July 25, 2025 • 42 mins
This week on The Prayerful Posse, Raymond Arroyo, Fr. Gerald Murray, and Robert Royal break down a surprising move from Pope Leo: approving the return of the traditional Latin Mass in a Texas parish. Is this a one-off exception — or the start of a quiet reversal of Pope Francis’s restrictions?
The Posse also tackles a series of troubling stories:
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A convicted child pornographer is back working at the Vatican
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A bizarre “blood ritual” involving seminarians and a man in a Yeti costume
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A wave of anti-Catholic vandalism in France and the U.S.
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And the ethics of holding beachside Masses in bathing suits
Plus: updates on Pope Leo’s response to the war in Gaza, curial reforms that could be coming this fall, and the rise of fake AI-generated Church news online.
It’s all here — the serious, the strange, and the deeply important.
👉 Subscribe to The Prayerful Posse for trusted Catholic insight, every week.
#LatinMass #VaticanScandal #CatholicChurch #PopeLeo
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pope Leo overrules a ban on the traditional Latin Mass
in an American parish.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Will this become a trend?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
And why is a priest convicted of possessing child pornography
working in the Vatican. The Prayerful Posse will explore it all.
Welcome to this Arroyo Grande series, The Prayerful Posse.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Let's convene in the Posse.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Joining me now, Father Gerald Murray Cannon, lawyer of the
Archdiocese of New York, and Robert Royal, editor in chief
of The Catholic Thing.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm Raymond Arroyo.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
There was a big story on the liturgy front gents
all across the world. The traditional Latin Mass is being
banned thrown from parishes following Pope Francis's crackdown.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But Pope Leo may be.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Offering the traditional mass community a lifeline. Don't forget to
subscribe to the Royal Grande Show to our channel on YouTube,
on iHeart, Apple, Spotify area, wherever you get your podcasts.
We don't want you to miss an episode of the Posse. Okay,
I want to get back to that unexpected development in
this ongoing war on the traditional Latin Mass. Pope Leo
(01:09):
the fourteenth himself has approved an exemption to the ban
on the ancient right for one parish in the Diocese
of San Angelo, Texas. Saint Margaret of Scotland Parish applied
for an exemption from Pope Francis's draconian limits on the
celebration of the Old Rite back in February will On
(01:30):
May twenty eighth, their petition was granted with Pope Leo's approval. Father,
why do you think Pope Leo granted this exemption to
this one parish himself.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I think this is a good sign. It means that
the bishop of that diocese requested it, because that's where
the initiatives started, and that was always a possibility under
Pope Francis to have parishes celebrate the Mass, but they
were commonly either the bishop didn't want to ask for
it or the vatic and said no or said yes
for a year or two. So this is a good
sign because it means that Pope Leo is cognizant that
(02:07):
people want to go to the Latin Mass, want to
do so like everybody else in a parish church. They
don't want to have to go to a convent or
a chapel or some outward place.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So this is good.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm very happy, Okay, Bob, Does this indicate an openness
to a restoration of what Pope Benedict had? And remember,
just to remind those who may not be as familiar,
Pope Benedict the two popes removed from now before he
approved the traditional Latin Mass. Any priest could say it
anywhere in the world, and it kind of brought a
(02:37):
close to a long period of liturgical tumult. This was
and it was peaceful for a long time. Might Pope
Leo be moving back to something like that? Could this
be the start of a trend?
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Well, I hope so. I mean, I think we all
would like to have seen him come out swinging and
really just reverse this and say, you know, on second thought,
and maybe this will happen at some point. The limitations
placed on the traditional Latin Mass almost to the point
of abolishing it just to produce too much pain, and
as they found out in the survey of the bishops,
(03:11):
a lot of bishops thought it would.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Produce more harm than good.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I think we want to go slow here, though I
know people get frustrated. I myself am frustrated. Trying to
figure out where we're going, because Leo strikes me as
a person who is not a kind of a revolutionary guy.
He likes kind of smooth transitions. He seems to have
a very pleasant personality. He may be the type of
guy who in dribs and drabs, gives us bits in
(03:36):
piece of this here and there, and sooner or later
if that continues, and I don't see any reason why
it shouldn't you get to the point where whatever the
actual rules were in effect. Now the Latin Mass has
been approved in a variety of places. So good for
a step, but we want to see some other steps
rather quickly, because clearly there's been an injustice done here.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, Father, as you mentioned Bishop Michael Siss who is
the Bishop of sant Angelo. He requested that exemption from
Pope Francis's man and the local parish priest posted this
tweet thanking the Vatican for the permission.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
The curious thing is here.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That permission is only for two years, father, which I
frankly don't understand. This is a validlicit right, and Father
Freddie Perez says the attendees in his parish are mostly
young families and it's the most heavily attended Mass in
his parish. What about the other traditional Catholics facing exile
from their parish as father, why only make this exemption
(04:36):
for one parish?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, I mean this is where the next step is.
You know, Catholics in Detroit, for instance, and now write
to their bishop and say, could you make a similar
application because the Mass was reduced from I believe twenty
eight parishes to four. And you know, wait a minute,
you just disrupted the life and prayer of twenty eight
different Catholic communities. No, the two year limit reflects what
(05:01):
Pope Francis had written in his letter when he set
up traditsionis custodies. He said that eventually everybody will have
to return to the new Mass. So the idea was
we'll tolerated for a few years, but you know that's
just kind of a runway to your acceptance, and eventually
this plane is going to land there be no more
Latin masses. Pope Leo has to really change that mentality. Look,
(05:24):
we respect the legitimacy and value of the traditional Latin Mass,
and the people who go to it deserve also to
be respected.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, that weaning people away and thinking that two years
is going to do it is kind of silly. I mean,
and you see, you see after those first exemptions expired,
they're asking for another exemption. This law needs to go
Tradizionist custodis, which was the document, the Modo approprio that
Pope Francis passed. It really does need to go away.
And you know, guys, someone reminded me this week. They
(05:54):
sent me something that Mother Angelica told me during an
interview for her biography. I think it really speaks to
wear those young people and even those who are not
part of the Catholic faith. They come to the Latin
Mass because they're looking for something. Here's what she said.
During the Latin Mass, you had the missile. If you
wanted to follow it in English, it was almost mystical.
(06:18):
It gave you an awareness of heaven, of the awesome
humility of God, who manifests himself in the guise of
bread and wine. The love that he had for us,
his desire to remain with us, is simply awesome. You
could concentrate on that love because you weren't distracted by
your own language. You could go anywhere in the world
and you always knew what.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Was going on.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It was contemplative because as the Mass was going on,
you could close your eyes and visualize what really happened.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You could feel it, Bob.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I think that's how a lot of people feel when
they attend the traditional Roman rte. These are not people,
by the way, who grew up or have a nostalgic
trip or you know, are holding on to something. People
are encounjuring the old Mass for the first time.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, I'm always surprised at people who turn away from
the Latin Mass because they consider it old. I did
grow up on your Latin Mass as a Walter book.
Actually remember I memorized all the responses so that I
could get to do weddings and funerals and just be
at the regular Mass and get out of school. Mostly
why we were all motivated back in those days. But
(07:25):
you know, for me, and I've stayed, I have retained
the love for Latin my whole life as a result
of that exposure. To me, it takes us way back
into the beginnings of the church. And I've said this
many times on this show. But in a time when
we all feel at sea, and especially when young people
are looking for an anchor to something. What better could
you have. Greek is a great language too, but we're
(07:49):
not going to all begin to learn a new alphabet
and whatnot. And there are a lot of Latin words
that overlap with our English words, and so this is
this is something that we have that is present, it's approachable,
clearly having an energizing effect on Catholics today, young Catholics today.
I don't see what the major downside is. I think
that the big difficulty for Leo is going to be
(08:10):
negotiating a personal problem, and that is that on the
one hand, he was very close with Francis. He wants
to respect the legacy of Francis, and that's his right
to do. But on the other hand, he's faced with
what clearly is an error and something that.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Needs to be corrected.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
So I think that's the drama. We're not going to
see a place.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
You know, as Bob said that Father, I'm mindful of
Mother Angelica, who was broadcasting the Mass from her own
convent and they put cameras in which he built her
new shrine, and they were doing the Mass out Orientum
facing east. Now it was the New Right, but it
was in Latin, and you had the priest facing east,
facing away from the people, or rather praying with the people.
(08:52):
My question is this, the bishop said they could no
longer broadcast that, and DEDWT does not broadcast that mass
any longer because they didn't want to acclimate people to
that form of reverence sacred worship. Frankly, I think it's
the most abysmal thing they've ever done as far as
television production is concerned. Not that the bishops have a
great track record, but your thoughts on this bias against
(09:17):
the traditional Roman Latin foundation upon which the new Mass rests.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, that's manifested when you forbid oud orientum, which is
mass facing toward the crucifix, the tabernacle korum Deo's another.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Way we talk about it.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
You're facing toward the east because you're looking toward the
returning Messiah on the second coming. So that really is
Cardinal Sarah said that if you really want to make
the new Mass a more reverent experience, celebrate the mass
oudo orientum, not facing the people, because the sacrificial aspect
comes forward. Now, we had a couple of bishops recently
(09:54):
others in the past forbid the new mass oud orientum
in their diocese. Well, about ten days ago, Pope Leo
celebrated Mass out orientum in the chapel of the Carabinieri,
which are the Italian police who guard Castle Gondolfo, and
he did that publicly. It's a public mass, so there
(10:15):
can't be any private The pope is the model of
the liturgy celebrated for the rest of the Roman Church.
