was just a. He was just your parish priest, though? That's how you first encountered him? [00:16:23] Speaker B: Well, no, I think, Eric, I think you would. In the past five years, a lot of folks have realized they need to travel to find priests. So we traveled for 45 minutes every day to attend mass. It is at his parish. But, you know, it's almost like Jesus in the scripture. You know, people would travel miles to see Jesus. It's kind of. The analogy is the same. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I want to focus on that because I do think it's related to the poor response by the church, the focus of father flume on asceticism. This is something we'd never really hear from our priest. And, I mean, at the risk of being judgmental, we don't really see it practiced in our priest. We don't see it practicing ourselves. So I just want to make sure that's clear, that it's nothing. Just the priests aren't doing. We're not doing it all. And I feel like that unlocks something. Like, when I'm reading, like, each day, uh, in the bravery, you know, they have a little bio, the saint of the day. And I do. I do the old one. And it today was, uh, that they were recording as a St. Lawrence Justinian, I think his name was. And he's just this guy. I think he's been dropped off the calendar now. But he was just this guy who was born in a noble family, had the opportunity to live a very rich, luxurious life, have a great marriage, and from an early age, he said, nope, I'm not going to do it. And he lives what we would say are insane, an insane life. As far as aesthetics, I mean, he's always slept on boards, like, you know, just a wood board. He slept on that. In fact, when he was near his death, you know, suffering near death, his, his, like, followers want. They put him on, like, a nice bed, because, like, hey, you know, you're almost about that. He's like, no, this isn't how I've lived. That's how I'm gonna die. Put me back on the boards. And he would. And he slept on these hard boards, and he lied there, you know, to his death. And it just. That life is just so foreign to us today. And that's why father flume, I think, stands out so much, but I feel like, and tell me if you agree with this. I feel like that asceticism is the key that kind of unlocks a vision beyond kind of this world. Most of us are just consumed with, like, this world type of things, but that kind of sees beyond it so he can see things we just can't see. Did you, did you experience that, like, with him? [00:18:43] Speaker B: Oh, without question. I think the first thing to do is to identify, you know, why would, why would someone partake in mortifications, severe penances? Like, why? And it's a legitimate question. Well, here's why. Because what. What mortifications would do? And we'll just. We'll just hold up John vianney, who was famous for them, for eating a couple moldy potatoes a week, for sleeping on the ground, for sleeping two or 3 hours a week, and then hearing 14 hours of confessions. Why would he do this? Well, through his mortifications, he was able to control his disordered passions, so he could almost tame it or meek it. Well, why? Why do you want to. Obviously, it's smart to. To look at your inflamed passions and sort of control them. But why would you do it? Why? Here's why. Because then you're. You're better able to discern how you can help souls, because you're always sort of. Souls are always before you. Not your comfort, you know, not. Not your desire to sleep in for another hour or a steak dinner, because that's all been thrown away. You've given yourself over to God for souls. So I agree, because modern clergy, for the most part, has rejected the need for mortifications, penances. We don't really, we have forgotten what they can do, but. So I'll repeat mortifications, look into ourselves where we're disordered and they tame us and they direct us to what is ordered and what is true and what is virtuous. [00:20:08] Speaker A: So when, when Covid hit, father flume responds. And so I guess we can't get him in trouble anymore, right? I mean, he's like a consecrate hermit. I mean, I'm just wondering, like, because I. Yeah, I worry about, like, you know, saying too much about priests who did things that they weren't quote unquote, allowed to do during COVID To this day, I still don't want to, you know, I know of certain things. I'm not going to publicly say it. So I just want to make sure. We're not going to get him in trouble, are we? [00:20:34] Speaker B: Well, who knows anymore? Eric? I don't think so. You know, I wouldn't have written the book if I, if I thought that to be the case. