Episode 289: Andrew Mioni on the Catholic Traditionalist Movement (July 24, 2024)

On this episode of The Open Door (July 24), panelists Jim Hanink, Valerie Niemeyer, and Christopher Zehnder discuss the Catholic traditionalist movement. Our special focus will be “independent” traditionalists. How do they differ from other traditionalists? What leads them to “LeFebvreism”? What can we learn from the ongoing debate about the movement’s role in the Church? Our welcome guest is Andrew Mioni. He is a graduate of Kansas State University, with a B.A. in English. As a contributor to Faith in Crisis (Wipf and Stock, 2024), he explores the roots of what some see as a crisis of faith in Catholicism. Mioni is the author of Altar Against Altar: An Analysis of Catholic Traditionalism (En Route Books, 2024).

1. For clarification: What is the difference between the SSPX, the Society of St. Pius X initiated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and the FSSP, the Fraternal Society of Saint Peter?
2. How do you understand the word “ideology”?
3. Who are the sedevacantists?
4. How has George Weigel, a St. John Paul II scholar and frequent contributor to First Things, helped you to put the traditionalist movement in a broader context?
5. Richard John Neuhaus, once a Lutheran, thought that the chief complaints of the Reformation had been answered. You ask the “independents” what would count as the crisis in Catholicism being resolved. What sort of an answer should we expect?
6. Why do you think that “To be deep in history is to cease to be traditionalist”?
7. Just what is modernism? How is it linked to a certain view of reason?
8. To what do you attribute a crisis of faith dating back well before Vatican II?
9. What is the authority of the ordinary magisterium of the Church? Does Vatican II express that authority?
10. Could you explain the “functionalist” approach to spirituality and the liturgy?
11. How have the lessons you learned in authoring your book carried over into your own parish life?
12. What’s your next book project?

Altar Against Altar: An Analysis of Catholic Traditionalism by Andrew Mioni | En Route Books and Media

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio, you'llhome for authentic Catholic programming. Please join
us at the Open Door. Wediscuss solidarity, subsidiarity, economic democracy,
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(00:22):
interwoven, so we care deeply abouteducation and the arts. Our questions often
lead us to report on the projectsand promise of the American Solidarity Party.
Welcome to the Open Door. JimHannick here with fellow panelists Valery Niemeyer and

(00:44):
Christopher Zender. Today we'll be talkingabout the Catholic traditionalist movement. Our special
focus will be independent traditionalists. Howdo they differ from other traditionalists, what
leads them to lefeverism, and whatcan we all learn from the ongoing debate

(01:11):
about the movement's role in the church. Our welcome guest is Andrew Meoni.
He is a graduate of Kansas StateUniversity with a BA in English. As
a contributor to Faith in Crisis andThat's from Width and Stock this year,

(01:34):
Andrew explores the roots of what somesee what many see as a crisis of
faith and Catholicism. Andrew is theauthor of Alter against Altar and Analysis of
Catholic Traditionalism, and that comes fromBooks in twenty twenty four, which is

(01:56):
still the year we are in.Andrew, do you have a the book
to hold up for us? Do? Here is a copy of the book?
All right, yes, very good, very good. Well as always,
let's let's begin in prayer. Come, Holy Spirit, build the hearts

(02:19):
of your faithful, and kindle inthem the fire of your love. Send
forth your spirit, and they shallbe created, and you shall renew the
face of the earth. Oh God, who have taught the hearts of the
faithful by the light of the HolySpirit, Granted in the same spirit we
may be truly wise and never rejoiceat His consolation through Christ, Our Lord,

(02:46):
Amen Ah. To clarify matters,Andrew, we've got some acronyms and
initials coming up. Peer, whatis the difference between the SSPX, the

(03:07):
Society of Saint Pius the tenth initiatedby Archbishop Marcela fev and THESSP the Fraternal
Society of Saint Peter. Right,So, the SSPX and the f SSP
both kind of come from the sameorigin. The FSSP. Originally, well,

(03:31):
I should take it back. Itall began with the SSPX when they
set up an independent ministry in theseventies eighties, following the Second Vatican Council
and after the consecrations the Four ContentCreations. In nineteen eighty eight by Archbishop
Marcel Afev who led the SSPX,a group of priests I believe it was

(03:53):
twelve priests approached the Vatican and said, we're no longer willing to operate on
under our own standards, you know, under our own banner. We want
to be reconciled to the Church becausewe understand that the penalties that have been
administered I guess you could say,or the penalties that have been leveled on

(04:14):
the SSPX after the consecrations was kindof the last straw for them, and
they said, we'd like to continueour ministry as we are doing it,
but with the approval of the Vatican. So those twelve priests were reconciled to
the Church and they formed what isnow the Fraternity of Saint Peter. So
the SSPX operates independently without any delegatedmission, while the FSSP offers the same

(04:40):
mass, the same sacraments, butdoes it with the approval of all the
local bishops. They will not entera diocese unless the local bishop gives them
approval, whereas the SSPX will kindof has what they see is free reign.
This guess you could say. So, yeah, they both began in

(05:02):
the immediate aftermath of the council,and the FSSP is a sort of a
splinter group of them, but thatcame back to the church, a promising
splinter though. Indeed. All right, Valerie, your question, well,

(05:24):
the word ideology is thrown around alot, and some people would use it
in relation to, for instance,groups who would call themselves traditionalists, including
both maybe of those that you hadkind of defined for us. How do
you understand the word ideology which weall use or hear so often. Ideology,

(05:45):
I think is a conglomeration of ideas, a conglomeration of motivating excuse me,
motivating factors. I guess you couldsay that maybe is not defined on
paper so much as it is understoodin practice. I guess. So,
these various groups, these various traditionalistgroups, you know, they some of

(06:12):
them may be canonically legitimate, someof them may be you know, on
paper everything is acceptable, but theiradherence still may hold to a problematic ideology.
It's really it's unpredictable. You can'treally pin it down in one group
or another. I would say thereare some, primarily the independent ones,

(06:33):
who are led by a a specificideology, and then that can bleed into
the other groups as well. Itcan affect other individual members as well.
So I think the best example ofit would be, you know, the
you know, adherence to maybe inthe Fraternity of Saint Peter can also have

(06:57):
some ideas that the adherence in thess X hold. The two groups are
very different when it comes to youknow, the legal side, the canonical
side, but the ideas the outlookon the church, if you will,
can kind of blur lines between thetwo. I think that would be the
easiest way to find it. Okay, So could you would you say that

(07:20):
there's a kind of ideology, mightbe a way of viewing with a certain
lens, a certain hierarchy of values, or a certain is that you could
describe it? Maybe? I thinkso, Yeah, it's it's seeing things
through a certain perspective or with acertain bias. Is maybe too strong of

(07:45):
a word to use here, butyeah, seeing things or seeing teachings,
declarations of the church, et cetera, with a certain angle, maybe with
a certain preconceived outlook on things,and one that can't be, like I
said, necessarily pinned to a specificgroup or a specific movement, but that

(08:07):
is influenced by a yeah, agroup, or or by a collective of
ideas. Let me add a coupleof points on the term ideology. Sometimes
it just refers to any coherent setof beliefs h And then it's a very

(08:35):
neutral term. But there's a mainstreamof thinking about ideology that's that's very well
recognized that treats an ideology is anykind of intellectual apparatus used to defend some

(08:56):
sort of power consolidation. And inpolitics, oftentimes that's the way the word
ideology is used. But again,sometimes it's used in a very neutral sense.
We're members of the American Solidarity Party, and from time to time someone

(09:18):
in the party will refer to ourideology, and I always correct them time,
permitting to say that, well,we don't have an ideology in the
sense that we have some sort ofartificial intellectual construction to defend our power position.