So if the Pope does it out orientum, everybody else can.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So I hope.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Bishops will withdraw those imprudent decisions they've made. But then
let's get back to your question, which is foundations. You know,
remember the Lord said, you know, don't build on sand,
build on We've got to know where we came from
in order to know how we can go somewhere, you know,
in the future. And we came from a tradition of
worship which is grounded in the Old Testament Temple, It's
(10:45):
grounded of course in our saviors, the Last Supper, in
the Crucifixion, and then the practice of the Early Church,
which kind of brought it all together. So to say
that after nineteen sixty five nothing from the Old can
be kept. That's one reason why young peopeople were saying, no,
let me dip into that and find out what's going on.
And once they do, they say, this is where.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I want to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
No. And when I see these young people packing in,
they all have that same spirit and wonder that Mother
Angelica had when she went to the Mass, and she
did approach it almost with a childlike wonder. You know,
she was in awe of the of the entire experience,
and she just thought the vernacular brought that other worldliness,
that supernatural quality, that mysticism down a notch or two,
(11:28):
and ended up preferring the other form of the Mass,
which is reverent, beautiful and attractive. Obviously, or people wouldn't
be coming in such vast numbers. Anyway, there's a kind
of disturbing story. I almost hated to get to this,
but I think we should address it. A former official
at the Vatican Secretariat of State returned to work this
(11:49):
week after serving a five year prison sentence for possession
of child pornography.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Whither Carlo Cappella is his name.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
His criminal charges originated in twenty seventeen. The priest of
the Archdiocese of Milan had been stationed in the Apostolic
Nunciature in DC.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That's the Vatican's embassy in the.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
United States in Washington, headed by Cardinal Christophe Pierre. Now,
in twenty eighteen, Capella was convicted by a Vatican court
for possession and distribution of child pornography, with the aggravating
circumstance of its large quantity that was in the prosecution Bob.
Both the US and Canada wanted to prosecute this priest.
(12:33):
The Canadians had a warrant out for his arrest after
he downloaded child porn in Ontario during a visit. I
guess the Vatican refused to waive the diplomatic immunity and
he fled to the Vatican.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
What's going on here?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, I'm sorry to say that. I think this is
just another example of what I would call misplaced mercy.
You know, certainly we want to be merciful. He seems
to have been very repentant, but that's not enough in
a case like this, where as you rightly say, man
arrest warrants are issued because he's not only had downloaded,
but he was distributing whatever that.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Now.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
I tried to look into this and apparently he puts
some images up on is it called Tumblr, which maybe
a gay Exchange its online site.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It's it's like an Instagram Instagram types.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
But but look this that this offense, which clearly is
a grave evil. I mean, he was reduced from being
a mon senior to a priest. Maybe Father Murray, as
a cannonist, would like to talk to why he wasn't
removed from the priesthood. I mean, I know personally priests
who were removed for just the slightest accusation of things
that they were even later exonerated from and were removed
(13:45):
from ministry worked in menial jobs out in the secular world.
And this man, apparently, even while he was in prison
in the Vatican for five years, was working with the
Secretariat of State and then gets put back in a
job secretly in a way, it's just an other of
these examples where certain people who are close to influential
figures in the Vatican kind of get a half pass,
(14:07):
while in the rest of the world, if a priest
were guilty of that, he would be in deep, deep trouble.
Even the Vatican said he couldn't go back to a
parish or to a diocese. So what does that tell
us about the way that they dealt with it?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, father.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
This is to me, it's scandalous. I mean, he's at
work at the Vatican Secretariat of State. As Bob mentioned,
he served five years in a Vatican jail, and an
official at the Secretariat of State told Pillar, I'll read this.
It was clearly presented as an act of mercy. The
intention was that this man, who had not been laisized
(14:41):
but clearly could not return to his diocese or serve
in a parish, could collaborate in the office and remain
in the Vatican, where he is effectively secluded but without
a formal office. Your thoughts on this, Murphy, Yeah, given
the grave nature, the crime's here fault all.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Right, had a lot to say on this. Let's start this.
Let's say if he wasn't a Vatican official priest, Let's
say he was a Swiss guard.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Bob's read that.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Let's say he was a Swiss guard and he was
assigned to a nunsituer overseas and he was looking at
child pornography. Would he be left into the Swiss Guard?
Would he be given duties of protecting priests in the back,
of course not, He'd be removed. He's untrustworthy. You don't
put police enforcement in the hands of criminals. Why is
it that a criminal priest is allowed to stay working
as a priest at all, let alone in the Vatican
(15:30):
where he's occupying an important role which he of course
is involved in decision making and analysis and advice regarding
other priests and their behavior. This is absurd. This man
is obviously unqualified to be a shepherd of So let's
say he had been, this had happened when he was
a seminarian and he caught him with Would they ever
overordained him and said, I'm sorry, you can't work in parish.
(15:52):
Was going to send you the Vatican Secretary of States,
you can work as a paper pusher. It's absurd, It's
all wrong.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Bob is right.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
This is misplaced mercy. There is no mercy when you
signal to your institution that you can view child pornography
and stay on the job.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
No mercy in that.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, And just so people know, and I'm not going
to get into it. This is a family show. I
don't want to get the scandalis but these are the
reports are that these are images and videos of adults
interacting with these children. Okay, it's not just pictures of
the children it's graphic, horrible, evil stuff. And father, I
guess the reason they can't they have to keep them
(16:29):
in the walls of the Vatican is because you've got
the United States and Canada that want to prosecute him
because he broke laws in those countries.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So they're not keep him there.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Well, maybe he should be sweeping, you know, he should
be clipping the hedges in the Vatican garden or something.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
He shouldn't be working.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
He shouldn't be a priest. And secondly, he had diplomatic
community in America because he was a diplomatic I don't
know if he had diplomatic union in Canada because he
was visiting there as a tourist. Unless he was sent
there and there was in the arrangement, the Canadian garnment
he could work in the end. I don't think that's
what happened. So, yeah, the Vatican should have been upright.
Remember we've said during the child abuse saying bishops most
cooperate with secular authorities in the pursuit of justice. Well,
(17:07):
the Vatican's not cooperating with the Canadians. Yeah, send him
back to Ottawa, but remove him from the priestood first,
because he doesn't deserve to be a priest, and he
himself should recognize if he's truly repentant, he should say yes,
I understand, I can't be a shepherd of souls in
the future because I betrayed the trust. My goodness. If
a policeman shoots a criminal in committing a crime, they
(17:27):
take away his gun sometimes so they can investigate. This
man can still be a priest after he's pleaded, you know,
was found guilty. And this is false mercy.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, no, it's a sick story.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
But I have to say, we have to say in
full candor, this is sort of the pattern that we
saw under Pope Francis. In this case largely happened in
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
This is when Pope Francis was running.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
A show, and he did show an inordinate mercy to
these people who were I don't even know how to
put it sexual degenerates. I guess the best way to
put it, the kindest way to put it. Let's hope
justice prevails here. It's awful, I mean, just to propagate
that kind of material and to plant those seeds in
people's minds at hearts and souls. It's deeply wicked and
(18:15):
of course an abuse of the innocent children involved. Let's
turn to the Middle East, because I can't stand discussing
that story anymore. Pope Leo continues to speak out on
the violence there. On Sunday, he condemned what he called
the barbarity of the war in Gaza and the indiscriminate
use of force, as Gaza's Civil Defense agency said at
least ninety three Palestinians had been killed. Now, Israeli Prime
(18:39):
Minister Benjamin yet Yahu he got on the phone with
Popolo on July eighteenth after an Israeli tank struck the
only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people. Now, according
to the Prime Minister, he said, Israel deeply regrets that
a stray ammunition hit Gaza's Holy Family Church.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
That was the statement.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abas called Pope Leo on July twenty
first to discuss the war and the violence in the
West Bank in the wake of the shelling. On July
twenty at this is important, Cardinal Pierre Battista Pizza Bala,
who is the Latin Patriarch, celebrated Mass at Holy Family Church,
reminding parishioners. They've not been forgotten. Bob, give me your
(19:24):
gut on this. I mean, Gaza has been leveled. You
look at the pictures, there's really nothing. The church is
the only thing standing. The entire complex is bombed. The
neighborhood's gone. Do you believe this was a straight tank
shell and the Pope just renewed his call for a ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
How effective will that be?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Well, at that latter point is very difficult to say,
because the Israelis are they're really pursuing hard violence against
Hamas in Gaza and against Cosins in general. I'm a
little skeptical of this, as cardinal piece of Bala is
that this was just a mistake. I mean, there are
mistakes during the fog of war. But as Pizza Bala
(20:04):
rightly pointed out, it's pretty easy to identify a church.
It's got a cross on it, it's in a certain way.
