Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Recent news stories have highlighted that young Catholics, both clergy and laity, are increasingly conservative. We're going to look at the reasons behind that growing trend today. Hello, I'm Eric Simmons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before I get started, I just want to encourage people to hit that, like, button, to subscribe to the channel that other people know about it. Follow us on social media at crisismag at all the different social media channels, and subscribe to our email newsletter. Just go to crisismagazine.com, fill in your email address, and we will send it an email to you once a day with our articles. I feel like I'm a broken record saying that, but I figured there are new people every single time. So we have a great guest today. It's Father Gabriel Mosher. He is a Dominican. He entered the Dominicans 2007. He was ordained in 2015. He spent his first seven years as a priest at Holy Rosary parish in Portland, Oregon. He is now pastor St. Catherine Sienna in Salt Lake City, as well as the pastor of the local Newman center. Welcome to the program, Father.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for having me, Eric. Appreciate it.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So you're recommending me because this topic, I think, is very interesting that we've seen. The New York Times had an article not long ago about. About more conservative priests. The priest being ordained in America are more conservative.
Associated Press had an article about the parishes becoming more conservative. So you'd be a great person dealing with young people a lot and being relatively young yourself. I mean, I can say that with my great beard here. I mean, you have a great beard, but you're.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: I've got a nice one here, but that's right, so. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: There you go. So I think it'd be great. But why don't you tell us a little bit first about kind of your background? I read a little bit of it. It's kind of fascinating that, how you return to the catholic faith and then decide to become a priest.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah. So, basically, I was raised in a catholic family. Family is very culturally catholic, but also not necessarily in a bad way, culturally catholic.
I would definitely describe my great grandparents as very saintly people and at least on my mother's side, and then, and my grandparents also very, very devout people. And so there's a lot of that there. There's a lot of the typical turmoils of my parents generation and then my own being sort of at the end of Gen X, beginning of millennials trying to recover, rediscover the faith. In many ways, it's in some ways, I think of it as our rebellion against the rebellious generations and, you know, just discovering that the faith actually matters more than just a label or an identity. I'd always considered myself Catholic, even though, you know, we didn't really go to mass, we didn't participate in the life of the parish.
I wasn't able to participate in the sacramental life of the church until I was an adult. I was baptized.
I received my first confession when I was a kid, but not first communion or confirmation. That was. That was when I was 2021. And so I think that's a very typical story. In many ways, I discovered the need for faith out of tragedy. I was a student at Texas A and M University under the Marine Corps scholarship, and there was a big tragedy there on the campus, and that affected my life tremendously. It caused a serious reflections on what's actually important in life. And that sort of brought me back to the consideration of the faith. And in that consideration, I left a and M. I dropped my scholarship. I was having troubles after that. My schooling wasn't going very well. It was just, I was a mess, and to be honest.
So I went home, and in the process of going back home to New Mexico, being my grandparents, because I was living with them at the time, rediscovering the faith in the midst of all that, getting squared away with the sacraments. And at the same time, I was asked by the young priest in my parish, and then later on, the archbishop there, Archbishop Sheehan, if I would become a seminarian for the archdiocese Santa Fe. And I just said, yeah, sure, why not?
And then I did that for a couple of years and then left, worked for the Knights of Columbus, did a couple other things, and then eventually into the order in 2007. And that's been, this is definitely where I needed to be.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: There's got to be a certain irony. When you. When you said my schooling wasn't going so well, now you're a Dominican.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
Well, it wasn't a lot.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Dominican's thing is to do school well.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Exactly. A Dominican that isn't studying is a Dominican who isn't praying. So, yeah, I mean, my education wasn't doing well. Part of it is a lack of discipline, but also I was going through a severe sort of life change and depression and all sorts of, like, crazy things going on. I wasn't where I was supposed to be. And the way I would describe it now, having a deeper insight into the faith of how grace works, how God works through us, is, I would say that there's on one part, there was a little bit of a natural problem because schooling and stuff always came pretty easy to me. So I didn't develop the habits that I needed to be successful in college at first.
That wasn't until later, until I got to the seminary, that I started learning how to do things the right way. And also, the other part of it is that the fruits of the Holy Spirit were manifest. It was just clearly not manifest in that milieu, as I look at it retrospectively. And that's not where I. I was supposed to be right now.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: You were in a seminary about 15 years ago, right?
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Right. And so what was a seminary like then, in the sense of what we're talking about today, as far as, like, being conservative and things like that? Was it. I mean, because I've heard stories from back, like, I have friends my age who were in scenarios like the early nineties, and they left because it was just really bad. And I know every scenario is a little different, but, like, just very liberal, very frankly, pro homosexual, and they just. They left. So what was it like about 15 years ago when you were there?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Well, I'd say a little correction. I've been to three different institutions of formation.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: So my first experience was in the early two thousands. That was both at Holy Apostles and Mount angel. And then when I entered the order in 2007, that was with our formation program, which is different than a normal seminary.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: I can say that. Well, when I was at Holy Apostles in, I entered in 2001.
That was a wonderful place. I had a really good experience there. There were. Later on, I discovered some problems in the place, some problems with some of the formators, some problems with some of the students. But while I was there, I didn't experience any of that or really even see that. It wasn't very clear to me. Maybe I was just a naive 21 year old, but I didn't see that. And the philosophy and theology that I got there was excellent. And the liturgy, we were at the very beginning, I'd say, of the beginning of the restoration of some good, solid catholic tradition.