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Right. But, like, so what did he do that was like, like, how did he go beyond? I mean, we saw some priests you saw were literally, they, they holed up in their rectory and they didn't talk to anybody. Most of them did kind of the, okay, what we're allowed to do and, like, you know, very minimal. And then some did more. And then there's a few heroic ones like father Flume. And so what exactly did he do that was kind of against the rules that, that helped save souls, including your wives? [00:21:09] Speaker B: Well, he did quite a few things. We'll start with. So every day of a priest's life, they would want to celebrate the sacrifice of the mass. So, of course, that's what Father Flume did during the day. One of COVID he just didn't leave the back door of his church unlocked. So if somebody wanted to go in to make personal prayer before work in the morning at 06:00 a.m. and he happened to be celebrating a private mass. Coincidence, quirk of fate? Providence, maybe. So that's number one. There was mass every day. Secondly, the day that Covid came, he told his parish secretaries and his workers there, we are going to open up perpetual adoration. And he had this little rinky dink country parish and, and they're like, no, Father, you can't do that because we don't have guardians of the hour. And plus, people are scared to death to leave their house. He said, I don't care until we get the spots. I will adore Jesus Christ. So he spent hours and hours and hours in that early months of COVID adoring Christ in front of the Blessed Sacrament. And you know, Eric, I want to say something here. This thought just comes to me for the first time. So because he spent, you know, six to seven to 8 hours some days in front of the monstrance, what happens is the Holy Spirit gives him discernment. You know, we know that. We know the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There's discernment, there's intuition, there's fortitude, there's insight, because he was in prayer, so he knew how to respond as a priest during COVID And I've often wondered, have priests stopped praying for them? I mean, obviously we know holy priests, but I wonder about just priests who pray. If priests and bishops were not really praying during, during too much during COVID or they were, you know what? We're kind of, everything's crazy now. Let's just protect our souls of our parish and let's lock doors. I do think of bishops, and I know many, I imagine were, but if a bishop is attentive to the Holy Spirit through prayer, adoration, the rosary, mortifications, then I think the church worldwide at that time probably would have responded a lot more diligently and prudently to Covid when Covid came down. So I think prayer is a big component. And the last of what Father flum did then, because he knew how to respond, because the Holy Spirit was speaking interiorly to him. But one other thing I want to say that he did, he got permission to do this every single night of the year. It doesn't matter where he was. He would drive home if he drive his truck back to the parish. So at nine, he prayed the special form of exorcism prayers during times of travail. And I was there for some of those nights. And let me tell you something, Father Flume was a mild mannered. He was sort of like a mystic, kind of like a Moses, you know, this biggest biblical, old Testament biblical beard. But he was always very measured when he was praying those prayers. His voice rose up and down like torpedoes splitting the water, like he was picking a fight with Satan. I mean, I'm telling you, you saw a shepherd of souls saying, come on down, I will crush you. And why? Why could he say that? Because he had spent pretty much every day since seminary equipping himself for moments like these, where Satan was running riotous. Because why the eucharist was shut down, no confession you couldn't even. You couldn't even put a body in the ground because it wasn't. It was deemed unsafe. Well, he had set himself right for this time, so he was goading Satan in so he could step on his neck. [00:25:08] Speaker A: I mean, really, the parallels to St. John Vianney are pretty striking. You know, just the life of a parish priest and what it's supposed to be like. But we just saw that so rarely. I mean, you and I are in tune with kind of some good priests and stuff. So we know of priests who were very good, but to the average Catholic, it just didn't happen. And so I know you can't answer this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Why is it that literally every single bishop. One of the things. Okay, just real quick, step back. One of the things that kind of went viral that I've ever done in my life was during the week of COVID when the shutdown started. I made a map on what was then called Twitter, and I would put in black every diocese when they said, we're shutting down public masses. And I started on Monday of that week, I think that'd be in the 13th, something like that, of March 2020. And it was like maybe 20%. And I thought to myself, by Friday, I bet it's going to be mostly full. Well, I was wrong. It was completely full by Thursday, and it was like 100. And so I posted a. So people were following this, okay, what diocese are. Because I go through and I find out what diocese are shutting down masses. And so, literally, there