(09:39):
Various reasons we don't have a powerposition to defend. The other reason
is we're basically rooted in Christian socialthinking, and I would never refer to
that as an ideology, although justabout any columnist I didn't for the New

(10:00):
York Times would say that we havean ideology. So ideology is sometimes used
as a word, and it's hardto keep all of these strands separate.
Christopher, Yeah, I'm prettually interestedin historical questions in terms of traditionalism,

(10:24):
because traditionalists, you know, theysee themselves as rooted in tradition, which
is of course historical. But yousay that that to be deep in history,
to cease to be a traditionalist,Why is that sure? So that's
a phrase that my wife coined whenwe were doing our research, and for

(10:48):
some backstory, my wife was raisedin the SSPX, I was raised in
the FSSP, and then collectively wewere trying to figure out a way forward,
trying to figure out the best wayforward because the two groups obviously clash
on certain things, and we said, if we're going to be raising our
family and we have to be onthe same spiritual page, for lack of
a better term, we have toagree on these things. These are very

(11:11):
important things, and so we delveda lot into early Church fathers. We
dealt a lot into scripture, wedealt a lot into the the roots of
the Church, if you will,and I remember, I think it was
a Bible in a year with FatherMike Schmidz was where we really started to
see things from a different perspective,really, especially in reading Leviticus and reading

(11:37):
about Old Testament sacrifice and seeing theconnections with our you know, with the
mass today, and then reading earlyChurch fathers and how they understood the church,
how they understood what divisions in theChurch really were, you know,
reading about early liturgies and reading abouthow we have gone from you know,

(11:58):
the the descript of Saint Justin Martyrof the early liturgies to our masks today
and getting back to the heart ofit, getting back to the roots of
it was really what changed our mindson all these things and all the talking
points and all the things that we'vebeen told growing up that really did not
hold up to scrutiny when we starteddoing a historical deep dive, and that's

(12:22):
when we started to see and understandwhy the church had made certain changes,
why the Church had issued certain declarationsfor example, through the Second Vatican Council.
Why it was that we had theSecond Vatican Council at all, all
these things, kind of the broadhistorical perspective, looking at it over the

(12:43):
course of two thousand years and notjust over the last fifty years or so,
seeing how it all came together,and how it all influenced itself,
and just seeing the big picture andseeing how God is in charge and God
had guided it through all of theturmoil of the you know, of its

(13:03):
entire history. And we realized thatthe traditionalist position and all define that term
shortly because I know there's going tobe some questions on how I use it
here, but the traditionalist position,we felt was did not exactly compute with
the direction the Church was going,what the Church had said, what the

(13:24):
Church was trying to do. Andwhile we very much appreciated are you know,
the Latin Mass that we went to, While we very much appreciated our
community, we appreciated the good,solid values that we have been raised with.
I'm always grateful for those, andI think my parents and my teachers
did a great job. But asa as a whole, you know,

(13:46):
as a as a compass for ourlife if you will. We said we
need to be thinking with the churchhere. And while the Church has been
very gracious and allowing, you know, certain aspects like the Latin Mass or
these you know, the Fraternity ofSaint and all these things to continue,
is that a trajectory that we wantto take ourselves and our children on,

(14:07):
And so kind of connecting it backto our talk on ideology and with the
different groups the fraternity in the SSPXat play here, I'll just give a
little bit of a definition on whatI mean by traditionalism here and what my
wife was referring to when she whenshe when she said that quote coining or
rephrasing Saint John Henry Newman. Sothe subtitle of this book is an analysis

(14:31):
of Catholic Traditionalism. And I knowsome people excuse me, some people understand
that term to be sort of abroad umbrella term to encompass all of the
various groups and the various movements whohave certain common denominators, like the Latin
Mass and like certain you know,their communities and all these things. The

(14:54):
way I understand traditionalism as and Ihave a whole explanation in the book on
this is I see it as itsownism, if you will, as its
own thing. And I think whenthe movement started after the Second Vatican Council,
those who were calling themselves traditionalists,or those who were calling themselves traditional

(15:15):
Catholics, were the ones who weretrying to distinguish themselves in some way or
another. They were trying to givesome differentiation of we are not them,
we are not the Catholics who followthe Council right. And I think those
who then were reconciled to the Churchlike the fraternity, even though they still
said the same Mass and offer thesame sacraments and such. I personally,

(15:39):
this is just my opinion. Idon't think it is necessary or appropriate to
label that oneself a traditionalists. Youknow, if you happen to just enjoy
Latin Mass, or if you happento just prefer older devotions or anything like
that. I'll read off a quotethat I put in the book to explain
my definition here. This is fromthe fifteenth and obviously the context is a

(16:03):
little bit different, but I thinkthe applicability is the same. He wrote,
quote, Catholics should abstain from certainappellations which have recently been brought into
use to distinguish one group of Catholicsfrom another. There's no need of adding
any qualifying terms to the profession ofCatholicism. It is quite enough for each
one to proclaim Christian is my nameand Catholic my surname. Only let him
endeavor to be in reality what hecalls himself and quote that's from Ad Vietisimi

(16:26):
Apostolorum in nineteen fourteen. So Ithink there's no need to add any qualifiers
to your faith. If you areCatholic, you are Catholic. And to
call yourself, you know, ifyou're in the fraternity, for example,
and you call yourself a traditional Catholic. To me, that implies that those
who are not in that same groupare not traditional Catholic, and that I

(16:47):
kind of have a I kind oftake issue with. So traditionalism as I
refer to it here in this bookis specifically about independent traditionalist groups. They're
about groups who don't operate with anydelegated jurisdiction, who don't operate with the
approval of the local bishop, whodon't have any canonical mission, and the

(17:08):
issues that I explore in this bookabout. For example, they cite a
state of necessity as a justification fortheir ministry. They cite that they have
supplied jurisdiction as a basis for theirministry. All these things, these do
not apply to canonically regular traditional quotegroups, if you will. So I
just want to add that clarifier becauseI know that's a question that people have

(17:30):
had. It's a question that whenI've stated that in previous interviews, people
have said, thank you for theclarification, because that term is thrown out
a lot and a lot of differentpeople have a lot of different understandings of
what it means. So I justwant to add that. But yeah,
to take it back to your originalquestion about to be deep in history is
to cease to be traditionalists. Iknow, for example, reading the letters

(17:53):
of Saint Ignatius of Antioch from thefirst century, and he is repeatedly stating
out all of his epistles that thechurch is nothing without the bishop. The
church cannot function, you know,you cannot function without the bishop. You
cannot do anything without the approval ofthe bishop. And we said, well,
if he was saying this all theway back in the earliest days of
the church, in the first century, what makes us what's the justification for

(18:18):
doing that now and if the church, you know, the church was undeniably
in a much worse state than inhis time than it is now. The
church was under persecution, the churchwas you know, they were trying to
stamp it out. And now whenwe're established worldwide and we have dioceseses,
we have bishops, we have priests, we had and were allowed to practice

(18:41):
those two that's just I think oneexample of us coming across historical context and
historical information that we said, thisdoesn't match up with what we've been told
and how we how the groups thatwe were in have been operating, and
so many other such examples like thatof historical context, of ecclesiological context really