I know that we were the first sort of group of people to rediscover the chanting of the ordinary of the past. For instance, we had the St. John Cantius.
They weren't called canons of St. John, Kansas at those times. They were the Society of St. John Cantius. So they were there. The fathers of mercy were there.
Our diocese, the CFRs were going there. A lot of different groups were there at the time, and that experience was extremely positive, and we were heavily influenced by things like the Adoramus Bulletin. And that was around the same time as the new liturgical movement blog was going strong. In those early days when Sean started that up, a lot of different things like that. Sacred music, sacred architecture. We had. Stephen Schloder came and gave a rector's conference on sacred architecture because his book had recently been published by Ignatius Press. And it was a really good sort of beginning, our foundation for what was to come. And I think that's because our rector experienced that transition period during the council where, or after the council, where one summer or one year, as he described it, he was getting calluses on his knees from praying. And the next year, when he went back to the seminary, they forbade him from praying the rosary or doing holy hours or anything like that. So his experience of that, Father Mosey's experience of that really formed our experience at holy apostles. Really good. When I went to Mount angel, it wasn't the same. There was, there were some goods things there, some really good, really good priests there, a couple of really, really good ones. But I also experienced some of those negative drawbacks that you discussed while I was there. That's why I left. And then. But when I entered with the order in 2007, I would say we were very strong, very strong, very faithful desire to be in the heart of the church. There's still some, you know, we're still in the midst, and we still are really in the midst of our renewal and internal reform of our. Of our life as Dominicans. But we were really far ahead on the bell curve by the time that I got there and as I was going through formation.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: So do you have. So Dominicans, do they have their own seminary here in America that you go to?
[00:09:43] Speaker B: So each province is responsible for the formation of its own friars. And so we don't have seminaries so much as we have houses of formation, because every Dominican is already a Dominican. We're not growing into anything. We're not seeds in a seed bed, so to speak.
So the eastern province has the Dominican House of studies in Washington, DC. The central province has their house of formation in St. Louis, and we have our house of formation in Oakland and our school in Berkeley, and that's the Dominican School of philosophy and Theology. And the southern province joins the central province for their initial formation.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a completely separate ratio than what the secular clergy get.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Right. It is an interesting thing because I don't think younger people realize kind of the sea change between the eighties and even the nineties into the two thousands, because in the nineties, we did have this uptick of, like, from JP two. I mean, mostly that inspiration where you. A lot. I converted in that time. A lot of people were converting, a lot of excitement, good apostles, like a Catholic. Answers were really starting to take hold. But the seminaries still were pretty bad. I mean, a lot of them.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: And even when I was there in the early two thousands, I mean, there were stories of other places that were just horrific. Right. All sorts of war stories from different priests and friends. Yeah.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't think, I'm not saying seminaries are perfect now, but I think the difference, though, between now and then is, is radically different. And so what do you think kind of was the, what do you think were the keys that led to seminaries becoming okay, just for everybody in the audience to know. When we use the term conservative, we're not talking politically here. We're just simply saying more in tune with the tradition of the church. And I know there's different ways we can use those labels, but that's all I'm talking about here. Why do you think that happened? And kind of what was, what led to the seminaries becoming more conservative? And I think that men entering, being more conservative, I think when they got there as well.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: I actually think there's two things, and it's very, very clear. Clear to me, it's two things or two persons.
John Paul II and Bennett XVI. Those, those are the principal influences worldwide that formed people of our age group and younger in the, in the faith. And, and then also, like, if you think about it, like, as someone, I'm about ready to turn 45 this year, I have friends that their children are already out of college, right? So they're zoomers and, you know, and even sort of late millennials in some cases. And so their parents were influenced by John Paul II and Pope Benedict, and now them as becoming like parents in the next generation, already after that, they're influenced by these same things. And so there's this, this cascading sort of effect. And I think those are the two primary influences. And in some ways, Bennett XVI more than John Paul II. John Paul II was a rock star. He was, you know, he was larger than life.
But Bennett XVI was always by his side. Right? He was there since 1978. Well, 79, really, as the head of the CDF and then himself pope, and being part of that theological formation of the faithful from that point forward. And I don't think that's something that can be discounted or even spoken about without it's superlative. Like his influence is a superlative influence on the last two or three generations of Catholics, especially english speaking Catholics. I can't, I'm not sure about anyone else, but definitely english speaking Catholics.
Those are the two ones, I would say, in the United States. There's another influence. That's a subtle influence that people might not be aware of, but it, but it permeates everything. And that's the integrated humanities program from Kansas. So John Sr. I think, has, and his godchildren and whatnot, have had a profound influence, particularly on the american church.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Wow, that's interesting. And isn't that where Bishop Conley, I believe, went, went, went through that? I think. Was he a convert through that? I can't remember now, but I know. Okay, that's what. Okay, that's what I thought.
And he, I actually, when he was a priest, he was the chaplain of the pro life group. I was in many, many years. He probably doesn't remember me at all, but, yeah, I've kept up with his career.
Yes, very much so.
So would you say then today, from what you know about people you speak to and things like that, would you say most seminarians now, like, what is what the New York Times saying? Is it true? Because you always have to ask that whenever New York Times says something, is it actually true? But would you say that what you've seen from priests coming, young priests over the past few years, that they are, it's continuing this trend of being more conservative, more traditional?