was no exceptions to this. I think Fort Worth Bishop did allow a parking lot mass. And the only thing to allow that, and I think. I think I've heard the maronite bishop in his epar key, I think did allow a little bit more. But really, every single diocesan bishop in America and in other places in the world, but let's focus on America. They all just shut down the mass. And most of the time, that included, like you said, no funerals, no. No weddings, no baptisms in some cases, and no confessions or very limited ways to do confession. And so why? What led to this happening where we could literally have not a single bishop standing up for and saying, no, we really do need to have mass available to the people? [00:27:18] Speaker B: I'm going to try to answer it. I think I can answer it in three words. They weren't fathers, but you said what led to it. The church at that time revealed what had been brewing for a long time. There was mediocrity in chanceries there was brokenness in priests. There was an inertness, sort of a bachelorhood mentality in so many parishes. So when you're not, and again, equipped the way, sort of, Father Flynn equipped him through mortifications, through intense prayer, through slavery to Mary, in the. In the vein of de Montfort. When you're not set right, when something comes down like this and you're not in prayer, uh, devoted prayer, then anything goes, because you forget your identity as a spiritual father, and you're more reactionary to what the bishop says, or what, uh, CNN says, or what Anthony Fautiere, or nameless medical panels say. You just kind of go with the flow. But if you're equipped for that time, your conscience tells you, no, I don't care if I'm the last one standing. No, the burden of who I am is souls. Not bodies, souls. So I just think it's a simple case they neglected or forgot what a spiritual father does during calamity. So I think that's it. That's my answer. [00:28:48] Speaker A: One of my favorite stories from church history is Pope Gregory the Great, when he became pope, because his predecessor died in a plague that was ravaging Rome. And people need to realize, when Gregory became pope, Rome was a joke. The city of Rome was down to less than 20,000, maybe 10,000 people. I mean, there was a million during the height of Rome, a few hundred years before, so. And a plague hits it, people are just dropping everywhere. And so what is Gregory great, who actually, at this point, if I remember the details correctly, the other pope had died. All the people wanted him to be pope, but the emperor had not yet confirmed him as pope. And he actually sent somebody to the emperor to say, no, don't confirm me as pope. I don't want to be pope. But he was the natural leader, and everybody looked at him. So he said, okay, we're going to do a procession around the city of Rome, and we're going to. And not procession asking for the plague to go away, that this is key, this is important. It was a procession begging for forgiveness for the sins they had committed, that had brought about the justice of God. That's what he. That's what purpose of the procession was. People were literally dropping dead during the procession because they were, you know, and they were walking over bodies and stuff. Like in this procession, at the end of procession, at the gates, St. Michael the archangel appears. And I think it was like he's cleaning off his sword or sheathing a sword or something, kind of representing, okay, I've taken care of this. And sure enough, the plague abated. And what I thought that was very interesting because that's how, that's, frankly how Catholics, that's the most probably dramatic example in history, but that's how Catholics have always looked at things like plagues and natural calamities, things like that. It's not that God is like, okay, we're going to, I'm going to send down this, this disease. It's more a matter of, I'm going to allow these things to happen because I need some way to wake you people up because you're not awake. And I feel like that's, I got in so much trouble, a controversy. When I had an article, Christ said that I think that Pachamama caused Covid. Now, people, of course, took it to mean, I thought literally that, like, the scientific evidence or that some dogma. I was just saying, no, I think that things like Pachamama led to God kind of lifting his protection a bit and saying, I got to wake you people up. And so do we have any, did we have any bishops or priests that kind of looked at like that, that you know, of that kind of looked at it like, this is an opportunity that we need to realize, okay, we're not being faithful to God? [00:31:27] Speaker B: I have an answer to that. But first, I'd like to say I think that example of Pope Gregory the Great, I've read his biography of Eric. You called what he did as the most dramatic example of what is done during a pandemic or a plague. And I think it's the most on point impression response. It just kind of warms your heart to think