(19:06):
opened up our eyes to the broaderperspective there and helped us to see that,
yeah, these things that we've beentold just regarding the last fifty years,
or the things that we've been toldabout the liturgy, or the things
that we've been told about apostolic authority, all these things just didn't quite line
up. So that was I think, Yeah, the conclusion that my wife

(19:32):
reached after lots of research was readinghistory and getting a broader perspective on everything
will really change your mind. Youknow, it wasn't It wasn't that we
found some really clever canonical argument thatfinally disproved what she'd been told, or
we found some quotes that maybe wehadn't heard before. It was a lot

(19:53):
of prayer and research and study,and I mean coupled with going to adoration
and going to and all these thingsat all. It was. It was
a whole conglomeration of things. Butyeah, gaining that wider historical perspective was
very crucial. It's interesting when youtalk about history because of course one of
the claims is that you can't justsuppress traditional rights. Somehow a traditional right

(20:19):
has a kind of a kind ofcanonical status which makes it violent. But
I've been plowing through recently Yuman's historyof the Roman right and just talk about
how they Charlemagne with Rome's approval,suppressed the Gallican rights in France, and

(20:41):
then you have put Gregory the Seventhwho suppressed the Mozarabic right. The Fourth
Laddering Council came out and said basicallythey would if it was union with the
East again, they would allow themto maintain their religious rights. As if
they could actually suppress those two soI'm not proposing that the church should frequently

(21:03):
do this sort of thing. It'sjust that the church seems to say she
has the power to do she hasauthority to do it. Yeah, and
the claim is now that no,she does it. The pope cannot do
anything like that. So any suppressionof the traditional mass, and I find
this even outside of SSPX circles iswould allow for just disobedience on the part

(21:25):
of bishops and the part of evenpriests. Right, And that's definitely a
topic that has reared its head latelywith you know, rumors swirling of a
coming suppression. And yeah, Iwill frequently hear things cited like Quo Primium,
which was Pope Pius the fifth ApostolicConstitution to codify the Roman Missile.

(21:49):
I like to point out to peoplethat if the entire church, you know,
every bishop except four bishops voted inthe affirmative on soccer sank Quincilium at
the second Batan Council, if theentire church agreed the liturgy needs a reform,
and then after the reform, somepeople did not care for it and
tried looking for reasons as to whythey didn't have to accept the reform missile

(22:12):
and why we really couldn't change themissile in the first place. Again,
historically does not seem to match up, because if everyone agrees this needs to
happen, and then you only golooking for loopholes as to why you don't
have to accept it after you don'tlike the results. I find that to
be an inconsistent argument. I'd liketo introduce a discussion of another term,

(22:45):
but before that, I have apeculiar question our absent colleague, Mario Rambos
Reyes, why you is from Kansas? And then, of course there's that

(23:06):
whole Wizard of Oz development that hadits origin in Kansas. And every traditionalist
of every stripe knows about Father Finn. The Father Finn was in Kansas.

(23:27):
Andrew, why Kansas? Why it'sbad enough that we have to talk about
Ohio. It's bad enough that wehave to talk about Nebraskasa, even with
other introduction to Warren Buffett, wehave to still Nebraska. But why why

(23:51):
can't? I think it's purely afunctional thing. I think it's just because
Kansas is the exact center of theUS. I know, the exact geographic
center of the US is in northernKansas. And excuse me, I know
that was the reason Archbishop Marcelo Fevcited when they bought the property in Saint
Mary's, Kansas. As he says, it's right in the center, and

(24:15):
it's it's easiest for you know,for commutes, for people to come,
for growth, all these kinds ofthings. And then you know, with
with that being the SSPX's primary huband all these other splinter groups forming over
the last several decades, they've allkind of set up around that. So
the fraternity has also sprung up inMaple Hill, Kansas, about ten minutes

(24:40):
away. There's the Resistance group upin Bellevue, Kansas. I believe it
is. There's you know there thereare a couple of more groups in Kansas
City. I think it's just withthat starting as its primary hub, and
then the different groups breaking off andforming their own their own commune, use
their own establishments around that area,it's all just kind of clustered there.

(25:03):
So yeah, how is it isit true that the archbishop was the first
to say location location, Perhaps that'sapocryphal. Tell us about the contests,
certainly so. Setiva contest comes fromthe Latin setevicante, which means empty chair

(25:27):
or empty seat. Setiva contests areanother branch of traditionalists who believe, as
the name indicates that the seat orthe throne of Peter, the seat of
Peter, is empty, that sincenineteen fifty eight, when Popeye's the twelfth
died, every pope since then hasbeen a heretic and anti pope therefore has

(25:51):
never held the position of the papacyat all. So essentially they believe that
we are leaderless. As of rightnow, we have no we have not
had a pope since nineteen fifty eight, and there are really no indications as
to when or how a new popewill take office. They believe that the
Second Vatican Council is kind of theprecursor to the last Days, if you

(26:15):
will, the great, as theysay, the great apostasy in the Church,
as various prophecies from private revelations,whether approved or not, might indicate.
And so they are, I guess, just patiently waiting it out to
see what happens and how it happens, and whenever Christ will come back.

(26:37):
I think some of them believe thatwe are in the days immediately leading up
to the second coming. Others thinkthat there will be a pope appointed,
but it will be through some miraculousdivine intervention. Some just speculate and say,
we don't know how a new popewill come, but a new pope
will, which this book poses thequestion, Okay, when and how,

(26:59):
because if there's no pope and thensomeone takes office in one set of a
contest group says yes, that isnow the pope, but another set of
a contest group says no, wedon't accept him as pope. Well,
okay, is he or is it? It's kind of a dead end when
it comes to the future, Iguess or future outlook. They found an

(27:26):
easy route to reject the council andthe popes and all these developments that they
see as problematic, but then there'snot really a way out of it.
So that's kind of the other sideof the coin of the traditionalist as I
describe it movement. There's the setof a contest and then there's what's called
the recognize and resist, primarily ledby the SSPX, who believe that the

(27:51):
Council and all these things are strictlyspeaking legitimate. Strictly speaking, they're valid,
but they are so problematic that wehave to reject them, whereas a
set of a contes just say they'renot even valid, they're not even legitimate.
They believe that the new right ofordination that was promulgated after the Council
is invalid. They believe that theNovasorto Mesa is invalid. They believe that

(28:15):
there's only probably a small handful,maybe a couple couple hundred valid and legitimate
priests in the entire world. Youhave such groups as Most Holy Family Monastery,
which is led by the Diamond Brothersup in Upstate New York where I
live. Who. Yeah, Ihaven't delved into their stuff much because it's

(28:36):
quite a rabbit hole, but yeah, they essentially believe that any bishop,
priest, cardinal, etc. Ordainedafter nineteen fifty eight is not in fact
a priest, and that we aredown to the bottom of the barrel.
We're scraping the bottom of the barrel. When it comes to actual pastors of
souls, PERTI Graham and I assumethat it's a pretty small minority, even

(29:04):
of independent traditionalists, that that wouldtake that stance of It's it's fairly small.
The recognize and Resist is definitely thelarger group. Seat of a.
Contests are very fringe, but theyare I wouldn't consider them small necessarily,

(29:26):
they do. They do tend topop up wherever the traditionalist hubs are located.
So I know there's there are somein Kansas, there are some in
around the Cincinnati area is where alot of traditionalist groups tend to be.
Upstate New York, the Spokane area, there's an Oregon you know, uh,