[00:15:11] Speaker B: I think, by and large, when a young man enters the seminary or enters religious life, same with a sister, they enter religious life. Their desire is to be faithful.
I don't think anyone enters with a desire to not be faithful. Now, what their conception of fidelity is, might be relative, but, but there's this, there is this yearning, this desire to be faithful, and the formation is what tends to shift that and, and move that one way or another. And I do think that because of these, these sort of generational movements that you see in the family, because, again, of John Paul II and Ben XVI and among others, Cardinal Serra is part of that. Cardinal Renze, you know, you name it, there's a whole bunch of people that you can list that have had a profound effect on formation on the catholic faithful.
These different groups are, they don't just influence your average catholic person on the street. They do influence the professors, what they're teaching. I mean, when I was in, when I was in the seminary and then also when I was in initial formation as a Dominican, we were using Ratzinger's spirit of the liturgy everywhere. We were using carbone, we were using. We weren't using sort of that older stuff that was very contingent in time. You know, we weren't using Rauner or chilibax or the lubac or Hans urs von Balthazar. It was back to Aquinas, it was back to sacred scripture. It was a lot of more sort of stable theological works, and that also led to a lot more stable and traditional liturgical practices. I also think that when there was the period of time when we were going through the revision or the implementation of the new english translation of the Roman Missal, the third typical edition, there was a lot of parish programs and diocesan programs that focused on reading the documents of the Second Vatican Council, particularly sacrosanctum. And in actually reading the documents of the council, people would often realize that what they had been experiencing wasn't exactly what the documents had articulated.
I remember a conversation with someone who was at first sort of up in arms in the translation change because it was new, it was different, it was conservative, it was all these sorts of things. And then finally the person realized that it was just a more faithful english translation to the Latin. And this person said, oh, well, that makes perfect sense. It's like this immediate shift, like this movement from ideology and how that everything was articulated to just a clear shift once the person was confronted with truth, rationality, all these sorts of things. Right. I don't know, there's just, there's so much, there's so many little pieces, but I think a lot of it has to do with this transition that happened under John Paul II and Bennett XVI and.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, so it still seems to be going on. And do you think, I mean, the elephant in the room is the next pope that you didn't mention. I mean, he's been pope now for France, has been pope now for eleven years. Yes, eleven years. And yet we're still seeing a seminaries that are more concerned in America at least. I mean, we're not speaking about other places. We don't have experience of that, but that are more conservative and things like that. Do you think, I mean, this is all guess, but do you think that's going to continue? I mean, or is there going to be a more progressive attitude among seminaries kind of entering in or seminarians coming in because of the influence of Pope Francis?
[00:19:16] Speaker B: No, actually, I think by and large for, for people, the experience of Pope Francis in formation is very different than the experience that people have of Pope Francis sort of out and about, because again, it's going back to sort of the documents. It's going back to sort of an objective approach to the deposit of faith, an objective approach to the hermeneutic of continuity.
These sorts of things form the way in which all this stuff is received.
So even when something might have been able to be put more precisely or with a little bit more, that could have been articulated more clearly in certain documents, when you read them very deliberately within that sort of roman tradition of harmonizing, or as Pope Benedict called it, the hermeneutic of continuity, you just can't read these things out of, out of harmony with the, with the larger deposit of faith. And there's many ways to sort of do that.
It's not reading them dishonestly. It's just reading them charitably. And when you do that, you know, it just forms. It forms the way in which you think about these documents.
You know, whether it's. Whether it's fiduciary supplicants or whether it's whatever, it doesn't matter. Right. All of these things have, we can dispute about a lot of the details in the documents, but when they're looked at within the context of the larger history of the church's theological tradition and that mining of the deposit of faith, anything that is found outside of anything that's found outside of that deposit is not part of that deposit. So it's not. I don't see that being.
I don't see that being a difficulty right now. I don't see that right now as a difficulty in formation. In fact, I have not seen that as a difficulty.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Right. So I guess what you're saying is that kind of the focus in formation has really, there was an era there, I guess, in the seventies, eighties, where the focus of formation was very much the kind of contemporary, you know, the latest, whoever the latest theologians are and things like that. And now what you're saying is the formation is much more based upon, like, the ancient tradition. So whether it might be Augustine or Aquinas or Trent or whatever. And so everything that comes new is like, okay, we're going to kind of read it through the lens of the tradition, the deposit, rather than the other way around, of kind of rereading, like, old things, aquinas through the lens of Scillebex or something like that.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Right, exactly. And I think Pope Benedict put it well, at one point he used this image. He said, the church is always looking forward with one eye looking back.
And so there's always this dual movement because we're moving forward in history.
But we're always bringing the democracy of the dead with us, right?
There's no way to sort of negate that. And anyone that would is already outside of the heart of the church, because the church is always perennial. The deposit of faith is something that Christ gave us. It's not something that can just be set aside.
And it's that radical fidelity to the person of Christ, that encounter with him that is the sort of the manifestation of a person's faith, even though the faith is imparted in baptism, but that igniting of it in the encounter with the person, once that happens, it's really hard. I think it's really hard to step away from that. And institutionally it becomes even harder. Institutions are like battleships.