They must have known what that area was. And generally
I'm on the side of Israel, but there has been
a significant amount of Israeli Jewish Israeli pressure against Christians
and killing of Christians, driving them off lands. I talk
(20:25):
about this actually in my book about my new book
about Martyrs and Persecution in the twenty first century, that
in Israel there has been even within the Jewish controlled territories,
some pressure put on the Church. So I don't know
what to make about this, but I can say this,
I know an awful lot of people who like me,
are basically on the side of Israel, who are starting
to come around to the view that, look, it's not
(20:46):
our decision to make, but it's probably getting to that
point where the war has achieved what it can achieve.
We stop the fighting at this point and then go
on to deal with whatever is there in the end.
And frankly, as you rightly say, Raymond, there's not much
it's left there at this point.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
No, it's gravel.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I mean, the police has been reduced to gravel and
look hostages. Obviously, those hostages should have been released long ago.
That should have been the condition for the ceasefire. For
whatever reason that everybody decided both sides are wanting to
continue this thing. I know if I were Hamas, I
would have released these hostages and tried to get everybody
(21:22):
to come to the table. But Father Cardinal Pittsaballa visited
Gaza with Orthodox leaders and he said, this war has
to end.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Even Trump. President Trump was.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Furious with net Yahoo when he saw the church had
been hit and it was just a facade of the church.
The body of the church is intact. But this Christian
community is really under attack from all sides.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Yeah, it's i you know, not the Israeli army has
to be super careful and not attacking religious sites which
are obviously not being used for war purposes. And it's
well known that Catholic Church is famous, the priests there
is well known. In fact, he was wounded in the attack, So,
you know, very regrettable. But you know, the hostages that
(22:04):
headlines never lead with. While the hostage crisis continues, the
Israeli army continues to seek the freedom, those are never
the headline. The headlines are always people dying in Gaza.
The people dying in Gaza because Hamas killed one thousand,
seven hundred Jews on October the seventh and refuses to
release the hostages they took. And this is it's always forgotten.
(22:27):
It varies. I regret to see the loss of life,
but you know, civilian casualties occur when you declare war
on another country in an illegal manner. As they did
with the massacres, and then expect that the opponents, the
Israelis are going to you know, do surgical strikes only well,
sometimes you hit a building and there are people in
it beside the terrorists. That's on the terrorists.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So I don't like war.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
It's war is not good, but you got to fight
back when you're under threat, and that's what the Israelis
have done.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
You know, look, I also I am very cognizant of it.
I know you all are of the Christians caught in
the middle of this thing because they're neither Hamas supporters,
nor are they you know with Israel. They're they're people
in between, and they remain in our prayers. And I
think that's why Pitts and Balla is walking this firewalk
trying to figure out how do I, how do I
represent these people? How do I keep all sides together?
(23:19):
And that is very difficult, but look, our prayers go
out to all of them, particularly that beleaguered Christian community.
But yeah, you've got to everybody's got to want peace.
And I don't know why Hamas keeps digging in. You know,
obviously Israel wants to you know, they want to drive
Hamas out. But the question is what do you do
with all these Palestinian people? Where do they go? The
(23:42):
Egypt doesn't want them, Jordan doesn't want them. They are
they to live in sea colonies. I don't know what
you do with all those people. So that's another question,
but we'll move on. Did you see this bizarre story
in the Archdiocese in Seminary of Denver. We missed this
during our hiatus last week. A so called blood ritual
involving fifteen seminarians and the vice rector of the seminary
(24:05):
took place during a ski trip. Now the video just surfaced,
but it was from January of twenty twenty four. The
incident also involved someone dressed in a Yeti costume. This
odd blood oath ceremony was captured on video. Father the
Archdiocese of Denver has referred to this incident as a
prank and the individual responsible has been removed from seminary leadership,
(24:28):
but the vice rector remains on the faculty as a professor,
and earlier this year in March, the rector of the
seminary was removed from mishandling this affair. Inexplicably, this ritual
apparently occurred not once, but twice. A seminary who actually
refused to participate was placed on sabbatical.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I don't even know where to begin with this. Father.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
They say it was a prank, and the guy dresses
up as the Eddy in the ski cabin he owns,
which probably requires its own investigation. But your thoughts is,
isn't appropriate prank for seminarians?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Well, in the category of pranks, you have to say,
is this an appropriate prank? Obviously not. It's crazed. This
priest vice rector was staying brought the seminaries of the
home of a friend of his, and the friend dresses
up in this animal costume and then they have a
knife and they tell the seminy you got to come here,
(25:22):
cut your arm, lead, swear, don't tell any This is insane.
This is like a horror movie being done to kind
of like, I don't know what the purpose was, but
what does it reveal? It reveals disorder in that seminary
of the highest degree. Why in the world is a
vice rector thinking this is an appropriate way to deal
(25:44):
with seminarians? And then secondly, why was he kept on
the faculty of the seminary after doing this, this is insane.
Let's okay we take it out of context. Let's say
the seminarians' families instead of the seminarians, have been invited
to this retreat, and then the vice rector says to them, well,
as a sin as solid area with your seminary brother,
(26:04):
you got to cut your arm and we're going to
make us wear a blood oath. Everybody would have been
the priest would have been thrown out of the seminary.
The bishop would have said, this is insane. We don't
treat late people like this. But then you reduce it
to a mere prank and keep the guy on bad judgment,
I'm sad to say by the people in the Diocese
of Denver.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, the father, as you were talking, I'm thinking maybe
it's a new horror franchise. I know what you did
last winter. That's what little It's a blood oath, now, Bob.
The archidiocees apparently did an investigation. They determined there was
no actual oath or blood. You know, they brought out
props and fake blood and stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But can't they go to a movie or bowling? What
are they twelve? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (26:49):
When I saw this, other than the immediate horror. What
you're seeing there, I said to myself, even if this
was a fraternity on some wild college campus, would been
a crazy thing to do with his blood, oath and
yetties and whatnot. Look, I'm not given to, i hope,
extreme judgments about things like this, but there's a whiff
(27:12):
of the demonic in this in my estimation, and I'm
not close to it. But it just seems to me
that this is the kind of thing that seems to
be tending in a direction that is pretty worrisome. If
it had been you know, not blood and not this
bizarre being, and maybe it was something else that they were,
it was kind of hazing. Maybe you could say, well
(27:33):
it was it was a misjudgment, But it seems to
me to go beyond that, that it's got the elements
of that horror and that that kind of that kind
of witchery and the demonic that we see is beginning
to take over the culture in a variety of ways.
So I just don't like it. It just seems to
me that everyone involved from this, from this we looked
(27:54):
at very carefully. I think they should be out of
that seminary, but I think they should all be looked
at very carefully and kept tabs on because there is
some let's say, dark spirit operation after there.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Raymond, I gotta, I gotta throw this in, Raymond. Why
is this priest filming this? Why is this being filmed
a prank? Is this a prank? Exactly? No, he's he's
he's doing something knowledge with four, knowledge of what he
wants to do. He wants to keep a record of
it and use it somewhere in the future. This guy
should have nothing to do with Seminary Formation.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, unless Lorrain and Ed Warren are in the adjoining
ski lodge, don't go near this.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
To God, this is it's just bizarre. Look.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I could understand if you've got a group of seminarians
and you all are talking and a guy with a
Yeti suit walks by the window. Okay, it's a lot
of fun. Everybody jumps up and it's a scare. But
this is like a ritual and the guy came in
and you swear an oath to the Yetie. It's crazy.
It's just bizarre, so very inventive. You know, paganism on
display here.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
But Father.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
A few weeks ago, we talked about Pope Leo's reforms.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I had to. I want to get to this.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Archbishop of Westminster in the UK, Vincent Nichols says this
week he believes Pope Leo will announce new curial reforms
in the fall. That would be reformation of the working
bureaucracy at the Vatican. And this is part of the
reason he was elected, Nichols says, because he has intimate
(29:22):
knowledge of the Church's governance from an insider's perspective.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
What do you make of this?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
You know, I don't know that Cardinal Nichols has a
crystal ball, meaning he has the ability to see into
the future. I don't know, you know, reforms. Does he
mean structural and canonical reforms that he's going to change
things according to law? Does he mean new appointments. Does
he mean simply new policies as regards you know, some
hot button issues, including finance. I really don't know. I
(29:48):
think we you know, we're in that interim period between
the election of the pope.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
He really takes up.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
The governance, you know, with clear indications of what he
wants to do. So I don't really know what to
make of this prediction.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, Bob, the pope it was just announced that the
Pope's going to extend his stay at Costal Gondolfo, which
is the papal summer house. That tells me he's planning
for the fall and winter, which is probably going to
be very robust. But what might courial reforms look like.
Pope Francis just did a whole overhaul of these corial offices,
(30:20):
appointing a slew of people and allegedly streamlining.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I mean, we were kind of critical of those.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Reforms, but what might this look like? What's needed in
your estimation?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Well, to begin with Cardinal Nichols saying that he's going
to continue with these reforms at frances putting in place.