about that procession with people dropping dead. And also, I just want to say this, gregory the great, it wasn't just a procession and St. Michael the archangel appearing after that. What he had to do was he had to go up to the barbarians and the viscos up north who were plundering Rome, just picking whatever it wanted, taking the women, just, just crushing Rome. And he had to take them on and convince them to stop. And not only that, hey, we want you to come into the catholic faith. So this guy was one of the greatest heroes in the church. But anyway, to answer your question, I saw, what I saw was almost a replica. You asked about bishops in the response to Covid. I saw 2018 all over again. So on June 20, 2018, when the Washington Post broke the story of McCarrick, and we know all the rest of the Pennsylvania grand jury reports in the summer of shame, I thought at that time there was going to be this sackcloth and ashes penitential movement to, will you forgive us? We will stick our nose in front of the monstrance all year in reparation for not exposing what we knew about McCarrick and the sins of the church. But that never happened. It never happened. It was just sort of brushed away, and then the McCarrick investigation was just sort of delayed, et cetera, et cetera. So when Covid came and you started the podcast with this Eric, the church showed its face. Look, I'm not going to, I'm not going to beat up the church. I have no desire to talk about the church's response during COVID It just didn't show its best face. However, there has not been a reckoning. Millions of Catholics have left the safety of the sacraments of the church after Covid, and most of these are young Catholics. They just are gone. And I contend, people can disagree, but I contend one of the reasons that the eucharistic revival was held was because bishops did know intuitively that, man, they messed up. Yeah, maybe it's not public, but we got to do something about this. So they put on this revival. Good on him. I'm not here to judge that, but, man, it was, this was big. A matter of fact, this, I don't, I'm no historian, but this might have been as big a mistake that the Catholic Church has made in the history of the world. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Right. I mean, I'm sure you do, too. I personally know people who were still going to mass, but, like, you could tell they were on the edge. And sure enough, once the bishop said that mass isn't essential, they, they took their word for it and they said, okay, and they haven't been back since. And it just, I mean, at least before they, like you said, they were, they were at least close to the sacraments on some level, and it was the safety of sacraments, and there was something there, but now it's like they're just gone. And I think, I don't, I don't like to be, you know, Bishop Basher. I do. I do think the problems in the church go beyond just pointing fingers at them. This is a case, though, where that's literally their job is. I mean, their one job kind of is the sacraments and getting them to us and things like that. And they, and they were the ones who stopped it. And I feel like that. I agree with you, by the way, the eucharistic revival, which I've had a podcast about it, and, like, I think there was good things about it. There's some things I criticize, but I wonder how much the power of that revival is being held back because they didn't start it with an apology. Like, it's almost like implicit. Like they know, like, yeah, that wasn't a good idea. So we need to do something to fix it. Okay, good. I'm with you on that. But, like, I feel like it's like in my own spiritual life, if I wrong my wife, for example, and then I just. I realize it and I just try not to do it again. Or I try to, like, you know, do other things, you know, kind of avoid those type of things just so it doesn't happen again. Well, yeah, that's good. I shouldn't try to make it happen again. But I have not reconciled with her. I. Because I never apologized. I never really said I was wrong. I'm sorry. And I feel like we need the bishops to say we were wrong to shut down mass. I'm willing to say, listen, I know it was a crazy time. I know there's a lot of misinformation from Fauci and others. I get all that. I'm not. I'm not here to beat you up. I'm just. I do think, though, that that kind of unlocks the spiritual benefits if they say they're sorry first. [00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And it's been said thousands of times, Americans, or just humans, human beings, we're always willing to forgive. You know, hey, yeah, I'm a sinner, too. I make mistakes. Let's move on. Let's get this thing right. Big deal. Who cares? It doesn't matter. Even if it was the biggest mistake the church has made in 2000 years. Okay, that's fine. We made a big mistake. Now what are we going to do? It's almost like, you know, Eric, I was thinking with the eucharistic revival, like, if they wanted to put teeth into this