It takes a while for them to move in the right direction. So it's taken a couple of decades people make fun of now it's almost a meme, you know, jump all the seconds. New springtime. But I think there is kind of a new springtime, but it's just, it's just, again, it's a battleship. The institution takes a long time to turn, and then once it turns, it's going to take a lot for it to turn away. You know, it's, there's, I see a lot of stability. I see a lot of good. I, some of my, now some of the teenagers that were in, in my youth group when I was in the early two thousands, they're priests now. They're running formation programs, they're vocation directors. And, and actually, I know one who's running a purpdudic year at a seminary. And these are solid guys. Like with, with really, they don't, they don't, they carry different baggage. Like, they don't, they don't, they're not coming from an embattled position because we had already sort of won those battles, so to speak. And so they're moving in and this, they're, they're sort of working in a, in a different, I don't know, a different existential space when it comes to looking at this formation. There's much more calm, much more peace, much more stability to the, to the work of formation, to what's happening in seminaries and in religious orders. There's still outliers, there's still places that need work, and not everyone is in the same place with respect to that renewal. But it's a real thing. I've seen it everywhere.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Okay, this is interesting because this leads into my next question, which I'm actually going to ask a little differently. Based on what you just said. Because I remember in the nineties when I first became Catholic, you know, things weren't that great. And people would say, well, look at the young people, the young men becoming priests. They're more conservative. So in 20 or 30 years they're going to be the bishops, they're going to run the church and everything's going to be so much better because of that. And of course, we all know it's not like everything is hunky dory today.
And so like I, so I admit there's a certain amount, part of me, there's probably a cynicism of getting older, which I need to fight, I realize. But yes, right. When I hear like, oh, well, the young people, they're more conservative. I admit one of my first thoughts is I've heard that for 30 years.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: And it sounds like you're saying there is, there really has been an improvement, but it, over those three years, it just hasn't been, it's not always visible to like in the news stories or things like that. Is that kind of what you're saying? Would you argue or would you say, because it looks to me, okay, I'm just going to lay it out here. It looks to me, it looks to me like some of the, like a lot of those guys who were so much great on fire in the nineties became priests. They end up becoming just kind of bureaucrats who just kind of go along and they're not really kind of have that same juice for, for orthodoxy that they used to. Now it's more a matter of just managing things. And maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe I'm, that's not accurate. What would be kind of your perception of that phenomenon, of what's been happening since the nineties as far as, you know, young priests there that are on fire and orthodox when they come in and how they end up.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: So I think there's, there's three different points that I would, that I would hit first. One is it's very easy to become institutionalized.
Institutional drag is a real thing. And when you realize that there's all these things that have to be done in order to maintain the institution of the church that can really sort of weigh you down. You can get stuck in your office and never, you know, never see people like you may be a great bureaucrat, you might be able to raise money and do all those things and maintain sort of black books and whatnot instead of red ink and all these sorts of things. And that makes you sort of appear to be a good candidate for advancement through the institution. But whether you have any evangelical zeal left over after that, that's a whole different question. But I've seen institutionalization happen, and it happens by inches. People don't even recognize it. And sometimes that institutionalization doesn't even happen until someone becomes, say, a bishop, right? They have that evangelical zeal, but then they become a bishop. And then, you know, then there's kind of stuck in their chancery office, you know, with, you know, having meetings all day long instead of going out and engaging in the ministry of the word like the apostles intended. So how to solve that, I think, to some degree, is one of those million dollar questions. So I'll leave that at that. The other thing about the, I just read an article from the Wall Street Journal the other day that, that showed this Gen Z and sort of the change in political demographics, and I'll use this as an analogy for what's happening in the church, because I think it's similar, is that Gen Z, for instance, is split and is split on lines of sex.
Men are moving more conservative politically, women are moving more liberal politically, by and large.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Yes, I saw that. Yeah.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: And it's a significant gap. Right. In their ideologies. And what was interesting in that, in that article, and I don't think it was a mistake, is that the young man that was being sort of looked at, he was wearing, he was very, he was obviously Catholic because he had a Marion shirt on and all these things on his, on his, on his tractor. But, but there's a, there is this sort of movement towards a type of a rejection of some of these aspects of modernity that are in conflict with what the church teaches, what Christ teaches. And there's a segment of people that are embracing what the church teaches and see the value of that. And then there's the people that are rejecting it. And I think the group of people that are accepting it, that you say more within the context of the language of the church, becoming more conservative or living in the heart of the church is a growing group of people, but it's a smaller group of people when compared to the larger society.
Because I think right now is, and this is the third point, is that there is no advantage to, there is no social advantage to being catholic, and there is certainly no social advantage to being faithful.
And so it's a self selecting group.
We see this even at a Newman center or at a parish particularly. My last parish was very much a boutique parish. It's one of the parish where people go to, it's a destination parish. So it's very self selecting in the people who, who attend that parish. And we're seeing that more and more, the older generations had a sense of duty. You went to church because you went to church. Like, that's. You were taught to do that, and you follow those rules. That's how it worked. But I think starting with the later Gen X and definitely with millennials and Gen Z, there are no rules like that. There's no interior disposition. Like, I go to mass because I have to. Right. Or my grandmother's gonna be angry with me if I don't go to. Go to church. Like, who cares? It's a self selecting group. And so as this group continues to be self selecting, you'll have, as Benedict said, a smaller, more faithful church. I think that's just the direction that everything is moving.