I don't know that he can know that. It just
seems to me that it's one of the common principles
of kind of political philosophy that a person learns responsibility
when they are actually in an office. And so the Pope, sure,
(30:54):
he's been around the administration of the Vatican for quite
a while, but there's a difference between observed what other
people are doing and maybe only seeing part of it,
and then being the boss and having to make decisions
about what's going to happen, and clearly what he's going
to have to do. Is he's going to have to
deal with We've said this before, but is the financial
reforms because the Vatican is in serious financial trouble at
(31:16):
this point. And then there are the ongoing sexual reforms
like the ones that we were just talking about with
this priest with the child pornography. So what that's going
to mean in terms of the structure of the way
things are going. I mean, we see these stories that
worry me a bit because it looks like Dei within
the church where he's talking about a broader participation of
(31:39):
people from around the world and more women in positions.
And look, in principle, there's nothing wrong with that as
long as we're at the end of the day, what
we're getting are the best people in the jobs. But
when we start to use those categories that are very
familiar to us from politics that have led to a
lot of difficulty in every place, from government to universities
(32:01):
to the workplace, I want to see competence in the Vatican. Again,
we had a very competent economic reform with Cardinal pell
he was thrown out. There are other things that can
be done about the sexual abuse. This is going to
really have to cut deep into some parts of the Vatican.
And there may be structural reforms that are advisable too,
(32:22):
but the writing is on the wall and cosmetic changes
are not going to be enough any longer. Leo is
going to really have to dig deep if we want
to rescue the Vatican from the status that, in spite
of many attempts at reform, haven't been able to produce
for much activity.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Bob, very quickly.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
You sent a piece this week that my hair started
standing up on edge and there's not much to stand up.
But I was looking at this on YouTube and it
allegedly told of reforms that the Pope was making, and
it cited these documents. Of course, the documents don't exist.
It's obvious clickbait to get, you know. So I'm not
giving them any promotion here. But what's the danger of
(33:01):
this kind of AI generated misinformation online?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Yeah, we have been saying for decades that people have
misinterpreted Vatican too, and we're very upset about what the
things that they've done in contradistinction to what the accural
documents of Vatican two actually say. But the other day,
I'm in my home office today and my wife walked
in here and she said to me, the Pope just
passed fifteen regulations that are going to revolutionize the church.
(33:29):
And I said it something possible. She said, no, it's
an online Come look. So she took me in the
other room and we looked at it together, and I said, okay,
look and we went to some reliable sources Catholic News Agency, EWTN,
Catholic Register. You know, these are the good news agencies,
commentary and opinion or a different story. But if they're
going to be obviously a reliable, confirmable changes in the church,
(33:53):
we're going to see them there. So I think we've
got to tell everybody who's interested in what goes on
in the Catholic Church, whether you're Catholic or not, to
be very very careful because AI has now given people
who are troublemakers tools to make a lot of trouble
and to misrepresent what even the highest authorities in the
church you're doing it. We may even see videos like.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Right, well this is a father.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
This is why when people tell me, you know, you
all should do AI versions of yourselves and just put
that show up. No, no, no, we're trusted, because we're
not AI. You know, and I think people like us
are more important now than perhaps ever before because of it.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Go Aheadah No.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
There was somebody produced an AI version of Pope Leo
discussing who was better Lebron James or Michael Jordan, and.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
It was very What was the answer for he was.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
He was arguing for Jordan because he's a Chicago plot
But you know, but I watched it and I'm saying,
wait a minute, that's the Pope talking. But he couldn't
possibly know all these statistics. And then it was all
it was fake. It was a fake story, but they
were all out there. So no, yeah, the trusted source,
that's what you gotta go to.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, quickly, I want to get through a couple of
things here. Attacks and desecrations on Catholic churches in particular,
but a bunch of churches are continuing at an alarming rate.
On the twelfth and thirteenth of July, the church of
Saint Germain in France was the target of desecration. Piles
of feces were found at the entrance and inside the church,
(35:26):
including the floor around the altar and beneath the altar
cloth that had been torn off. Urine was found on
the sacristy floor. The parish priests discovered the scene on
Sunday morning, and this is not the first time that
this particular church has been vandalized.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
In the Archdiocese of Pittsburgh, the FBI is investigating vandalism
at Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Allegheny County. Anti
Catholic and anti Semitic graffiti was discovered on a statue
of the Virgin Mary, a plaque on the bell tower,
and the door of a former convent father.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
What do you make of the rise we're seeing in
these cases?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
What's driving this, particularly these anti Catholic and anti Christian attacks.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Well, for me, it's a manifestation of the hostility that
the church has had throughout our history, and sad to say,
in France, that's often propelled by Islamic immigrants, in other words,
Muslims who are anti Catholic and not afraid of you
risking getting arrested. And a lot of churches have burned
in France. There was the murder of that priest in
northern France while he was celebrating Mass. Now there's this incident,
(36:31):
you know, it's just an endless series, and the French
government has to put more effort into suppressing this. And
in our own country there isn't that same level of hostility.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
By most.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
We don't have a Muslim desecration problem here by large,
but we do have occasional incidents. I don't know what
the incident in Pittsburgh, a diasis was, but what, however
did it arrested and jailed? I mean, that's what we
need to.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Do, Yeah, Bob.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
According to the u CCB, I'm looking this up, at
least three hundred and eighty seven incidents of vandalism and
desecration have occurred across forty three states and the District
of Columbia since May of twenty twenty. What do you
think is propelling this?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
What is this?
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Well, some of it is just satanic, I think, and
to use that term again the last chapter in my
book on Modern Persecution. I'm not trying to blow my
own horn, but I happen to know these statistics because
I have a final chapter in there about precisely this. Yeah,
both the United States and Canada, we're not immune from
this in North America. And Father's right, isn't It doesn't
(37:37):
seem to be primarily driven by by the kind of
Muslim anti Christian class that has existed throughout history since
Islam was founded. Here, it's more a kind of a desecration,
that kind of bubbling anti Christianity below the surface. It
looks at Christianity is something evil that preached hate against
gays and repressed women and you know, all that sort
(38:00):
of thing. So, yeah, the bishops did a survey and
over that four years there were almost four hundred instances
of our sin and vandalism, et cetera. You know. By contrast, France,
I have this in my book too. France loses loses
two religious buildings per month, and to their credit, the
French government has actually put in several million euros trying
(38:22):
to prevent these things. But the problem is so widespread
and the areas that they have to protect because France
obviously was a deeply Christian country, Catholic country at one point,
it makes it hard for them, the police all of it.
In fact, there was a story I excited in my
book that there was a Muslim group that was going
to try to burn down Notre Dame again shortly after
(38:43):
it was going to be reopened. After that horrible fire,
So you can just imagine the kind of challenges and
the forces of order in a place like France are
dealing with.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, I got to go to something, and we're going
to end on this, and I don't know if this
is a happy topic or a sad one.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
I'm gonna give you a crack.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Fox News is reporting e WT and did a report
on this, celebrating popular beach town brings Sunday mass to
shore for faithful. That's the Fox News headline, and it's
in all. It's a long island and three parishes are
hosting masses on the beach.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Your reaction to this, I.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Mean, I do, frankly don't know what that is to celebrate.
I thought we were forbidden to get married on the
beaches and at resorts because you do sacred things in
sacred spaces.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
What's the story.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Well, I think, unfortunately, this is a desperate attempt to say,
to become relevant, we have to, you know, do things
that people are going to find, you know, entertaining and
useful and convenient. There are I know that part of Brooklyn,
you know, the RockA waste there are parish church is
located there precisely so that people go to Mass before
(39:55):
they go to the beach. You know, I was a
military chap I celebrate Mass in the field. That's one thing.
We don't have chapels, you know, out in the field,
but you have a church right there. Mass is sacred
the house of God. You know, we're kind of you know,
after the Council, we got away from this idea of
the church as the house of God and we got
into like worship space and multi purpose areas. So the
(40:19):
house of God is profound, it's the it's you know,
the Temple of God in Heaven is incarnated in a
certain way in the church building. So you know, we
enter into the church. It's a cruciform building. It has
a whole structure and order. Everything communicates to us. We've
entered into the sacred anti chamber of heaven. Why would
you have a mass people in bathing suits and flip
(40:42):
flops when you have a church right across the street.
I'm not in favor of this.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, Bob, Nothing says soecrlity like thongs and speedos at
your mass service. Go ahead, Bob, I'll give you the
last word if you can find one after that.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
I'm afraid I've become corrupt myself because I looked at
the pictures and I said to myself, well, at least
they're at mass.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
The Father is right.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
I mean, if you've got church buildings nearby, and basically
what you're doing is you're celebrating the sacred mysteries in
a place where you know, five minutes later, people are
going to be throwing beach balls around, They're going to
be swimming, they're going to be you know, God knows
doing what in beaches these days, probably half naked, maybe
entirely naked in America these days. It's just it's there's
(41:28):
there's just a clash of sensibilities about this. So look,
it's good to meet people where they are, but maybe
you should meet them and provide a van and take
them down to the parish and then bring them back.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
To You don't even have to. There's literally a church
right there.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
As Father was saying that it's on the beach, the
church is on the beach.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yep, well there it is, Raymond. Are you know the
fathers from the in the past of the church knew
what they were doing. Uh, you know, you build a
church in the neighborhood, including a beach area. So people
go to mass. You don't send the pre down to
the sand and say celebrate Mass here.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, well we will leave it there. Posse.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
I thank you for the time, and if you want
more of the Arroyo Grande Prayerful Posse, subscribe to The
Royal Grande Show on YouTube for our podcast wherever you
get your podcast on behalf of Robert Royal, Father Gerald Murray.