(29:48):
Nebraska, for example, the cmri I or the Congregation of Mary
and maccolt Queen. I think itis probably the biggest set of a contest
group, and I would say whenit comes to communities, there's probably going
to be one at every centralization oftraditionalist groups. But their communities tend to

(30:10):
be very small, but they are, they are definitely present, and they
definitely excuse me, they definitely haveinfluence, as we've seen with the latest
developments with Archbishop Vigano. You know, it's it's a small group, but
it's influential enough that it reaches thetop the top tiers of the hierarchy and

(30:33):
it influences some very influential people.So their numbers may be small, but
they are very vocal, especially onthe internet. Interesting I'm in Omaha.
We do have one probably about threeminutes Perish, about three minutes from us.
George Weigel is the name we heara lot a John Paul Twoscollar a

(30:55):
frequent contributor to First Thing. Apparentlyhe has kind of helped you along the
journey. You want to talk alittle bit about that, sure, so
my introduction to George Weigel, andI've since dealt into a little bit more
of his online writings, not somuch more of his books. But he
came out with the book I believeit was two years ago, and the
book is called to Sanctify the World. The subtitle is the Vital Legacy of

(31:17):
Vatican Two. And this was anotherresource that really helped us to see the
broader historical perspective of this whole movementbecause this book, as he explains,
he said, the questions have beenunanswered for too long of why was Vatican
two called, what did it intendto do? And what do we need
to learn from it? And hewanted to present a very readable, very

(31:40):
open, very clear answer to thesequestions. And about the first third of
this book, about the first onehundred pages or so, is just the
global historical perspective of the world,what the world was doing, how it
was developing, what was happening thatbrought us to the position where put Saint
John tent Feth decided, we needa counsel to address this. And what

(32:02):
excuse me, what George Weigel concludesis that this crisis in the church that
the traditionalists always cite and that ismost certainly present. I'm not denying it
at all. I think the realcause, as I'll explain, is quite
different from what the traditionalists conclude.But what George Weigel concludes is that this

(32:23):
crisis in the church is has beendeveloping for quite some time, for about
one hundred and fifty years. Inmy book, I traced it back the
roots of it at least even furtherthan that. But he says it was
really building since about the mid eighteenhundreds, and then what really kickstarted it

(32:43):
was World War One, this globalconflict with the means and the weapons and
the ramifications that we had never facedbefore that brought death and destruction and all
these horrible things in the world thatwe had never had the face before.
And he sees that as the realstarting point of this, this crisis of

(33:07):
supernatural faith, this critical loss ofsupernatural faith in the world. And he
has an insight that I thought wasvery helpful where he said, you know,
you'll frequently see people citing you know, evidence, photos, testimonies,
anecdotes, etc. From like nineteenforties, nineteen fifties America, where it

(33:30):
looks like the faith is booming.There's all these people with huge families,
they're dressed well, they're going toMass. There's all these regal ceremonies and
all this stuff. And what GeorgeWigel says is that the nineteen fifties or
so Catholicism in America, as heI believe, he describes it as the
last gasp of a dying Christendom,because he said, this massive implosion of

(33:52):
faith was already happening in Europe,in the heart of Christianity. It hadn't
made its way to America because Americahadn't seen war on its own soil.
It hadn't directly seen what World Warwon, World War two, all these
cores and atrocities of the wars andwhat it does to people's faith. Americans

(34:15):
hadn't seen that. Obviously, Americansoldiers had, but Americans in everyday life
had not seen that. They hadn'tseen what these massively impactful events could do
to supernatural faith. They were justcarrying on as usual, but as poetic.
The sixteenth would go on to writein the late nineteen fifties that he

(34:35):
saw American Catholicism, well, notnot as much American, but the faith
in general in that time, immediatelypreceding the Council, as kind of an
external layer or a facade of goingthrough the motions, fulfilling the obligations,
presenting a nice external image of faith. But at its heart it was something

(34:59):
was wrong. At its heart,we were not actually living out the faith.
We were not actually motivated by faith. We were just carrying out the
motions that that previous generations had doneand that we've been taught to do,
and that I found is reflected bya lot of writings of popes of previous

(35:20):
centuries. I'll find one quote inthe book here that it just floored me
when I came across this. Thisis from Pope Pius the eleventh in nineteen
thirty seven, so long before youknow, before the Council, he said
in Divini Predemptories in thirty seven hesaid, quote even in Catholic countries.
There are still too many who areCatholics hardly more than in name. There

(35:43):
are too many who fulfill more orless faithfully, the more essential obligations of
the religion. They boast of professing, but have no desire of knowing it
better, of deepening their inward conviction, and still less of bringing it into
conformity with the external gloss, theinner splendor of a right and unsullied conscience
that recognizes performs all its duties underthe eye of God. We know how
much our divine Savior detested this emptypharisaic show, he who wished that all

(36:07):
should adore the Father in spirit andin truth head quote. So I found
that insight from George Weigel to bebacked up to be reflected by the writings
of the popes in the late nineteenthearly twentieth century. They were saying,
the faith is, It's still present, but it's more external than actually lived.

(36:30):
And I think when you have,as George Wigel described, these huge
global movements like the wars, andyou know, the technological advancements of the
forties, fifties, sixties, allthese things that presented a challenge to supernatural

(36:52):
faith, that the church had neverdealt with before. We had to come
up with some response to that andsay we can't just continue, we can't
just go on as we've been doing. There has to be something to rekindle
the faith in people who maybe doingthe things that they were told to do,
but are not actually they don't actuallyknow their faith. So yeah,

(37:15):
George Weigel really presented a good casethere that as I then did more research,
it was really backed up by thewritings of the popes of previous centuries
and by all the again the historicalevidence, it all seemed to corroborate.
So he was, yeah, theone who started my historical deep dive and

(37:37):
who presented a case that I thinkis very solid. It's interesting. My
father in law was born in bythirty eight, nineteen thirty eight or so,
and I remember him saying, youknow, he had like three aunts
that were you know, they wereGerman German immigrants his family, but he
had like three aunts that went intothe convent. Is said, you know

(38:00):
on multiple occasions that he often feltlike as that their vocations were as much
as anything, just a path toget a square meal and you know,
I mean a relatively good living situationin a world where eking out a living
on the land with a family wasa pretty daunting, daunting landscape, you

(38:22):
know. And that in a sensethat they're that they were able to take
refuge. And I don't say thatin a condescending way. It's not to
question their devotion or anything of thesort, but it just demonstrates that there
are other factors at play when thingsseem to be you know, vocations are
booming or whatever. It's not alwaysthat simple, right right. I've heard

(38:43):
also that similarly that yeah, therewere priests who had joined the seminary because
it means they didn't have to gooff to war. They were they were,
as you say, guaranteed a relativelystable living situation and wouldn't have to
risk their lives, and this wasan easy way to, uh, you
know, to get out of it. So maybe some of that boom invocations

(39:04):
in the thirties, forties, etcetera from priests might have just been priests
who were trying to avoid I mean, I don't know, I'm just speculating,
but you know, it certainly asa proposition seems to be somewhat plausible.
So yeah, that's that's an interestinginsight. Yeah, and the cultural
kind of expectancy of like in somecultures where like every family gives a child

(39:24):
to the religious life gives a child, you know, the boy who is
the most pious is going to bethe boy you know who's going to be
the you know, we're going togive to the church as a priest.
And right, you know, there'sstories about people who sort of that path
was laid out for them and theyI was like, I didn't feel that
they were maybe free to pursue somethingelse it would dishonor the church would dishonor