And people find that very troubling for multiple reasons. I find it troubling because that says, rather, what does that say about our work of evangelization, of our. Our ability to actually convince the secular world that Christ's message is not only true, but effective, and that it's something that attracts the human spirit, attracts the human soul away from the world, the flesh and the devil. And I think that that's where the challenge is the real rub. And so when a larger demographic starts showing up again in the churches, well, I don't know what it's gonna look like, but right now, it's that self selecting minority.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: So in your experience, like Ryan Newman group and things like that, and just working with young people. So you would say then that it's definitely true that the young people who are active in their faith are far more conservative than, like, the general population. Is that a pretty safe statement to make?
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, very much so, yeah.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Okay. And so, and that's, that's mostly then, who you're, who are attracted to going this are people who are really, I don't know, better way put, but just really into their faith. I guess it's the best way to put it. Like, because I know, like, when I was in, when I was in college in the early nineties, and I was not Catholic, but I knew a lot of Catholics at this point that we didn't have a Newman center, but it was like the, the local parishes, college outreach, whatever I had, it was a large college in here, and it had hundreds of people in it, but it was most of them. It was people who, just as all Gen x people, who were, you know, in college at the time, most of them, they were, they just lived like everybody else as far as drinking, partying, stuff like that mostly. And then they would go to mass on Sunday and they would go to some of the events. But it was a very large group because I remember there was a small group of people, Catholics, who were, like, very serious. And that's why I got attached to as a Protestant, because pro life work, but, and they really didn't want anything to do with the, the bigger group because they were like, they're not really faithful. They're not really trying. So would you say basically now what's happened is we've just eliminated that big group of, most of them are just not going, and now it's just left to the small, like you said, self selected group.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Well, that's, that's, that's some of the things that the data is telling us, even post Covid. Right, is that there's, there's so many people that just didn't go back to church. Because in the post Covid thing, in some ways, that's moved that ball forward to some degree. All the demographics, all the data that we see tends to say that it's, that it's just a self selection. It has very little to do with anything other than that.
People who are coming to mass, people who are participating in the sacramental life of the church, and people who are, who are participating in the social and ministerial life of the church, they mean it. And it's beautiful. I mean, I thanked my congregation the weekend before last because at my parish, nobody leaves after communion.
Right. That's just, that's always been the joke. That's always been sort of the thing, like, how many Catholics are running out to the parking lot, you know, to get, to get out of there after they communion. But it's so rare. So rare. And it's always a visitor or someone that we never see on a regular basis who leaves prior to the end of mass. Like the priest is always the first person out.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: And, and that's, that in itself is kind of an impressive thing, if you think about it, based off of the culture of how people would go to mass. I mean, my whole life, people are.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Saying every week, don't leave after communion.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: No, you don't have to stay one bit. People just stay. You know, they're just, they're happy to stay and they want to build a community of faith. They care. And that's, I think that's precisely what Pope Benedict was talking about. And, and it's from that core that something more can be built. Right. And I, and so I have great, I have great hope and great faith that from that core will be built something more, a restoration of some of some sort. Again, sort of using that John Sr. Language of the restoration of Christianity. I think that's, I think that's a real possibility. And I don't buy into the idea of, of a dead notion of Christendom. And no, I think it's our job to build, just like Pope Paul VI said in Evangeline Nunziande, is that our job is to evangelize the culture itself. We are to make the culture Christian.
And so if we work towards that, that is the reestablishment of some sort of Christendom. And whether it looks like the former Christendom, probably not, but it will look like something and it will be beautiful. We just have to do it and we have to put our back into it.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: Yeah. It's interesting what Pope Paul VI said about making the culture christian, because what you see is especially among the few remaining progressive Catholics that are left, this idea of, they don't say it like this, but basically we need to be more like the culture, and that will attract people. Then that's because we, because we all know we have dwindling numbers. I mean, the numbers are going down on a whole. I mean, that's, that's obvious, everybody. And I see a certain desperation among some Catholics that like, okay, well, if we don't accept women priests or whatever, homosexuality, all that stuff, then, like, more, more people are going to leave. And here's one thing I think conservatives don't always acknowledge. That actually is true on a very surface level in the sense that you will get people. But the fact is, it's not like we know from the Anglicans and everybody else, that's not a long term way to grow your church because people are leaving now because we're not liberal enough for whatever they want, you know, and I know people like that, and I'm sure you do, too. But then what you would say then is the shrinkage of the church, which obviously it's a bad thing, objectively, kind of just, we want every soul in the church. But you're saying it can be a good thing long term. And so is that because, like, you're saying that because the people left will really be now faithful and that will attract the masses, won't it? I mean, or are we in danger of becoming so out becoming like the Amish? Are we, is that a danger that we could just end up like the Amish that, let's be honest, the Amish, they're awesome in a lot of ways, but they don't impact the culture at all.
And so is that a danger that we have in the kind of direction, the trajectory we're going?
[00:37:49] Speaker B: I think it is a danger. The danger is.