Until the Posse rides again, Stay the course, follow the light.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I'm raining at Arroyo. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and
is available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Pope Leo overrules a ban on the traditional Latin Mass
in an American parish.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Will this become a trend?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
And why is a priest convicted of possessing child pornography
working in the Vatican. The Prayerful Posse will explore it all.
Welcome to this Arroyo Grande series, The Prayerful Posse.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Let's convene in the Posse.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Joining me now, Father Gerald Murray Cannon, lawyer of the
Archdiocese of New York, and Robert Royal, editor in chief
of The Catholic Thing.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm Raymond Arroyo.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
There was a big story on the liturgy front gents
all across the world. The traditional Latin Mass is being
banned thrown from parishes following Pope Francis's crackdown.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But Pope Leo may be.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Offering the traditional mass community a lifeline. Don't forget to
subscribe to the Royal Grande Show to our channel on YouTube,
on iHeart, Apple, Spotify area, wherever you get your podcasts.
We don't want you to miss an episode of the Posse. Okay,
I want to get back to that unexpected development in
this ongoing war on the traditional Latin Mass. Pope Leo
(01:09):
the fourteenth himself has approved an exemption to the ban
on the ancient right for one parish in the Diocese
of San Angelo, Texas. Saint Margaret of Scotland Parish applied
for an exemption from Pope Francis's draconian limits on the
celebration of the Old Rite back in February will On
(01:30):
May twenty eighth, their petition was granted with Pope Leo's approval. Father,
why do you think Pope Leo granted this exemption to
this one parish himself.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I think this is a good sign. It means that
the bishop of that diocese requested it, because that's where
the initiatives started, and that was always a possibility under
Pope Francis to have parishes celebrate the Mass, but they
were commonly either the bishop didn't want to ask for
it or the vatic and said no or said yes
for a year or two. So this is a good
sign because it means that Pope Leo is cognizant that
(02:07):
people want to go to the Latin Mass, want to
do so like everybody else in a parish church. They
don't want to have to go to a convent or
a chapel or some outward place.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So this is good.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm very happy, Okay, Bob, Does this indicate an openness
to a restoration of what Pope Benedict had? And remember,
just to remind those who may not be as familiar,
Pope Benedict the two popes removed from now before he
approved the traditional Latin Mass. Any priest could say it
anywhere in the world, and it kind of brought a
(02:37):
close to a long period of liturgical tumult. This was
and it was peaceful for a long time. Might Pope
Leo be moving back to something like that? Could this
be the start of a trend?
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Well, I hope so. I mean, I think we all
would like to have seen him come out swinging and
really just reverse this and say, you know, on second thought,
and maybe this will happen at some point. The limitations
placed on the traditional Latin Mass almost to the point
of abolishing it just to produce too much pain, and
as they found out in the survey of the bishops,
(03:11):
a lot of bishops thought it would.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Produce more harm than good.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I think we want to go slow here, though I
know people get frustrated. I myself am frustrated. Trying to
figure out where we're going, because Leo strikes me as
a person who is not a kind of a revolutionary guy.
He likes kind of smooth transitions. He seems to have
a very pleasant personality. He may be the type of
guy who in dribs and drabs, gives us bits in
(03:36):
piece of this here and there, and sooner or later
if that continues, and I don't see any reason why
it shouldn't you get to the point where whatever the
actual rules were in effect. Now the Latin Mass has
been approved in a variety of places. So good for
a step, but we want to see some other steps
rather quickly, because clearly there's been an injustice done here.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, Father, as you mentioned Bishop Michael Siss who is
the Bishop of sant Angelo. He requested that exemption from
Pope Francis's man and the local parish priest posted this
tweet thanking the Vatican for the permission.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
The curious thing is here.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That permission is only for two years, father, which I
frankly don't understand. This is a validlicit right, and Father
Freddie Perez says the attendees in his parish are mostly
young families and it's the most heavily attended Mass in
his parish. What about the other traditional Catholics facing exile
from their parish as father, why only make this exemption
(04:36):
for one parish?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, I mean this is where the next step is.
You know, Catholics in Detroit, for instance, and now write
to their bishop and say, could you make a similar
application because the Mass was reduced from I believe twenty
eight parishes to four. And you know, wait a minute,
you just disrupted the life and prayer of twenty eight
different Catholic communities. No, the two year limit reflects what
(05:01):
Pope Francis had written in his letter when he set
up traditsionis custodies. He said that eventually everybody will have
to return to the new Mass. So the idea was
we'll tolerated for a few years, but you know that's
just kind of a runway to your acceptance, and eventually
this plane is going to land there be no more
Latin masses. Pope Leo has to really change that mentality. Look,
(05:24):
we respect the legitimacy and value of the traditional Latin Mass,
and the people who go to it deserve also to
be respected.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, that weaning people away and thinking that two years
is going to do it is kind of silly. I mean,
and you see, you see after those first exemptions expired,
they're asking for another exemption. This law needs to go
Tradizionist custodis, which was the document, the Modo approprio that
Pope Francis passed. It really does need to go away.
And you know, guys, someone reminded me this week. They
(05:54):
sent me something that Mother Angelica told me during an
interview for her biography. I think it really speaks to
wear those young people and even those who are not
part of the Catholic faith. They come to the Latin
Mass because they're looking for something. Here's what she said.
During the Latin Mass, you had the missile. If you
wanted to follow it in English, it was almost mystical.
(06:18):
It gave you an awareness of heaven, of the awesome
humility of God, who manifests himself in the guise of
bread and wine. The love that he had for us,
his desire to remain with us, is simply awesome. You
could concentrate on that love because you weren't distracted by
your own language. You could go anywhere in the world
and you always knew what.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Was going on.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It was contemplative because as the Mass was going on,
you could close your eyes and visualize what really happened.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You could feel it, Bob.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I think that's how a lot of people feel when
they attend the traditional Roman rte. These are not people,
by the way, who grew up or have a nostalgic
trip or you know, are holding on to something. People
are encounjuring the old Mass for the first time.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, I'm always surprised at people who turn away from
the Latin Mass because they consider it old. I did
grow up on your Latin Mass as a Walter book.
Actually remember I memorized all the responses so that I
could get to do weddings and funerals and just be
at the regular Mass and get out of school. Mostly
why we were all motivated back in those days. But
(07:25):
you know, for me, and I've stayed, I have retained
the love for Latin my whole life as a result
of that exposure. To me, it takes us way back
into the beginnings of the church. And I've said this
many times on this show. But in a time when
we all feel at sea, and especially when young people
are looking for an anchor to something. What better could
you have. Greek is a great language too, but we're
(07:49):
not going to all begin to learn a new alphabet
and whatnot. And there are a lot of Latin words
that overlap with our English words, and so this is
this is something that we have that is present, it's approachable,
clearly having an energizing effect on Catholics today, young Catholics today.
I don't see what the major downside is. I think
that the big difficulty for Leo is going to be
(08:10):
negotiating a personal problem, and that is that on the
one hand, he was very close with Francis. He wants
to respect the legacy of Francis, and that's his right
to do. But on the other hand, he's faced with
what clearly is an error and something that.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Needs to be corrected.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
So I think that's the drama. We're not going to
see a place.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
You know, as Bob said that Father, I'm mindful of
Mother Angelica, who was broadcasting the Mass from her own
convent and they put cameras in which he built her
new shrine, and they were doing the Mass out Orientum
facing east. Now it was the New Right, but it
was in Latin, and you had the priest facing east,
facing away from the people, or rather praying with the people.
(08:52):
My question is this, the bishop said they could no
longer broadcast that, and DEDWT does not broadcast that mass
any longer because they didn't want to acclimate people to
that form of reverence sacred worship. Frankly, I think it's
the most abysmal thing they've ever done as far as
television production is concerned. Not that the bishops have a
great track record, but your thoughts on this bias against
(09:17):
the traditional Roman Latin foundation upon which the new Mass rests.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, that's manifested when you forbid oud orientum, which is
mass facing toward the crucifix, the tabernacle korum Deo's another.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Way we talk about it.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
You're facing toward the east because you're looking toward the
returning Messiah on the second coming. So that really is
Cardinal Sarah said that if you really want to make
the new Mass a more reverent experience, celebrate the mass
oudo orientum, not facing the people, because the sacrificial aspect
comes forward. Now, we had a couple of bishops recently
(09:54):
others in the past forbid the new mass oud orientum
in their diocese. Well, about ten days ago, Pope Leo
celebrated Mass out orientum in the chapel of the Carabinieri,
which are the Italian police who guard Castle Gondolfo, and
he did that publicly. It's a public mass, so there
(10:15):
can't be any private The pope is the model of
the liturgy celebrated for the rest of the Roman Church.