(39:46):
their parents to not pursue this,right, and despite the fact that their
piety was real and authentic, Soright, right, yep. We were
told, we were told growing upalways that one out of every three boys
has a vocation. I believe thatwas something that Saint John Bosco said or
something I don't quite remember, butyeah, and there were four boys in

(40:07):
my family, and my parents willalways say, one of you has a
vocation. Oh, none of ushave yet. So it's it's uh,
you know, it's it's a it'sa nice thing to say, but you
know, yeah, you can't forceanyone's vocation. And if they if that's
not what they're called to, thenit's not what they're called to. Again,
I'm not yeah, calling into anycalling in to question anyone's vocation or

(40:30):
implying that anyone had ulterior motives.But yeah, when you examined the broader
perspective of what the world was likeat that time and things that might have
motivated someone to say, you know, where can I find some kind of
stability, it's, yeah, Ithink an entirely plausible factor. H Ester

(40:52):
fir h plusn't he look thoughtful?I've always looked thoughtful. I'm just tired.
No, we talked about the historicalbackground and that the church needed to
adjust the way she interacted with theworld. I think that's probably what you're

(41:14):
saying, because of the vast changethat occurred, taking in the twentieth century,
but even earlier than that. That'sto ascertain that the church had to
do. That is not to saythat the way the church actually did it
was always happy. So I'm wonderingwould you consider that maybe the traditionalists have

(41:35):
a point in some of their criticisms. I mean that we seem to have
entered an age after the Council whereit was almost like a wholesalers rejection of
everything that came before. It alwaysto make all things new. I'm not
saying that was that was what thepopes are saying, but that seemed to
be the spirit as we were comingout of the Council. So the traditionalists

(41:57):
have a point that we do haveto react access and tradition. If so,
how do we do that? Yeah, I would certainly agree. I
certainly think that as my wife andI call it the pendulum swing after the
Council, it swung in both directions, and I think, yeah, the
traditionalists definitely have a point that youknow, I wasn't alive in the seventies

(42:19):
and eighties, so I don't knowabout all the liturgical craziness aside from stories
I've been told, but I canpretty well assume that if I were in
that time, and I was,you know, I were attending these masses,
and I would say, even ifthe Council didn't call for this or
outright didn't approve it, how inthe world did we get here? And

(42:40):
yeah, I want to go tothat Latin mass down the street, right,
So I think they definitely have goodintentions, and I think they definitely
present a good legitimate complaints. Ijust think that you know, as the
as the book talks about that,I don't think that justifies setting up an

(43:04):
independent ministry to combat it. Youhave to stay within the church to be
able to do that properly. SoI think a restoration of traditional values such
as what maybe the fraternity is doing, the Institute of Christ the King,
or even a Latin Mass is offeredyou in the dioceses, and I think
there's very good influence of yeah,restoring older practices, restoring older devotions,

(43:28):
restoring more spiritual rigor that they definitelyhave had a good influence on. And
yeah, they they present legitimate concerns. I just think that there is a
way to address those concerns without takingyourself outside of full communion with the Church.
And that's I think the happy mediumthat we have to find is that

(43:52):
you know, the church is neitherright nor left. It's my wife,
and I like to say, it'sneither right nor left. It's above both
of those. It's not center,it's above. And so that's I think
what we have to try to tosay, Okay, the traditionalists, don't
go too far, stay stay withinthe bosom of the church and have your
influence there. And you know,if you, for example, if you

(44:16):
if you're dissatisfied with the way yourlocal parish is doing liturgy, the way
to fix that is not to gooff and set up your own church and
huddle over there. The way todo that is to approach your pastor and
say, hey, we have someconcerns we would really like to rectify this
somehow. Or you know, ifpeople are maybe not dressing well from Mass

(44:38):
and you have issue with that,well, then go to massive dress better
and set a good example. Youknow, there are ways to do it
from within. There are ways todo it properly without removing yourself from the
equation and saying we'll just be satisfiedwith what we have over here in our
corner and we'll just wait for thechurch to kind of figure it out.

(44:59):
I think the influence needs to befrom within, not removing oneself and waiting
for things to shake out the wayyou like them and then and then rejoining
once it's to your satisfaction. Ifthat makes sense. But wouldn't you just
say that. I mean, wehear a lot about We've heard a lot
about dialogues. It's second Bacon Council. Sure, we can say what the

(45:19):
traditionalists should do. And I knowI'm not a traditionalist, but we helped
start a choir at a parish welived in California, and we've seen the
building a little enclave of a traditionalmusic mass right until we got a new
pastor and everything changed. And Ithink that's a lot of traditionalists would say,
you know, until we got anew pastor, that everything was fine

(45:40):
until that. Is the church,I think, particularly Pope Francis, who
is I think is the record onthis has been very mixed. Is the
church really dialogued with the traditionalists wellenough? I mean, really have it
has been? Has it been areal attempt to really speak to them and

(46:02):
to address the concerns. I ama little bit torn on this question because
on the one hand, I wouldsay probably not, Probably know they haven't.
We see a lot of comments Idon't want to say accusations, but
a lot of things leveled towards thetraditionalists that yeah, they often say,

(46:27):
why weren't we consulted, Why weren'twe talked to? Why weren't we allowed
to voice our concerns about this?Or why weren't we allowed to voice our
opinions about this before something was leveledour way. So on the one hand,
I get it. On the otherhand, there are such gestures as
Pope Francis granting SSPX priests jurisdiction toabsolve sins, which is so canonically irregular.

(46:51):
Even Cardinal Burke, who is aneminent canonist, said this is simply
an anomaly and we don't know howto there's no good canonical explanation for this.
So on the one hand, they'regiven all of branches that just absolutely
make no sense. But then onthe other hand, yes, there are
I think certain things leveled their way, certain declarations or whatnot that maybe are

(47:16):
a little heavy handed. Yeah,I don't know, I have I have
mixed feelings on that question. It'sa hard it's hard question to answer because
I mean, they're not, Imean, quite honest with you. Well,
blunt Fritish must be very obnoxious,and so it's not like they're dialogue

(47:37):
with anybody either. They're not inthe dialogue. But yeah, but they
could be very obnoxious too, SoI could you could see how I don't
know, they could be. Theycould be instigating bad reactions to themselves.
Well, it's I think. Yeah. A good example is after Tredicionis Custodas

(47:57):
was issued in twenty twenty one,which brought the permissions for the Latin Mass
back in the hands of the bishopsright off the bat, and to their
credit, there were a couple oftraditionalist voices saying, Okay, this is
an opportunity for us to show thatwe are obedient, humble, docile,
we obey the Church, we listento the Church, all these things,
and we should not explode about this. We should not have a violent reaction

(48:24):
and show that we are not deservingof these kinds of sanctions, if you
will. But naturally that's what happened. Everybody got furious. The internet exploded,
there was this huge outcry, therewere petitions, there were videos,
there were all these things, Imean just and some of them, yeah,

(48:44):
pretty nasty. So, as yousay, I think for dialogue to
go one way, it has togo the other way as well. And
if they're not willing to approach andadmit that maybe have raised some problematic positions
that the Vatican has to address,it's kind of a it's a two way

(49:06):
street. So yeah, ultimately Iwould agree that there needs to be some
more conversations, some more reaching outto them, But if they don't want
to reach back out, that's kindof problematic. I'll cite maybe a case
study of this in the book Italk about there's a a traditionalist group,