So I guess, controversially, I'll say is I think the danger is what was spoken about as the Benedict option. I don't think that's the correct approach. We have to engage the culture, but you engage the culture from a place of stability and fidelity. And so to some degree, there needs to be sort of that same instinct that St. Benedict had of retreat from the world in order to establish that fidelity. But then you also have to have the instinct of St. Dominic, which is that. Yeah, but from that monastic disposition, from that disposition of contemplation and study and fidelity, you engage. You know, that. That preaching is the fruit of contemplation, and preaching happens in both word and deed, and it is incumbent upon us to engage the culture. That doesn't mean that we have to be like the culture, but we have to be in those cultural spaces. This is why I get very frustrated all the time when people think that clergy or whatnot should not have any involvement in politics or shouldn't have any involvement in various social things or in the arts or all this other stuff. No, no, no. Religious and priest should be in all of those places.
One of the things I actually think was a huge mistake of John Paul II's was forbidding clergy to run for office. I mean, it used to be one of the greatest reformers of the church and of our order was la Cordair. And La Cordair always served in. In public office wherever he was assigned as a Dominican, even in the general assembly in France. And he was able to affect people in those spaces as a result of his presence. I mean, St. Thomas Aquinas used to spend time with a french court. I mean, one of the most decadent institutions in human history. And there's St. Thomas Aquinas there, you know, sort of writing his stuff in the. In the corner, in the midst of all of that. Like, we have to be. We can't exempt ourselves from any of the spheres of human life, but we can't. We can't be the world, right? We can't be like the world. We have to bring. We have to bring that otherness to the culture and call it to conversion. But you can't call it to conversion if you're not there.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: And I think we have to recognize that it could happen where we go through a phase like the early church did, where that means persecution and martyrdom and things like that. But that's really, really just. That's up to the Lord, of course.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: So I want to bring up the role of the liturgy in how the church is becoming in America, at least, becoming more conservative in practice, because that's usually the touch tone. I mean, Lex, Randy, Lex Credende, we know how instrumental it is. In fact, the article in the AP was a lot about how a parish had become more conservative liturgically, and that drove out. This was up in Madison, Wisconsin, I believe, and a lot of the boomers and others didn't like it, that all of a sudden the things they, they had been doing, their tradition was now thrown out. And so what would you say? And so, of course, we know the history a little bit, but, like, in the nineties, the traditional mass was, like, unheard of to the average Catholic. Then, of course, it starts growing in the early two thousands. Pope Benedict, you know, opens it up basically to the world. It starts to grow, becomes very influential. Then, of course, we all know tradition. Francis is clamping down, which seems to be making it grow more in popularity in a lot of ways. But how would you say, how has the liturgy, has it followed the people becoming more conservative? Or is it the driver of them becoming more conservative? Or is it a little bit of both?
[00:41:37] Speaker B: So my previous parish, we had dominican rep mass on a daily basis, right? So that's awesome. That was fantastic. So every day is a low mass, and then on Sundays, it's a sung mass or solemn mass. And before that, when I was in formation, I used to spend a lot of time with the Institute of Christ, a king sovereign priest in Oakland. And then before that, when I was in the seminary, right, I spent a lot of time with the Society of St. John Cantius. And these movements personally had a profound effect on me because I didn't know anything. When I went to the seminary, I was completely ignorant about stuff. So many people that go to seminary, they've been reading things and studying stuff before they even take 1ft into the seminary. I was just like, hey, you should go. I'm like, okay. And so I went, right? And I learned in the seminary about things, and.
And I fell in love with the older rites because the symbolism and the ceremonies are very clear, at least to me. The symbolism speaks volumes in a way that I think the ordinary form in its usual parish context doesn't as well. I think that I do want to read the liturgical reformers, positively, I think they were trying to, because I do believe that there are some problems.
I don't think the church has fully ever accommodated the change in human life that the industrial revolution affected.
A way that I describe this is that, like, I don't have a proper blessing for electric lights.
Why is there not a proper blessing for electric lights? There's. There's candles and lard and. And bacon and there's crosses for fields. So everything is still sort of very agrarian. There are some things like, there's a blessing for a dynamo, there's a blessing for a telegraph and for a seismograph. But there's not many things. Even the blessing for a vehicle for a car is really just the blessing for a. Kudos, right? Just a chariot and just appropriated for a car.
So there is a real sort of discontinuity to some degree, between the. The devotional and liturgical structures and cycles and the modern way of living. Even the way the divine office is caught up and prayed or where mass is situated during the day, is discontinuous with the tradition because electric lights, you can say mass anytime, and also the fasting cycle broken, which is a more historic thing as well. So I think the more people learn, actually, I think the more there's accessibility to the knowledge of liturgy, not that you attend liturgy. So Americans, at least by and large, for the last 100, 150 years, have been habituated to be consumers of religious experiences. Right? So people go to mass because it satisfies me or because it entertains me or whatever. This is why, you know, rock band mass is a thing and all this other sort of stuff, because it's something familiar. It's like, you know, it makes me feel good, but that's not what Mass is for. Mass is about worshiping God and then receiving those graces as a result of the work of worshiping God. And the more that understanding becomes a prevalent among the faithful, the more there are study groups on the documents of the council, the more there are study groups on things like the spirit of the liturgy from Ratzinger or other such works. The more that liturgical world is brought into the common sphere. I think Scott Hahn did a great job with this, with his book the Land Supper. It's one of the most accessible pieces of fundamental, like, early sort of discovery of liturgical ideas.
The more that is the case, the more people realize that there's something broken in their day to day liturgical practice, that what they experience, and I'm not talking just simply about the difference between the older rights and the modern rights, the revised, reformed rights. But that in the reformed rights after the council, that the way in which most people experience those rights is not consistent with what the council wants, wanted or even with what was implemented by the. By the concilium.