So if the Pope does it out orientum, everybody else can.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So I hope.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Bishops will withdraw those imprudent decisions they've made. But then
let's get back to your question, which is foundations. You know,
remember the Lord said, you know, don't build on sand,
build on We've got to know where we came from
in order to know how we can go somewhere, you know,
in the future. And we came from a tradition of
worship which is grounded in the Old Testament Temple, It's
(10:45):
grounded of course in our saviors, the Last Supper, in
the Crucifixion, and then the practice of the Early Church,
which kind of brought it all together. So to say
that after nineteen sixty five nothing from the Old can
be kept. That's one reason why young peopeople were saying, no,
let me dip into that and find out what's going on.
And once they do, they say, this is where.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I want to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
No. And when I see these young people packing in,
they all have that same spirit and wonder that Mother
Angelica had when she went to the Mass, and she
did approach it almost with a childlike wonder. You know,
she was in awe of the of the entire experience,
and she just thought the vernacular brought that other worldliness,
that supernatural quality, that mysticism down a notch or two,
(11:28):
and ended up preferring the other form of the Mass,
which is reverent, beautiful and attractive. Obviously, or people wouldn't
be coming in such vast numbers. Anyway, there's a kind
of disturbing story. I almost hated to get to this,
but I think we should address it. A former official
at the Vatican Secretariat of State returned to work this
(11:49):
week after serving a five year prison sentence for possession
of child pornography.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Whither Carlo Cappella is his name.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
His criminal charges originated in twenty seventeen. The priest of
the Archdiocese of Milan had been stationed in the Apostolic
Nunciature in DC.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That's the Vatican's embassy in the.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
United States in Washington, headed by Cardinal Christophe Pierre. Now,
in twenty eighteen, Capella was convicted by a Vatican court
for possession and distribution of child pornography, with the aggravating
circumstance of its large quantity that was in the prosecution Bob.
Both the US and Canada wanted to prosecute this priest.
(12:33):
The Canadians had a warrant out for his arrest after
he downloaded child porn in Ontario during a visit. I
guess the Vatican refused to waive the diplomatic immunity and
he fled to the Vatican.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
What's going on here?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, I'm sorry to say that. I think this is
just another example of what I would call misplaced mercy.
You know, certainly we want to be merciful. He seems
to have been very repentant, but that's not enough in
a case like this, where as you rightly say, man
arrest warrants are issued because he's not only had downloaded,
but he was distributing whatever that.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Now.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
I tried to look into this and apparently he puts
some images up on is it called Tumblr, which maybe
a gay Exchange its online site.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It's it's like an Instagram Instagram types.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
But but look this that this offense, which clearly is
a grave evil. I mean, he was reduced from being
a mon senior to a priest. Maybe Father Murray, as
a cannonist, would like to talk to why he wasn't
removed from the priesthood. I mean, I know personally priests
who were removed for just the slightest accusation of things
that they were even later exonerated from and were removed
(13:45):
from ministry worked in menial jobs out in the secular world.
And this man, apparently, even while he was in prison
in the Vatican for five years, was working with the
Secretariat of State and then gets put back in a
job secretly in a way, it's just an other of
these examples where certain people who are close to influential
figures in the Vatican kind of get a half pass,
(14:07):
while in the rest of the world, if a priest
were guilty of that, he would be in deep, deep trouble.
Even the Vatican said he couldn't go back to a
parish or to a diocese. So what does that tell
us about the way that they dealt with it?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, father.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
This is to me, it's scandalous. I mean, he's at
work at the Vatican Secretariat of State. As Bob mentioned,
he served five years in a Vatican jail, and an
official at the Secretariat of State told Pillar, I'll read this.
It was clearly presented as an act of mercy. The
intention was that this man, who had not been laisized
(14:41):
but clearly could not return to his diocese or serve
in a parish, could collaborate in the office and remain
in the Vatican, where he is effectively secluded but without
a formal office. Your thoughts on this, Murphy, Yeah, given
the grave nature, the crime's here fault all.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Right, had a lot to say on this. Let's start this.
Let's say if he wasn't a Vatican official priest, Let's
say he was a Swiss guard.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Bob's read that.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Let's say he was a Swiss guard and he was
assigned to a nunsituer overseas and he was looking at
child pornography. Would he be left into the Swiss Guard?
Would he be given duties of protecting priests in the back,
of course not, He'd be removed. He's untrustworthy. You don't
put police enforcement in the hands of criminals. Why is
it that a criminal priest is allowed to stay working
as a priest at all, let alone in the Vatican
(15:30):
where he's occupying an important role which he of course
is involved in decision making and analysis and advice regarding
other priests and their behavior. This is absurd. This man
is obviously unqualified to be a shepherd of So let's
say he had been, this had happened when he was
a seminarian and he caught him with Would they ever
overordained him and said, I'm sorry, you can't work in parish.
(15:52):
Was going to send you the Vatican Secretary of States,
you can work as a paper pusher. It's absurd, It's
all wrong.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Bob is right.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
This is misplaced mercy. There is no mercy when you
signal to your institution that you can view child pornography
and stay on the job.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
No mercy in that.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, And just so people know, and I'm not going
to get into it. This is a family show. I
don't want to get the scandalis but these are the
reports are that these are images and videos of adults
interacting with these children. Okay, it's not just pictures of
the children it's graphic, horrible, evil stuff. And father, I
guess the reason they can't they have to keep them
(16:29):
in the walls of the Vatican is because you've got
the United States and Canada that want to prosecute him
because he broke laws in those countries.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So they're not keep him there.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Well, maybe he should be sweeping, you know, he should
be clipping the hedges in the Vatican garden or something.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
He shouldn't be working.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
He shouldn't be a priest. And secondly, he had diplomatic
community in America because he was a diplomatic I don't
know if he had diplomatic union in Canada because he
was visiting there as a tourist. Unless he was sent
there and there was in the arrangement, the Canadian garnment
he could work in the end. I don't think that's
what happened. So, yeah, the Vatican should have been upright.
Remember we've said during the child abuse saying bishops most
cooperate with secular authorities in the pursuit of justice. Well,
(17:07):
the Vatican's not cooperating with the Canadians. Yeah, send him
back to Ottawa, but remove him from the priestood first,
because he doesn't deserve to be a priest, and he
himself should recognize if he's truly repentant, he should say yes,
I understand, I can't be a shepherd of souls in
the future because I betrayed the trust. My goodness. If
a policeman shoots a criminal in committing a crime, they
(17:27):
take away his gun sometimes so they can investigate. This
man can still be a priest after he's pleaded, you know,
was found guilty. And this is false mercy.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, no, it's a sick story.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
But I have to say, we have to say in
full candor, this is sort of the pattern that we
saw under Pope Francis. In this case largely happened in
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
This is when Pope Francis was running.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
A show, and he did show an inordinate mercy to
these people who were I don't even know how to
put it sexual degenerates. I guess the best way to
put it, the kindest way to put it. Let's hope
justice prevails here. It's awful, I mean, just to propagate
that kind of material and to plant those seeds in
people's minds at hearts and souls. It's deeply wicked and
(18:15):
of course an abuse of the innocent children involved. Let's
turn to the Middle East, because I can't stand discussing
that story anymore. Pope Leo continues to speak out on
the violence there. On Sunday, he condemned what he called
the barbarity of the war in Gaza and the indiscriminate
use of force, as Gaza's Civil Defense agency said at
least ninety three Palestinians had been killed. Now, Israeli Prime
(18:39):
Minister Benjamin yet Yahu he got on the phone with
Popolo on July eighteenth after an Israeli tank struck the
only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people. Now, according
to the Prime Minister, he said, Israel deeply regrets that
a stray ammunition hit Gaza's Holy Family Church.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
That was the statement.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abas called Pope Leo on July twenty
first to discuss the war and the violence in the
West Bank in the wake of the shelling. On July
twenty at this is important, Cardinal Pierre Battista Pizza Bala,
who is the Latin Patriarch, celebrated Mass at Holy Family Church,
reminding parishioners. They've not been forgotten. Bob, give me your
(19:24):
gut on this. I mean, Gaza has been leveled. You
look at the pictures, there's really nothing. The church is
the only thing standing. The entire complex is bombed. The
neighborhood's gone. Do you believe this was a straight tank
shell and the Pope just renewed his call for a ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
How effective will that be?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Well, at that latter point is very difficult to say,
because the Israelis are they're really pursuing hard violence against
Hamas in Gaza and against Cosins in general. I'm a
little skeptical of this, as cardinal piece of Bala is
that this was just a mistake. I mean, there are
mistakes during the fog of war. But as Pizza Bala
(20:04):
rightly pointed out, it's pretty easy to identify a church.
It's got a cross on it, it's in a certain way.
They must have known what that area was. And generally
I'm on the side of Israel, but there has been
a significant amount of Israeli Jewish Israeli pressure against Christians
and killing of Christians, driving them off lands. I talk
(20:25):
about this actually in my book about my new book
about Martyrs and Persecution in the twenty first century, that
in Israel there has been even within the Jewish controlled territories,
some pressure put on the Church. So I don't know
what to make about this, but I can say this,
I know an awful lot of people who like me,
are basically on the side of Israel, who are starting
to come around to the view that, look, it's not
(20:46):
our decision to make, but it's probably getting to that
point where the war has achieved what it can achieve.