(49:28):
an independent group in Colorado who brokeaway from the SSPX. It's just a
small group of about seven priests,and the local bishop granted them, initially
granted him faculties for private mass,for Latin Mass. This priest abused that
faculty and went on to set upa public you know, a community,

(49:49):
a church or whatever. And thebishop obviously did not approve that. He
went and he contacted them, hetried to sit down with them, He
got, you know, a conversationwith them. He said, I want
to help you guys. I wantto bring you back into the church.
I want to address any issues.But then the priest just rejected his offer,

(50:10):
he rejected his proposition to meet.He as the bishop cited, he
accused him of being a modernist andsetting up a new religion and adhering to
heretical ideas and all these things.And so the bishop said, hey,
I tried, I tried to talkto you. You just you don't want
to listen. So then he wrotehis letters saying, Okay, I strip
you of your faculties. You areno longer in good standing with the church,

(50:34):
and until we can have a conversationabout this and you can be willing
to work with me here, youdon't have a ministry. And so yeah,
I think that's a good case studyof a lot of times the reaction
is just it's just a wall.They just don't want to talk. Now,
I'm not saying that's the case withevery group or with every priest obviously,
but that's just that's one I rememberI cited in here when they're talking

(50:59):
about yes sanctions or reprimands. Soyeah, I think that's, yeah,
a good question. A two waystreet needs to be on both sides.
And again we're talking here about independenttraditionalists who are right not you know,
unlike the many, many, many, many faithful Catholics who associate themselves with
the SSP and just want to seea more reverent liturgy and a more wholehearted,

(51:24):
whole life Catholicism. And there right, you know, you know,
you mentioned obnoxious Christopher, and Ithink a lot of you know what I
hear, you know, a lotof the complaint is as far as how
the Vatican is handling our quote prinstance, is handling the discipline or however you
want to call his actions towards regardingthe Latin masks, is that you know,

(51:49):
there are just so many obnoxious instancesof irreverence in the mass throughout the
world, throughout the country, throughoutwhere people are not giving this the mass
it's due in terms of reverence,in terms of what it is. And
so I guess you know, whatis your response to people who would say,

(52:12):
okay, but this is just sounbalanced, like the way the heavy
handedness with which he's approaching you know, Latin Mass people who were promoting that
compared to those who are frankly justdisregarding the need to promote faith in the
real presence through a beautiful reverend liturgythat speaks of the transcendence of God in

(52:35):
our right right. And I wouldagree again that yeah, that's still definitely
an issue and still needs to beaddressed. I would say, in my
experience the trend has definitely been upwardin that regard. Things have gotten better,
And but you do raise a goodquestion of a potential double standard.
I guess this is a tough questionbecause I think in order to fix the

(53:04):
problems on the other side, ifyou will, in order to promote yeah,
better liturgy, better understanding of it, in order to how should I
describe it, in order to helpthe church grow in that way, that
really has to come from the bottomup, whereas dealing with the traditionalists it

(53:30):
is really can only be a topdown approach. And I'll explain what that
means. So if we want betterliturgy, if we want more reverence,
if we want all these things,I don't think that decrees or that statements
or that orders from Rome is goingto do that. There was a document

(53:52):
just recently within I believe within thelast year, and that the name is
slipping in my mind at the moment, but it was about this very question
about how I mean. The longand short of it was, hey,
stop messing around in the liturgy,do the right things, don't bring in
any nonsense or whatever. But adocument or a declaration can only go so

(54:15):
far. If people won't do it, then people won't do it. And
I think that the people who takeit to heart and the people who really
care, those numbers are growing andit's going to have a knock on effect
that I think in time will definitelyblossom. But whereas on the other side
with the traditionalists, you know,it's kind of the same issue of like,

(54:38):
how can you get them to dropthe obnoxious ways and return to thinking
with the mind of the church andwhatnot. You really can't. So the
only way to deal with it isto issue restrictions or issue discipline measures.

(55:00):
I guess it's I mean, yeah, the the popes since that time,
had you know, since since theCouncil have all pretty consistently said, hey,
we've really we've we've gone too faron this liturgical stuff. This,
we really need to rain this in, we really need to do I mean,
if we've been saying this for likethe last fifty years and it's slowly

(55:22):
gotten better. But dealing with thetraditionalists on the other side, and you
know, you have to say,Okay, you guys, you gotta stop.
You got to knock that off,you gotta you know, you can't
be saying these kinds of things.You can't be slandering the pope like that,
you can't be you can't be settingup independent ministries all these things.
That that's more of just a yeah, just a top down approach of dealing

(55:44):
with it. So I think it's, yeah, those who would want to
good liturgy, a good mass,a good community. Those are great things
and you should want those. Butcoupling that with rejection of a council,
or coupling that with disrespect toward themagisterium or all these things, those two

(56:05):
shouldn't and needn't go hand in hand. You should be able to just you
know, be grateful for what you'vebeen given by the churche for them allowing
this certain liturgy or whatever to continue, and then yeah, kind of finding
that middle ground, if you will. I don't know if I answered the
question super well, but that's kindof my thoughts on it. So,
and I think, you know,a lot of a lot of frustration comes

(56:28):
from the fact that, like yousaid, people just aren't doing it in
their eyes, you know, Imean, the Pope. It's kind of
like a parent who says, Idon't agree with the choices you're making,
but I'm still going to invite youto dinner, right, talk about it
constantly to you, you know howI feel about it. And in some
ways, I think the Pope kindof takes that sense of well, we've
said what needs to be said withregard to being faithful to the rubrics,

(56:49):
et cetera. I can't just runaround constantly telling people to do it.
So maybe that's perceived as a lackof you know, or an uneven handedness
that he's not speaking it regularly.I don't know, but it's tricky.
Jim, are you going to askfor an extension? I feel like we
should such a waiting well, Iwas going to say, and I still

(57:15):
will, uh that we're at theend of the hour, but we we
need an extension. So peeps,you want to hang in for five or
ten minutes, we could we couldgo forward. Uh, And I certainly

(57:35):
want to go forward, So Iwon't even ask if you want to go
forward again if you had your chanceat this point in the show. As
Valerie knows, I sometimes offer apop quiz to bring everything into perspective.
At other points, I raise whatseemed to be seemed to be random reflect

(58:00):
and then after the random reflections arelaid out there, somebody says, geez,
that's something. Now I get todo this in lieu of either a
salary or a designated parking spot.I don't have either of those. And
that's why I have this indulgence.So I'm going to eschew the pop quiz

(58:27):
and go with the random reflections.And I think they go together in terms
of history and what we've seen andwhat we've suffered. And while there are
new things under the sun, theremight not be so many new things under
the sun as we suppose. There'sa famous sermon among the many famous sermons

(58:53):
of Saint John Chris Siston, wherehe says, in a crowded church,
and this is pretty much direct,he say, I know that many of
you are here for the races.Here we are in an urban center right

(59:13):
in the east. He says tothe congregants, I know that many of
you are really here for the races, and they're pretty pretty special. And
you're thinking, how can you killtime? Well, this fellow has a
reputation for being an eloquent speaker.So now that's why you're here sitting in
front of me. Talk about veneer, talk about mixed motives for participation.