thing, you're right. Start with an apology, but then say, look, the USCCB has given us multi million, whatever, millions of dollars to put this thing on. So the first thing we're going to do, maybe, you know, it's a three year revival in year one, is we're going to donate a certain amount of money, maybe $10 million, to every single priest who would like to install altar rails. And if there's a Novus Ordo parish who has a tabernacle off to the side, we're going to pay for you to re engineer your parish. To put it behind, like, just an emphasis just on that alone. Because that shows laity. Yeah. You know what? They realize that maybe some of the things that they weren't doing to bring people more sacredly in line with which actually what the Eucharist is now, they're actually making up for it. Well, laity would have loved that. They would have been so forgiven, and they would have cheered on the bishops. So, yeah, it's. I don't know if it's. If it's that old wily sin of the garden, the sin of pride, and they just can't cough it up. I'm not here to judge. If I judge, I go to hell. I don't. It doesn't matter to me. But, yeah, an apology speaks volumes. And you might. You might. You might have, like, done something wrong with your wife. I never have, Eric. I've never done anything wrong with my wife, ever. So I. [00:38:17] Speaker A: My wife doesn't listen to the podcast, so. But she knows. She knows I have, so. And I have to go to her with that. But I think also, something you said earlier I keep coming back to in my head, and that is kind of how father flume was prepared, spiritually prepared. A lot of people like to say, you know, are quick to say the bishops have no faith. Why they did this. I don't think that's true. I mean, I do think there's a few. I question if they do. I just think, like most of us, they have a weak faith, and so when something significant happens like this, they're not ready for it. And you and father flume, though, he had gotten ready. And so I think it's like, if everything stays okay, we can kind of make it, you know, by just a thread. You know, we can make it if we're. If we're doing it. I'm thinking this, too, because my pastor, this past weekend, on Sunday, he gave a homily, and it hit me, and he was talking about, like, we try to do spiritual minimalism, basically. We look around, say, well, you know, compared to everybody else, I'm not doing so bad, so I can just keep doing what I'm doing. And he's like, that's just a. That's a horrible mentality. You really should be striving for, like our lord says, perfection. You should be striving for holiness. You be striving to do more. Really look at yourself. Don't compare yourself. I think that's what we are all doing, though. We're all like, hey, let's just look around. Everybody's, you know, just. We're all. We're all fine compared to each other. And then something hits and nobody's ready. So I really think that that's the key with the bishops and the priest and the laity and, you know, but, but, you know, primarily the bishops, as far as their, their impact is greater. They just had this kind of get along, go along faith. They did believe, but it just wasn't enough when, when calamity struck. [00:40:02] Speaker B: Yeah, Eric, I think that's very, very prescient, what you said. People often like to carpet bomb bishops and say silly things like, oh, none of them have faith. Well, that's silly. I do think you're onto something, and I think you're on it when you say maybe it's a weak faith or maybe it's a spirit of mediocrity or really fear. But what I'll say is this. You talked about Vianney earlier. Vianney once said, the priest without an interior life is the saddest person in the world. So you talked about the preparedness of father Flume. Really, if you go down to its root, it all came from prayer. It all came from Christ speaking to him through prayer. So even today, like, forget about COVID for a minute. Even today with Kamala Harris or everything in politics, the debates about abortion, taxpayer funded gender changes, all of it. If a priest or a bishop was truly devoted to prayer, had given his life over to Mary, was attentive to her throughout the mysteries of the rotaries, as he walked around his chancery grounds and prayed it, who mortified himself, he would take every single one of these american western society, this pus, all this pus that is drowning our children. He would take it on because he'd say, this is an injustice to children. It's an injustice to my flock that they have to deal with this pus. And God tells me through prayer, through my penances, to act like the shepherd that I am. And he would. He would take it on fearlessly. And that's what Father Flume did. It's as simple as that. Because he was a man who had prepared himself for many years through prayer and penances, etcetera, he knew exactly what to do. [00:42:07] Speaker A: Right? I think. I think it's the devil's work, that saying we need to pray to become a cliche, because people do kind