I don't think the cassilian people would have ever expected, you know, some of the things that have been experienced over the years.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: But also, I think, so what happens is that when you see that, you can react against that, and when you. When you go to the older rights, because they're far more mature, because they've developed and they've had a. A longer history and patrimony, and the signs are much, much more clearly articulated because of that period of time that they were in dominant use.
It's very comforting.
So I don't think it's just a matter of taste. I think that the signs actually do communicate something more to people. And as Aquinas says, that they. Devotio or solemnitas. Solemnitas of actions, it affects Devozio in the person. And the more that a devozio is influenced in the person or excited in the person, the more grace they're able to receive. So there is a reality to this. It's not just aesthetics. It's not just taste like.
There is a direct line between solemnity, devotion and the grace received.
Not the grace offered. The grace offered is the same, but the grace received. The subjective disposition is directly related to the solemnity of the act. And so the less solemn something is, the less a person is disposed to receive grace, the more solemn something is. And I do think that, by and.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Large, we just want to interrupt. But that is.
I just want to interrupt because that is such an important point, what you just said. That's why I wanted to stop for a second, because I didn't want to go over that one quickly, because you hear often, like, the argument, like, well, it's valid. And that's all that matters to. And it's like. It's like Jesus is there. So that's all it matters. But what you just said is the key point. Guy had a priest, I remember, who, at a parish, who's trained the altar boys, and my son was one of them. And I was at. I was at this. It was like, for fathers and the boys there. He made that point about the more graces are able to be received at. Like, for example, a solemn high mass and a low mass. And use that example to not make it a novus ordo versus tLM, but just to say, because there's greater solemnity. You know, it's kind of what you were saying, and that's the reason why the church developed these ceremonies over a thousand years and more, because of the fact they recognize, okay, are people are going to be more open to the received, the graces. Like you said, the grace isn't offered isn't different. It's just the grace received can be different. There's the objective and subjective. So I apologize for interrupting, but I just was like, that's one. We got it. We. I got to make sure everybody heard that part of what you were just saying.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. I apologize. I can. I can. I can get on a soapbox about that, because it's. It's. It's particularly frustrating to me.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: Right, right. And it is. And so I think another thing I wanted to mention was what you said about, you kind of briefly mentioned Scott Hahn's the lamb supper. I think. I personally think that had a huge impact on the church in America liturgically, because the book itself, for those who don't know, it came out in, like, the late nineties, I think, has sold, I think, millions. I'm not 100% sure the number, but it's hundreds of thousands. I know. And I think even millions of copies. He was probably one of. I think it's his most popular book, probably. And that's saying something, because all his books are popular. Yeah, but it's not a. It's not like a book about, like, the old writer. It doesn't mention that. It's assuming the novus ordo. But what it did was, and I know it did for me, too, like, a light turned on in a lot of people's Catholics mind, that, oh, my gosh, the literature is, like, super important.
[00:49:54] Speaker B: Literally is the source and summit of the christian faith. Right, right.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: It's almost like we just treat it like, well, this is what we do. But really, that's not that big a deal.
And I think people don't realize how many people, Catholics thought like that. And then this book comes out, and I will say, then what happened? I'm not saying this was Scott's intention, but I think what happened was a lot of people then went back to Paris, and they're like, for how important this is, we seem to be taking it not very seriously. And I think that then. And then just a number of years later, was more on Pontificum, of course. And so I really think that might have been, like, a seedbed to make, and then even in the nova sort of parish, just to start being, like, you started to see a growth of. And I don't think these problems are solved, but, like, definitely you had a. You get more reverent liturgies more often. I think part of it was his book just all of a sudden kind of clicking on the light that, you know, let's. Let's actually take this seriously instead of acting like it's just like it's a product and service, and we don't really care that much about how we do it.
[00:50:52] Speaker B: No, I totally agree. It's. It sort of opened up a veil that. That people. And I think it's because it did that for him. Right. There's that. There's that moment where he talks about in.
I think he talks. He talks about an introduction there, but he also talks about it. And a father keeps his promises. He talks about it in multiple places where, you know, the first time he kind of goes to a mass where he's at the moment of the. On you stay, and he goes, this is either the most profound blasphemy I've ever experienced in my life, or this is real.
There's something about his.
And his own intellectual habits and his knowledge base that allowed for a clarity for him to see that moment. It's like there's a grace given there at that moment for him. And we've all benefited as a result of that.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: What do you see? And this is the question that you can ask, and I know you're just gonna, you know, who knows what's gonna happen? But what do you think the future is, though, for the liturgy and the roman rite? Because, you know, Benedict obviously wanted to see a certain mutual, you know, enrichment and things like that. And I think people at that point, I know I was one of these people at that point thought, okay, eventually what we'll probably get is like a hybrid of some sort that will be traditional latin mass and a lot of its essence. But then we'll have some reforms that were inspired by Vatican II and that era and things like that. But then, you know, now with Teresa and Schistotis, I feel like it's gotten a point where it's like, no, there's. There's no connection between the two, almost. I mean, Francis himself doesn't call them forms of the same roman right. He treats them like there's two foreign rights each, almost like the eastern right and the roman right. And so what do you think, though? I mean, just your crystal ball, like, how do you think this eventually gets resolved? Because obviously their current situation is not a tenable one. Long term.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: Well, I mean, my hot take on that is that. Is that, in my mind, is that if you want to worship in English, you should be a member of the ordinariate if you want to worship in Latin, celebrating the Roman. Right, but that's my story.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: I love the ordinary. Yeah, I'm with you on that, but.