(59:45):
That's something that goes way way backnow in terms of modernism and all the
things that lead to modernism, andin terms of calamitous, horrific, almost
unspeakable events there's an area of theworld today where there's a greater falling away

(01:00:10):
from religious practice than Europe. It'sEast Asia. Buddhism is undergoing to almost
complete collapse. And that has nothingto do with any of the things that
we Eurocentric people have in mind asas decisive. It's crisis of faith,

(01:00:39):
it's a crisis of religious belief,and it's affected Buddhism more than it has
affected Catholicism. Now in terms ofuh, not what you might think,
but really important sources for vocations wehave, we have well Nigeria, all

(01:01:14):
sorts of unrest. Really be niceto have a square meal, It really
be nice to have some stability.Why don't you enter the seminary. It
will also increase your chances for martyrdom. Nowhere are Catholics suffering greater persecution than
Nigeria and Pakistan. But in Nigeriait's very very clear, very very obvious.

(01:01:40):
So in every age the church doesraise up martyrs. And the last
point, this is a little bitout of sequence. I think George Wigel
is a terrific writer. I thinkit's politics are sorrowful, but he is
a terrific writer to be He's amiserable neo cod But at any rate,

(01:02:07):
he's a traffic writer. And thebusiness about Americans in World War One and
the like. We lost a greaterpercentage of our people in the Civil War,
and the Civil War split Christian denominationsright down the middle. So to

(01:02:30):
say that there's something unique about WorldWar One, I think is, as
they say, arguable even for Americans. Well, those are some random reflections,
and I think I'm going back toChristopher here. Once you dig deep

(01:02:50):
into history, you soon enough learnedthat you haven't done nearly deeply enough.
There's a whole lot of history todig through. But now those of the
end of my random reflections, andI have no pop quiz to offer,
so all of you are cordially invitedto have a final thought or three and

(01:03:15):
then well, and as we alwaysneed to do with the Gospel for today,
I'll jump in on that on yourlast point about yeah, world War
one and the historical context, andI think there is greater context that is
needed, because Yeah, isolated byitself, I would agree that World War

(01:03:35):
one, world War two, earlytwentieth century is you know, of course
we've dealt with war on a massivescale before, but as this book points
out, talking about the crisis offaith and the greater historical context. I
diagnosed it as what I call acrisis of functionality, which I think is

(01:03:59):
unique to nineteenth twentieth, especially twentyfirst century. And this is something that
put Benic the sixteenth writes about alot, and I cite him quite a
few times where he says that hecalled it the great poverty of our age,
that we only think in terms offunction now. We don't raise our
horizons beyond what is quantifiable. Whatis is is what we can harness,

(01:04:25):
what we can use, what canbring us material gain. And this is
something that is unique to the recentage in that in the Civil War eighteen
hundreds, it was around the timeI think when things were starting to turn
around. But what really kicked thisoff was the industrial revolution the early nineteenth

(01:04:48):
century, with electricity, with makingthings, as again put ben in the
sixteenth says, functional in the serviceof man, and it uses midge.
I debated putting this image in thebook, and I didn't, but I
like to use the image of areally, really old church that was built
in maybe yeah, late eighteen hundreds, in the middle of a city block,

(01:05:12):
right and it's very ornate, andit's very very the detail is very
exquisite, and it was clearly madewith care and with passion, and that
people were really motivated by this thingthat they were doing. And since then,
and this is the case with thechurch that I used to go to
in Kansas City. There's this oldchurch the middle of a city, and

(01:05:35):
it's absolutely dwarfed by parking garages,by skyscrapers, by office buildings, by
apartment buildings. And I think that'sa good visual for where what has happened
to the church since then, sincethat time of the late nineteenth century,
is that it's just become small andinsignificant among all this conglomeration of functional stuff

(01:06:00):
of business and of commerce and allthese things, and on a scale that
we haven't really dealt with before,on a scale that technological progress and advancement
has brought us to that we've neverdealt with before. And so and this
is something also that I cite inthe in the nineteen fifties, taking us
back to the historical conversation the Catholichistory, in Christopher Dawson describes a survey

(01:06:27):
that was taken in the early nineteenfifties, when things were already starting to
be on the decline, and peoplewere saying, the reason they don't practice
any kind of religion, the reasonthey don't have any supernatural faith is because
it doesn't do anything for them.One person said, it doesn't pay my
bills. Why should I care?One person said it, yeah, it
makes It makes demands on my sparetime. You know, why should I

(01:06:47):
care? It's someone's it's kids stuff, it's mythical, it's magical, it's
not real. It's not I can'tyou know, I can't put my finger
on it. I can't quantify it, I can't measure it. Why should
I care? And I think that'sa situation in the context that we're in
today with you know, the Internetand instantaneous communication across the world, consumerism,

(01:07:12):
you know, where you can buysomething with a device at your fingertips
and it can reach you within aday or two. You know, mass
produced goods and all the entertainment,the media, all these things that you
could possibly want to just drown yourselfin and distract yourself from pursuing something higher,
from pursuing something beyond what's immediately understandable. That I think is here in

(01:07:40):
a capacity that we've never had todeal with before. And that's what the
Council was trying to do, wassay, we have to get back to
the heart of it and be practicingour faith from the inside. And I
think that started really in the MiddleAges or so with with you know,
with with with the wintering of Christiandenominations and which put ultimate power in the

(01:08:03):
in the hands of each individual oreach preacher, each person that he who
felt that that he had it right, and then it set up this kind
of individualism which over the century iscarried into Yeah, the the industrial Revolution,
the sexual revolution, all these thingsthat brought us to our current state.
And World War One was kind ofthe not the culmination of it,

(01:08:27):
but you know, that was thefirst time that this kind of progress was
was utilized on such a level thatit brought such destruction and such horrors that
you know, obviously we had hadWe've had full scale war before. We've
had nations go to war with eachother before, but not with the technology

(01:08:50):
and not with the you know,I mean machine guns, poison gas tanks,
all these things. These are thingsthat we've we've never seen before.
So I think, yeah, themoral and the philosophical context backing that,

(01:09:11):
and then how it's grown since then. Yeah, I think that's probably some
additional context that's needed, and that'ssomething that again, the hopes of the
late nineteenth early twentieth centuries we're allwriting about how, Yeah, the Pope
the of the thirteenth described as thespirit of naturalism that had penetrated everything,

(01:09:34):
which prevented us from looking toward eternalthings. I think that's some context that's
definitely needed, and that of coursehas only gotten worse since then. It's
you know, with the internet thesedays and with the way we've advanced,
And I think that's a good casefor why it was that we needed a

(01:09:55):
council, why it was that weneeded some prodding to say, we have
to get back to basics here,to get back to our roots here and
not just be going through the motions. Thank you, Valerie. I may
then, what does modernism have todo with everything you're speaking of here?
What is modernism in a particular viewof reason related to modernism have to do

(01:10:18):
with this and the crisis and theproposed solution coming from traditionalists currents. Is
there a tendency to throw the babyout with the bath water monernism. Is
there a tendency to not accurately definemodern work becomes so big that everything that

(01:10:38):
seems modern is a threat. That'skind of in a sense. Sure,
yeah, so yeah, I'll startby saying I'll start by defining what modernism
is not and is what you said. It's not anything past nineteen sixty five.
Modernism is a very specific philosophical thoughtor a very specific outlook, very

(01:11:02):
clearly defined by pote Bias the tenth. But I mean, pis the tenth
is a very and I say thiswill respect a very long winded fellow.
His encyclicals tend to be very extensive, and Pashendi dominici gregis, which is
the encyclical condemning modernism, is quitelong. It's quite detailed, and they

(01:11:25):
yeah, the traditionalists will often say, you know, cite modernism Pashendy and
PI tenth condemned it, and Pushendy, if you read Pashendy, it's talking
about a very specific thing and it'snot anything modern. So modernism h tying
it in with the Yeah, thethe the materialism or the naturalism outlook that

(01:11:49):
I was talking about is ultimately rootedin what piece of tenth calls in agnosticism,
and I will find the quote thatI talk about that I cite here,
because yeah, we have to giveproper context for the whole thing.
So in push endy, he says, quote, modernists place the foundation of

(01:12:10):
religious philosophy in that doctrine, whichis usually called agnosticism. According to this
teaching, human reason is confined entirelywithin the field of phenomena, that is
to say, to things that areperceptible to the senses, and in the
manner in which they are perceptible.It has no right and no power to
transgress these limits. Hence it isincapable of lifting itself up to God and
of recognizing His existence, even bymeans of visible things. End quote.