We stop the fighting at this point and then go
on to deal with whatever is there in the end.
And frankly, as you rightly say, Raymond, there's not much
it's left there at this point.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
No, it's gravel.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I mean, the police has been reduced to gravel and
look hostages. Obviously, those hostages should have been released long ago.
That should have been the condition for the ceasefire. For
whatever reason that everybody decided both sides are wanting to
continue this thing. I know if I were Hamas, I
would have released these hostages and tried to get everybody
(21:22):
to come to the table. But Father Cardinal Pittsaballa visited
Gaza with Orthodox leaders and he said, this war has
to end.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Even Trump. President Trump was.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Furious with net Yahoo when he saw the church had
been hit and it was just a facade of the church.
The body of the church is intact. But this Christian
community is really under attack from all sides.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Yeah, it's i you know, not the Israeli army has
to be super careful and not attacking religious sites which
are obviously not being used for war purposes. And it's
well known that Catholic Church is famous, the priests there
is well known. In fact, he was wounded in the attack, So,
you know, very regrettable. But you know, the hostages that
(22:04):
headlines never lead with. While the hostage crisis continues, the
Israeli army continues to seek the freedom, those are never
the headline. The headlines are always people dying in Gaza.
The people dying in Gaza because Hamas killed one thousand,
seven hundred Jews on October the seventh and refuses to
release the hostages they took. And this is it's always forgotten.
(22:27):
It varies. I regret to see the loss of life,
but you know, civilian casualties occur when you declare war
on another country in an illegal manner. As they did
with the massacres, and then expect that the opponents, the
Israelis are going to you know, do surgical strikes only well,
sometimes you hit a building and there are people in
it beside the terrorists. That's on the terrorists.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So I don't like war.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
It's war is not good, but you got to fight
back when you're under threat, and that's what the Israelis
have done.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
You know, look, I also I am very cognizant of it.
I know you all are of the Christians caught in
the middle of this thing because they're neither Hamas supporters,
nor are they you know with Israel. They're they're people
in between, and they remain in our prayers. And I
think that's why Pitts and Balla is walking this firewalk
trying to figure out how do I, how do I
represent these people? How do I keep all sides together?
(23:19):
And that is very difficult, but look, our prayers go
out to all of them, particularly that beleaguered Christian community.
But yeah, you've got to everybody's got to want peace.
And I don't know why Hamas keeps digging in. You know,
obviously Israel wants to you know, they want to drive
Hamas out. But the question is what do you do
with all these Palestinian people? Where do they go? The
(23:42):
Egypt doesn't want them, Jordan doesn't want them. They are
they to live in sea colonies. I don't know what
you do with all those people. So that's another question,
but we'll move on. Did you see this bizarre story
in the Archdiocese in Seminary of Denver. We missed this
during our hiatus last week. A so called blood ritual
involving fifteen seminarians and the vice rector of the seminary
(24:05):
took place during a ski trip. Now the video just surfaced,
but it was from January of twenty twenty four. The
incident also involved someone dressed in a Yeti costume. This
odd blood oath ceremony was captured on video. Father the
Archdiocese of Denver has referred to this incident as a
prank and the individual responsible has been removed from seminary leadership,
(24:28):
but the vice rector remains on the faculty as a professor,
and earlier this year in March, the rector of the
seminary was removed from mishandling this affair. Inexplicably, this ritual
apparently occurred not once, but twice. A seminary who actually
refused to participate was placed on sabbatical.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I don't even know where to begin with this. Father.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
They say it was a prank, and the guy dresses
up as the Eddy in the ski cabin he owns,
which probably requires its own investigation. But your thoughts is,
isn't appropriate prank for seminarians?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Well, in the category of pranks, you have to say,
is this an appropriate prank? Obviously not. It's crazed. This
priest vice rector was staying brought the seminaries of the
home of a friend of his, and the friend dresses
up in this animal costume and then they have a
knife and they tell the seminy you got to come here,
(25:22):
cut your arm, lead, swear, don't tell any This is insane.
This is like a horror movie being done to kind
of like, I don't know what the purpose was, but
what does it reveal? It reveals disorder in that seminary
of the highest degree. Why in the world is a
vice rector thinking this is an appropriate way to deal
(25:44):
with seminarians? And then secondly, why was he kept on
the faculty of the seminary after doing this, this is insane.
Let's okay we take it out of context. Let's say
the seminarians' families instead of the seminarians, have been invited
to this retreat, and then the vice rector says to them, well,
as a sin as solid area with your seminary brother,
(26:04):
you got to cut your arm and we're going to
make us wear a blood oath. Everybody would have been
the priest would have been thrown out of the seminary.
The bishop would have said, this is insane. We don't
treat late people like this. But then you reduce it
to a mere prank and keep the guy on bad judgment,
I'm sad to say by the people in the Diocese
of Denver.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, the father, as you were talking, I'm thinking maybe
it's a new horror franchise. I know what you did
last winter. That's what little It's a blood oath, now, Bob.
The archidiocees apparently did an investigation. They determined there was
no actual oath or blood. You know, they brought out
props and fake blood and stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But can't they go to a movie or bowling? What
are they twelve? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (26:49):
When I saw this, other than the immediate horror. What
you're seeing there, I said to myself, even if this
was a fraternity on some wild college campus, would been
a crazy thing to do with his blood, oath and
yetties and whatnot. Look, I'm not given to, i hope,
extreme judgments about things like this, but there's a whiff
(27:12):
of the demonic in this in my estimation, and I'm
not close to it. But it just seems to me
that this is the kind of thing that seems to
be tending in a direction that is pretty worrisome. If
it had been you know, not blood and not this
bizarre being, and maybe it was something else that they were,
it was kind of hazing. Maybe you could say, well
(27:33):
it was it was a misjudgment, But it seems to
me to go beyond that, that it's got the elements
of that horror and that that kind of that kind
of witchery and the demonic that we see is beginning
to take over the culture in a variety of ways.
So I just don't like it. It just seems to
me that everyone involved from this, from this we looked
(27:54):
at very carefully. I think they should be out of
that seminary, but I think they should all be looked
at very carefully and kept tabs on because there is
some let's say, dark spirit operation after there.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Raymond, I gotta, I gotta throw this in, Raymond. Why
is this priest filming this? Why is this being filmed
a prank? Is this a prank? Exactly? No, he's he's
he's doing something knowledge with four, knowledge of what he
wants to do. He wants to keep a record of
it and use it somewhere in the future. This guy
should have nothing to do with Seminary Formation.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, unless Lorrain and Ed Warren are in the adjoining
ski lodge, don't go near this.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
To God, this is it's just bizarre. Look.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I could understand if you've got a group of seminarians
and you all are talking and a guy with a
Yeti suit walks by the window. Okay, it's a lot
of fun. Everybody jumps up and it's a scare. But
this is like a ritual and the guy came in
and you swear an oath to the Yetie. It's crazy.
It's just bizarre, so very inventive. You know, paganism on
display here.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
But Father.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
A few weeks ago, we talked about Pope Leo's reforms.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I had to. I want to get to this.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Archbishop of Westminster in the UK, Vincent Nichols says this
week he believes Pope Leo will announce new curial reforms
in the fall. That would be reformation of the working
bureaucracy at the Vatican. And this is part of the
reason he was elected, Nichols says, because he has intimate
(29:22):
knowledge of the Church's governance from an insider's perspective.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
What do you make of this?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
You know, I don't know that Cardinal Nichols has a
crystal ball, meaning he has the ability to see into
the future. I don't know, you know, reforms. Does he
mean structural and canonical reforms that he's going to change
things according to law? Does he mean new appointments. Does
he mean simply new policies as regards you know, some
hot button issues, including finance. I really don't know. I
(29:48):
think we you know, we're in that interim period between
the election of the pope.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
He really takes up.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
The governance, you know, with clear indications of what he
wants to do. So I don't really know what to
make of this prediction.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, Bob, the pope it was just announced that the
Pope's going to extend his stay at Costal Gondolfo, which
is the papal summer house. That tells me he's planning
for the fall and winter, which is probably going to
be very robust. But what might courial reforms look like.
Pope Francis just did a whole overhaul of these corial offices,
(30:20):
appointing a slew of people and allegedly streamlining.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I mean, we were kind of critical of those.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Reforms, but what might this look like? What's needed in
your estimation?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Well, to begin with Cardinal Nichols saying that he's going
to continue with these reforms at frances putting in place.
I don't know that he can know that. It just
seems to me that it's one of the common principles
of kind of political philosophy that a person learns responsibility
when they are actually in an office. And so the Pope, sure,
(30:54):
he's been around the administration of the Vatican for quite
a while, but there's a difference between observed what other
people are doing and maybe only seeing part of it,
and then being the boss and having to make decisions
about what's going to happen, and clearly what he's going
to have to do. Is he's going to have to
deal with We've said this before, but is the financial
reforms because the Vatican is in serious financial trouble at
(31:16):
this point. And then there are the ongoing sexual reforms
like the ones that we were just talking about with
this priest with the child pornography. So what that's going
to mean in terms of the structure of the way
things are going. I mean, we see these stories that
worry me a bit because it looks like Dei within
the church where he's talking about a broader participation of
(31:39):
people from around the world and more women in positions.