[00:53:14] Speaker B: I honestly don't know. I can tell you what my own personal practice is as a priest is to be very diligent about reading the rubrics precisely of the liturgy, so that the places where the more traditional ar celebrandi is available, that that is implemented and it's not so much ideology somewhat is on my part a little bit, but. But it's also because there is a sense that when the concilium was put together, one of their theories, or the way I was taught is one of their theories was by paring back things and allowing for openness of interpretation, that it would allow for a new, modern thing to develop that is consistent with the tradition but wasn't attached to necessarily, you know, the french Renaissance court. So.
And as a Dominican, I can respect that because our own liturgy is very different than the Tridentine mass. Its signs and symbols, its movements, its actions, the way references work, everything is very different than the Roman Rite. And so you can tell that it was founded within a period of time of the medieval city state, like. And it. It sort of exemplifies that form of statecraft where the Trinity mass sort of exemplifies the statecraft of the. Of the Renaissance court, just like the byzantine is the byzantine court. Right. And I think the ordinary form sort of is.
Is sort of emblematic of them. The modern city state, in many ways, the forms of reverence and simplicities that exist here. But the liturgy allows for a lot of interpretation. Right. Liturgical norms are not negative precepts. They're positive precepts. So there's a. There's a lot of variability for interpretation. And so the. The interpretation that I use is, again, that hermeneutic of continuity. How can I be as continuous with a tradition as possible without.
Without being, you know, without breaking the rules myself? And so where things can be bent, where things can't be. And I think you're going to see that more and more. I think there's a lot of priests that are interested in that actively. I know many priests that are. And there's books being published about celebrating the ordinary form of the roman rite with that sort of disposition, that disposition of a traditional ars dellebrandi, where things go from here with, you know, with respect to what things can be restored. I think, actually, I joke about the ordinarily, but I think they're a good example of what ought to happen.
You know, for instance, they restored the offertory prayers. Like, that's something that needs to be done, the proper offer. The old offertory prayers are very important to the roman, right. And I think that they were removed erroneously. I quibble about the, the reading cycle. There's, there's a lot of different things here and there that, that I think could be adjusted and fixed and, and done either by just understanding the rubrics and just doing them because you're exercising different options. But there's some things that only Rome can do. And, and I think that there has to be sort of that honest reflection in Rome about sort of like, well, maybe, maybe the concilium wasn't 100% correct about removing this or by imposing that.
And who knows how that's going to work.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: And it's interesting because new priests, newly ordained priests, since juris custodus, need explicit permission to celebrate the TLM. And I think my understanding is they don't really receive that in general. But I know a lot of them. I mean, I say a lot. I know of that they're learning the TLM just to say privately, because they're still allowed to say it privately. They can't be stopped from that. And so I think that that alone is a good thing because it gives them, first of all, hopefully it helps their spiritual life in turn in as a pre, their priestly life. But also, then it's going to impact how they then celebrate the novus ordo, you know, in, in their parishes and whatnot, which, you know, is a good thing. So. But, yeah, we don't, obviously, we don't know what's going to happen. But I think it is interesting. I think, though, ultimately, rat singer, I think his father, Ratzinger time turned out to be a prophet, and his, his, because that was in the early 1970s, I think was 71, he made that prediction that the church will get smaller but basically stronger in a lot of ways and then have to go out from there. So. Yeah, so we'll see. So I think I'm going to finish there. Yeah. Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, yeah, we always got a brave.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Intense.
[00:58:07] Speaker A: It's also, we have to realize these things aren't linear. They're just like super bumpy and, you know, they're going to go down and up and things like that. So we just keep praying and doing.
[00:58:16] Speaker B: And honestly trust, trusting, you know, trusting that God is in control. Right. In the end. But we have to participate in that and truly not just, not just sit on the sidelines, but be active participants in the life of the church. And by doing that, then true conversion not just of ourselves but of other people, but also the institution is affected by, by engaging. Right. Not disengaging.
[00:58:43] Speaker A: Right, absolutely. Okay, father, I think I'm gonna wrap it up here. Where can people find, I mean, you have a x account, right?
[00:58:50] Speaker B: I do, I do. Yes.
[00:58:52] Speaker A: I will link to it. Even. You may not even want me to, but I'm going to link to it in the show notes.
[00:58:56] Speaker B: Yeah, perfectly. Happy to.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: People can, can follow you there and kind of get your thoughts on things. So. I appreciate you being here though, Father.
[00:59:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah. And that same handle that, Luke, I. 4655 is me everywhere online, so.
[00:59:13] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: I try and secure that everywhere.
[00:59:15] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, that way they know it's really you when they see that.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. That's right. There's consistency from across the, across the interwebs.
[00:59:24] Speaker A: Yeah, right, exactly. So. Okay. Thank you, Father.
[00:59:27] Speaker B: All right. God bless you.
[00:59:29] Speaker A: Until next time, everybody. God love.
Recent news stories have highlighted that young Catholics—both clergy and laity—are increasingly conservative. We'll look at the reasons behind that growing trend.