of just dismiss it. But, like, what father Flume did and does is truly pray. We're not talking about, like, a couple prayers before, you know, you eat and maybe a few minutes a day, something like that. No, we're talking real prayer. Our friend David Torkington, he has written about this, you know, a crisis recently, but also a number of books. Just the importance of a life of prayer that. That precedes everything. In fact, Father Flume's penances, he'd be the first say this, and mortifications are worthless if he's not spending all that time in prayer. But I'm hoping maybe there's a bishop or two listeners. But definitely some priests I know listen to this, and they can tell their fellow, share it with their priests. I really think that's the key, is our priests and our bishops need to be in front of the blessed Sacrament way more than they probably are. And I understand the life of a bishop. I work for a bishop directly for five years, and I. It made me really open my eyes to what an awful job that is. I mean, it just. It's. It's horrible. If you're looking at, like, outside the spiritual life, just as a job, it's a horrible job, and you gotta spend. But I think a bishop who spent, you know, 5 hours a day in front of the blessed Sacrament is gonna be a way better bishop and maybe not get all his work done then a great administrator who runs his diocese, you know, like a great. A good corporation or something like that. And I think that. Because I think that's what Covid told us, was that you're just not ready, guys. And, you know, we're all not ready, but, you know, I mean, we just need to, you know, and this is really supposed to be an encouragement to priests and bishops, not an attack on them. I think. I mean, I know you agree that we just. We all need to pray more, but, I mean, our spiritual fathers. And that's what we want to get back to, especially our spiritual fathers, need to. [00:44:04] Speaker B: So, Eric, you mentioned that there's a few priests that watch crisis. Crisis point. I'll speak on behalf. If I can be bold enough or arrogant enough to speak on behalf of laity. Laity thirst for muscular priests. They thirst for priests willing to take to the hardwood of the cross by stripping themselves of comforts. They don't want their pastors going out to opulent restaurants or driving around a $50,000 car, or they don't want video games. They don't want social media streams. They're pastor on that. They don't want any of that. They want a priest who resembles Jesus Christ, the starved man from the cross, who only he poured himself out for one reason. Souls. So I'll circle back. How does this happen? Like a priest doesn't just say overnight, I'm going to be a muscular priest. I'm going to be Atlas. I'm going to put them all on my back. I'm Atlas. No, it's. [00:45:05] Speaker A: I believe you'll get crushed if you do that. Yeah. [00:45:07] Speaker B: What's that? [00:45:08] Speaker A: You'll get crushed if you do that. [00:45:10] Speaker B: Yes, you would. I do believe that. It's got to start with an intensive prayer life. And so it's not just prayer. It is reading the church doctors. It's reading the early documents. It's learning the lies of the saints every single day of his life. John Vianney read from one book. It was called the lives of the saints because he wanted to be a saint, so he became a saint. So you can't just put it in a box. Oh, prayer, prayer, prayer. Of course, everything starts from prayer, but it's the accoutrements that you have to tack on that say, okay, my identity is to save souls. Let me read the greatest of the grace, the titans, the paragons down the years to help me become that muscular priest. [00:45:51] Speaker A: Right? Absolutely. I mean, reading lies as saints. I know years, and this is probably 20 years ago, I think I started. It was just an inspiration that I think the Holy Spirit gave me was my kids, when it's their bedtime, we pray and then they have a half an hour where they have to read the light. Once they can read from the lives of the saints and they can also. Or sacred scripture. And I feel like that was a great gift that was given to me to think of doing that. And we, and we're still. I mean, my oldest is now 27, out of the house and stuff, but I still have a nine year old. You know, it's like I just am, like, I want them every night to spend with the saints because St. Niches of Loyola, of course, same story. He read the lives of the saints and it converted him, basically. And so we read that and it can tell us, you know, the ways to go. And I've been reading a few recently that have been very powerful, and I just. I really do recommend that. And speaking of saints, I want to kind of finish up here by coming back to Father Flume. So tell us what, you know, like, what happened? Like, he's not with the parish anymore. Now he's a consecrated hermit. [00:46:50] Speaker B: I'm. [00:46:50] Speaker A: Do you, what do you know about the process that led him now? And kind of where is he? I