And look, in principle, there's nothing wrong with that as
long as we're at the end of the day, what
we're getting are the best people in the jobs. But
when we start to use those categories that are very
familiar to us from politics that have led to a
lot of difficulty in every place, from government to universities
(32:01):
to the workplace, I want to see competence in the Vatican. Again,
we had a very competent economic reform with Cardinal pell
he was thrown out. There are other things that can
be done about the sexual abuse. This is going to
really have to cut deep into some parts of the Vatican.
And there may be structural reforms that are advisable too,
(32:22):
but the writing is on the wall and cosmetic changes
are not going to be enough any longer. Leo is
going to really have to dig deep if we want
to rescue the Vatican from the status that, in spite
of many attempts at reform, haven't been able to produce
for much activity.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Bob, very quickly.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
You sent a piece this week that my hair started
standing up on edge and there's not much to stand up.
But I was looking at this on YouTube and it
allegedly told of reforms that the Pope was making, and
it cited these documents. Of course, the documents don't exist.
It's obvious clickbait to get, you know. So I'm not
giving them any promotion here. But what's the danger of
(33:01):
this kind of AI generated misinformation online?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Yeah, we have been saying for decades that people have
misinterpreted Vatican too, and we're very upset about what the
things that they've done in contradistinction to what the accural
documents of Vatican two actually say. But the other day,
I'm in my home office today and my wife walked
in here and she said to me, the Pope just
passed fifteen regulations that are going to revolutionize the church.
(33:29):
And I said it something possible. She said, no, it's
an online Come look. So she took me in the
other room and we looked at it together, and I said, okay,
look and we went to some reliable sources Catholic News Agency, EWTN,
Catholic Register. You know, these are the good news agencies,
commentary and opinion or a different story. But if they're
going to be obviously a reliable, confirmable changes in the church,
(33:53):
we're going to see them there. So I think we've
got to tell everybody who's interested in what goes on
in the Catholic Church, whether you're Catholic or not, to
be very very careful because AI has now given people
who are troublemakers tools to make a lot of trouble
and to misrepresent what even the highest authorities in the
church you're doing it. We may even see videos like.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Right, well this is a father.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
This is why when people tell me, you know, you
all should do AI versions of yourselves and just put
that show up. No, no, no, we're trusted, because we're
not AI. You know, and I think people like us
are more important now than perhaps ever before because of it.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Go Aheadah No.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
There was somebody produced an AI version of Pope Leo
discussing who was better Lebron James or Michael Jordan, and.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
It was very What was the answer for he was.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
He was arguing for Jordan because he's a Chicago plot
But you know, but I watched it and I'm saying,
wait a minute, that's the Pope talking. But he couldn't
possibly know all these statistics. And then it was all
it was fake. It was a fake story, but they
were all out there. So no, yeah, the trusted source,
that's what you gotta go to.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, quickly, I want to get through a couple of
things here. Attacks and desecrations on Catholic churches in particular,
but a bunch of churches are continuing at an alarming rate.
On the twelfth and thirteenth of July, the church of
Saint Germain in France was the target of desecration. Piles
of feces were found at the entrance and inside the church,
(35:26):
including the floor around the altar and beneath the altar
cloth that had been torn off. Urine was found on
the sacristy floor. The parish priests discovered the scene on
Sunday morning, and this is not the first time that
this particular church has been vandalized.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
In the Archdiocese of Pittsburgh, the FBI is investigating vandalism
at Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Allegheny County. Anti
Catholic and anti Semitic graffiti was discovered on a statue
of the Virgin Mary, a plaque on the bell tower,
and the door of a former convent father.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
What do you make of the rise we're seeing in
these cases?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
What's driving this, particularly these anti Catholic and anti Christian attacks.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Well, for me, it's a manifestation of the hostility that
the church has had throughout our history, and sad to say,
in France, that's often propelled by Islamic immigrants, in other words,
Muslims who are anti Catholic and not afraid of you
risking getting arrested. And a lot of churches have burned
in France. There was the murder of that priest in
northern France while he was celebrating Mass. Now there's this incident,
(36:31):
you know, it's just an endless series, and the French
government has to put more effort into suppressing this. And
in our own country there isn't that same level of hostility.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
By most.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
We don't have a Muslim desecration problem here by large,
but we do have occasional incidents. I don't know what
the incident in Pittsburgh, a diasis was, but what, however
did it arrested and jailed? I mean, that's what we
need to.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Do, Yeah, Bob.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
According to the u CCB, I'm looking this up, at
least three hundred and eighty seven incidents of vandalism and
desecration have occurred across forty three states and the District
of Columbia since May of twenty twenty. What do you
think is propelling this?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
What is this?
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Well, some of it is just satanic, I think, and
to use that term again the last chapter in my
book on Modern Persecution. I'm not trying to blow my
own horn, but I happen to know these statistics because
I have a final chapter in there about precisely this. Yeah,
both the United States and Canada, we're not immune from
this in North America. And Father's right, isn't It doesn't
(37:37):
seem to be primarily driven by by the kind of
Muslim anti Christian class that has existed throughout history since
Islam was founded. Here, it's more a kind of a desecration,
that kind of bubbling anti Christianity below the surface. It
looks at Christianity is something evil that preached hate against
gays and repressed women and you know, all that sort
(38:00):
of thing. So, yeah, the bishops did a survey and
over that four years there were almost four hundred instances
of our sin and vandalism, et cetera. You know. By contrast, France,
I have this in my book too. France loses loses
two religious buildings per month, and to their credit, the
French government has actually put in several million euros trying
(38:22):
to prevent these things. But the problem is so widespread
and the areas that they have to protect because France
obviously was a deeply Christian country, Catholic country at one point,
it makes it hard for them, the police all of it.
In fact, there was a story I excited in my
book that there was a Muslim group that was going
to try to burn down Notre Dame again shortly after
(38:43):
it was going to be reopened. After that horrible fire,
So you can just imagine the kind of challenges and
the forces of order in a place like France are
dealing with.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, I got to go to something, and we're going
to end on this, and I don't know if this
is a happy topic or a sad one.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
I'm gonna give you a crack.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Fox News is reporting e WT and did a report
on this, celebrating popular beach town brings Sunday mass to
shore for faithful. That's the Fox News headline, and it's
in all. It's a long island and three parishes are
hosting masses on the beach.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Your reaction to this, I.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Mean, I do, frankly don't know what that is to celebrate.
I thought we were forbidden to get married on the
beaches and at resorts because you do sacred things in
sacred spaces.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
What's the story.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Well, I think, unfortunately, this is a desperate attempt to say,
to become relevant, we have to, you know, do things
that people are going to find, you know, entertaining and
useful and convenient. There are I know that part of Brooklyn,
you know, the RockA waste there are parish church is
located there precisely so that people go to Mass before
(39:55):
they go to the beach. You know, I was a
military chap I celebrate Mass in the field. That's one thing.
We don't have chapels, you know, out in the field,
but you have a church right there. Mass is sacred
the house of God. You know, we're kind of you know,
after the Council, we got away from this idea of
the church as the house of God and we got
into like worship space and multi purpose areas. So the
(40:19):
house of God is profound, it's the it's you know,
the Temple of God in Heaven is incarnated in a
certain way in the church building. So you know, we
enter into the church. It's a cruciform building. It has
a whole structure and order. Everything communicates to us. We've
entered into the sacred anti chamber of heaven. Why would
you have a mass people in bathing suits and flip
(40:42):
flops when you have a church right across the street.
I'm not in favor of this.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, Bob, Nothing says soecrlity like thongs and speedos at
your mass service. Go ahead, Bob, I'll give you the
last word if you can find one after that.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
I'm afraid I've become corrupt myself because I looked at
the pictures and I said to myself, well, at least
they're at mass.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
The Father is right.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
I mean, if you've got church buildings nearby, and basically
what you're doing is you're celebrating the sacred mysteries in
a place where you know, five minutes later, people are
going to be throwing beach balls around, They're going to
be swimming, they're going to be you know, God knows
doing what in beaches these days, probably half naked, maybe
entirely naked in America these days. It's just it's there's
(41:28):
there's just a clash of sensibilities about this. So look,
it's good to meet people where they are, but maybe
you should meet them and provide a van and take
them down to the parish and then bring them back.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
To You don't even have to. There's literally a church
right there.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
As Father was saying that it's on the beach, the
church is on the beach.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yep, well there it is, Raymond. Are you know the
fathers from the in the past of the church knew
what they were doing. Uh, you know, you build a
church in the neighborhood, including a beach area. So people
go to mass. You don't send the pre down to
the sand and say celebrate Mass here.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, well we will leave it there. Posse.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
I thank you for the time, and if you want
more of the Arroyo Grande Prayerful Posse, subscribe to The
Royal Grande Show on YouTube for our podcast wherever you
get your podcast on behalf of Robert Royal, Father Gerald Murray.
Until the Posse rides again, Stay the course, follow the light.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I'm raining at Arroyo. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and
is available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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