(01:12:33):
So that's ultimately the guiding force behindmodernism is agnosticism, which is that there
is nothing beyond the immediately comprehensible.There is nothing, there's nothing truly supernatural.
I mean, the two sides ofmodernism are agnosticism, which is which
is what Pisa tenth describes as thenegative side, and then the positive side

(01:12:55):
is imminentism, which is kind ofan individual internal feeling he calls it.
He says that faith consist according tothe modernist outlook. He says, faith
consists in a sentiment which originates froma need of the divine. So it's
this internal need for something supernatural,which we recognize, but that we but

(01:13:16):
that's not handed down to us throughdivine revelation. It's just an internal feeling
that would then project onto that wouldthat that would then project faith onto external
things. So it's rooted in ultimatelygodlessness. That is not what the Second
Vatican Council said, declared, implied, nothing like that. That is not

(01:13:41):
what the teachings of the Council declaredor implied or anything like that. That's
a very specific outlook. That is. Yeah, it is in part responsible
for the crisis. But but whatI want to ask the traditionalist is if
this crisis of modernism, which theysee as the primary culprit here, if

(01:14:03):
the pre Vatican two ways, preVatican two Catholicism did not stop modernism from
developing and infecting the Church to suchthe degree that it did, why would
going back to it fix it?If we're in such a fix now,
why would return to the older waysdo something that it didn't prevent from happening

(01:14:25):
in the first place. That doesn'tseem very consistent to me. I mean,
yeah, it was. I meanit was in nineteen Pashendy was three
or five, I forget the exactdate, but like within the first couple
of years of the twentieth century,and already but Pis the tenth was ringing
the alarm bells really hard and saying, this is a huge problem. And

(01:14:46):
we had the Index of forbidden books, and we had the Syllabus of Errors
from one of his predecessors not longbefore that, and all these things to
clamp down on it, and tosay we have to you know his uh,
you know, put Pious at tenthkind of sniffing out modernism in the
in the in the seminaries and inthe universities, and that he sent out

(01:15:10):
all these orders to have to wehave to root it out and all this
stuff. If we were in sucha dire state at the turn of the
twentieth century, I just don't seeit as logically consistent that just returning to
how we were doing things fifty yearsago, sixty years ago is going to
fix that. When it's only cottonworks, that just it's not very consistent.

(01:15:31):
So the idea that we should justredact the Council and redact the new
missile, and just scrapple that andforget that it ever happened, and that
that's going to fix this crisis offaith that we're in. I just I
don't see that as a very defensibleposition. And that's why I think staying
with the church, and staying withthe authority, and staying with the teaching,

(01:15:54):
even if they don't seem to makesense to us, or even if
they don't seem to be what wewould want to do or or any of
these things, that that's really theonly way out. The way out is
through. The way out is notback. So yeah, that's kind of
my my long winded answer to themodernism question. That's we got to have
some space for Christopher. Though You'reright, and I want to get back

(01:16:16):
this so let me much to say. But I think one thing it comes
out of I think this whole controversywe are undergoing is to take to guard
against reaction. But my friend ThomasStork calls the react of mind, and
that's one of the biggest problems.I read a book many years ago.

(01:16:40):
It was written in the fifties.I didn't read in the fifties. I'm
not as old as Jim I readit. Jim is actually a living contact
with the nineteen sixties. He cantell you all about it. But anyway,
I it is called Christianity's Revolutionary Itwas actually a very orthodox Catholic book.

(01:17:02):
But the basic thesis was is thatthe Church is always acted in surprising
ways in order to address current crises. An example of that is the foundation
of the Mendicant Orders in the thirteenthcentury. People don't realize the foundation of
a whole entire order like the Dominicans, which were designed it as preachers.

(01:17:23):
That was extremely radical at the timebecause preachers were only men who are appointed
such by their bishops. But thepope actually established a whole order which could
function as bishops anywhere in the churchwithout the mission of the local ordinary.
That was something which was quite unusualor just or that both the Mendicant Orders

(01:17:43):
were living in ways that some ofthe Albagenzin heretics were living. They were
basically highly asthetical lives and going aroundpreaching like the like the Albigenzas did.
So that words the Church did isit took the opportunity and recognized something which
arose up within the church in orderto answer the problems of the church.
And that's one of the things wehave to expect from the church, that
sometimes there's going to be some veryrather surprising, unusual developments. The problem

(01:18:09):
is when those unusual developments, Ithink would occur in the nineteen sixties,
they are not sufficiently rooted in what'sin the past. They're not sufficiently rooted
in the tradition. And that's wherethe traditionals are pointing at, I think,
and that's where they ought to belistened to, is that you have
to tie this to tradition. Youhave to somehow justified in the tradition,
which is not just simply what we'vebeen doing in all these centuries, but

(01:18:30):
it's also what the teachings of thechurch are. That these things has to
be consistent with what being Catholic hasalways meant. And then you have to
be careful of that, of course, because sometimes what we think of being
Calcol's always meant is not what beingCalcls always meant. It's just some errant
tradition that might have come along.But that being said, that has to

(01:18:53):
be both sides have to recognize thetraditions have to recognize the kind of radical
nature of the church, the revolutionarynature of the church, and in the
revolutionaries have to recognized the founded natureof the church. That it's that it's
an organic growth. And I thinkthat's those are things which will reconcile us

(01:19:15):
if we actually or at least getus close to reconciliation, if we actually
seriously engage them. Thank you well. We end as all was with the
gospel for the day. This isfrom Matthew. On that day Jesus went

(01:19:35):
out of the house and sat downby the sea. Such large crowds gathered
around him that he got into aboat and sat down, And the whole
crowd stood along the shore, andhe spoke to them at length in parables,
saying, so went out to sew, And as he sewed, some

(01:19:59):
seed fellow the path, and birdscame and ate it up. Some fell
on rocky ground, or it hadlittle soil. It sprang up at once
because the soil was not deep,and when the sun rose, it was
scorched, and it withered for lackof roots. Some seed fell among thorns,
and the thorns grew up and chokedit. That some seed fell on

(01:20:21):
rich soil and produced fruit one hundredor sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears
ought to hear. Come Lord Jesus, Come hello, God's beloved. I'm
Annabel Moseley, author, professor oftheology, and host of then Sings My

(01:20:45):
Soul and Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio. I invite you to listen in and
find inspiration along this sacred journey.We're traveling together to make our lives a
masterpiece and with God's grace, becomesaints. Join me Annabel Moseley for then
Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood onWCAT Radio. God bless you. Remember

(01:21:12):
you are never alone. God isalways with you. Thank you for listening
to a production of WCAT Radio.Please join us in our mission of evangelization,
and don't forget Love lifts up whereknowledge takes flight.