don't necessarily mean geographically, but kind of where. What is he? I mean, consecrate. Hermits. We don't have those anymore. I thought so. So what happened? [00:47:03] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a very rare, very, it's rarefied error. And you can understand why. Because every morning he'll rise between 330 and four and his entire life thereafter, his hours of that day become a prayer and mortification. So I can't do it. I couldn't do that. But some people actually can. Like, I'm just imagining, like, if father flume was four years in to his, to his, uh, be, being a hermit, one day he said, I'm going to sleep in this day, I'm going to sleep in and I'm not going to do my first nocturne or I'm not going to do compline. Well, all of a sudden he, he's like, oh, my gosh, I'm a whitewashed tomb. I'm a hypocrite. Like, so you have to know you can do it because it is, it's one of the hardest things in the world to do is to turn over your life, amputate every measure of comfort and give yourself over to God. So, so, yeah, so he's, he's two years into this, two and a half, three years into this, to this life. There is, there is such a thing in the church as a consecrated hermit. So you disappear. He's gone. So he's absolved. You will never see him again. He, you, he's like absolved sin. He's disappeared. You can't, he's gone. So, so he's, he's given his life over as a sacrifice. [00:48:21] Speaker A: So it's solitary, though? He's not living it with monks or anything like that? [00:48:25] Speaker B: No, he's, okay, here's what I'll say. I can't say too much, but, yeah. [00:48:29] Speaker A: I don't want to, you know, reveal. [00:48:31] Speaker B: No, he's on the grounds. So he's in a forest, he's in a cell. He lives in a cell probably no larger than your childhood bedroom. And basically his room is in front of a monstrance. That's his, that's where he lives. So he has, he has a rain, he has a rain catcher for his water when it rains, he has a little garden. However, off, way off in the distance are cloistered nuns who, who requested that he actually become a hermit on their grounds. [00:49:05] Speaker A: Right. Okay. Now one thing I want to say, that throughout church history, there are many stories of hermits who go into the woods, go to the mountain, desert, desert father thing like that, and they spend years like this, and eventually what happens is God allows it so that people do come to find out and come to them for the spiritual direction, to learn from them. I kind of hope maybe that'll happen here, that, like, I don't want to. I mean, it's God's decision, not mine, of course, but, like, because that's, that's what happens sometimes. But usually it's like they're decades. I'm not saying, like tomorrow. I'm just saying usually it's a very long time where they become so like Christ that then God says, okay, now I'm going to let you. I mean, what he's doing right now is doing more for souls than any of us, without ever talking to another soul, of course, but sometimes it does. The Lord opens those door. Even St. Anthony, you know, people ended up coming to him and things like that. So maybe that'll happen. If it's not God's will, obviously I don't want it to happen, but I just think. So. I want to. We're going to wrap it up, but, like, I just want to encourage people to read the hermit. I'll put a link to it, of course, in the show notes. And it just really, it's a. And we didn't even talk that much about, you know, your family's situation and, like, your wife and things like that. Talked a little bit about that. And that, of course, is. Weaves throughout the book very kind of the basis for the framework, so to speak. But really, it's a story of a holy, a holy priest, a holy spiritual father. And boy, do we need those today, don't we? [00:50:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we do. I tell you what, Eric, if Father Flume does decide to step on out of that Hermitage 1020 years from now, my wife Chris, is really going to be happy because she's been mourning ever since he left. So it would be nice for my wife anyway. And I'd kind of like to see him, too. [00:50:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, you know, obviously, we know we have his prayers, and that's what matters the most. And his, and his aesthetical life, his sacrifices, mortifications, he's making. He's making himself a victim for us. And so it just really, I mean, it's so easy to get down about what's going on in the church today, but to remember that there are holy souls, he's not the only one, but there are holy souls out there who are literally giving up their lives for us. And I just think that that's, that's a reason for encouragement, you know, in the trials and the crisis that we're living through today. [00:51:25] Speaker B: So with you. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Okay, Kevin, I appreciate it. Again. Pick up the book. I'll put a link to the show notes. Until next time, everybody. God love.