What the 1960's Did to the Catholic Church & Why the Tide Is Finally Turning (Fr. Perricone) | Ep. 574

At EDF, we don't just encourage you to use less electricity, we actually reward you for it. That's why when you use less during peak times on weekdays, we give you free electricity on Sundays. How you use it is up to you. EDF. Change is in our power. I don't mean to start off this interview on a Debbie Downer note. You're joining the seminary and becoming ordained while thousands of men are leaving the priesthood. What was it like? EDF. Oh, I could spend forever on that. EDF. Let's do it. EDF. It was an alarming period. Could you give me an example of a heresy taught in a classroom? EDF. Oh my God. Well, Jesus Christ is not God. EDF. No. The seminary faculty decided that they had to begin weeding out any candidates who were showing any kind of partiality to the Roman Catholic Church as it existed before 1970. So they adopted the communist method in the Soviet Union. And two days before ordination, I was called into the Rector's office and told I wasn't going to be ordained. Two days. Whoa. EDF. You had breakfast with Mother Teresa? EDF. I could remember once. I said, Mother, you've been in the worst sectors of the world imaginable. Tell me of all the things you've seen. What is the worst evil you've come across? She looked at me without missing a beat, Matt. She said, Wow. So, Father Pericone, you joined seminary in 1970. Is that correct? EDF. That's correct. Actually, that would have been major seminary, Matt. I ended in 1968 in what those days was called the Divinity School. That would be men who have gone to college but knew they had a vocation with the priesthood. So they were settled into this two-year program where they would do accelerated Latin and Greek. And then after that two-year period, 70, they would go to the major seminary for six years of philosophy and theology. Yes, so, 68, I started actually. So here's the question, because I was born in 83. Not that anybody asked me, but there you are. But you're joining the seminary and becoming ordained while thousands of men are leaving the priesthood. I don't mean to start off this interview on a Debbie Downer note, but what was it like going through seminary during that turbulent time? Oh, I could spend forever on that. Let's do it. In 1968, the church was just beginning her meltdown. You might remember that this was the year that Father Charles Curran mounted his ascent against the newly published and cyclical Oman-e-Vite by Paul VI. He rallied all the theology professors at Catholic University of America and throughout this country, which represented the first major rupture with Rome in this country. It was an alarming period. And I remember that summer so well. I remember when the encyclical was promulgated on the Feast of St. Angeli 26th. And that was really my first delving into the study of moral theology, because I had to determine how would it be that I could defend this encyclical to people who were coming. Maybe before then, there was deterioration, splitting happening at the seams by bishops doing nothing to terrible, terrible abuses on every level happening in their dioceses. And so I ended under that cloud. And I remember so well that my class, which consisted of 53 candidates. So there was the full erosion having taken place yet. And clearly there was a split between those seminarians, 25 or so, who wanted to adhere strictly to the Catholic faith, especially the Catholic liturgy, particularly the Latin mass which had just been stopped or was about to be stopped in 70. And the other half who had jumped on the bandwagon of this free-willing modernism, which had become so Ocaron at that time. And so from the inception of my time at the seminary, there was civil war. And I was in the midst of that civil war. I was happy to be in the midst of that civil war, fighting from other church, and especially for the mass. And then 70, we entered the major seminary for us, a Macleod Conception Seminary, which was in the beautiful hills of Marwan, New Jersey. And the atomic explosion of doctrine less Catholicism and the complete demise of moral theology was full blown when I entered in 70. It's such a sad, but I think helpful way to put it, the doctrine less Catholicism, because I grew up in the 80s and 90s. And it's been flowing by that time. It felt like that. Like, what do we believe? And it was like, well, God likes you and he loves you. I'm like, awesome. Anything else? Exactly. Exactly. And so I entered all ready to do battle. And to wage war. It's really remarkable because often when these things take place, we can't see them clearly until well after the fact. But you did. You were able to see that this was not good and you were happy to fight. Witness at the revolution I was. Now, how were you prepared to see it so clearly? Did you have good mentors? Well, remember, I had grown up, as I mentioned in my book, Matt, in the Golden Age of Catholicism, the B in the 50s. And so everyone in the United States of America, every student in every Catholic grammar school, and over two million of them, received the copy of the Baltimore Catechism in the second grade and were tutored in that until they graduated in the eighth grade. By the time they graduated, Matt, they would have known the entire Baltimore Catechism by heart. In addition to that, I grew up with the traditional mass serving it and completely in love with it. So many of the young men in my grammar school, and this was the case in all grammar schools throughout the country, were so inspired by these spiritual titans that we called father dressed in their cassocks, their armor. We wanted to be like them. These other people were also brought up with this Baltimore Catechism and the traditional mass. So what happened? That's a mystery not only to God. I could remember a priest friend of mine who was ordained in 1966. So he would have been in the seminary in the little calm years, because even though the council had taken place, the bombs had not yet hit. And he told me that by the end of his time, heresy was beginning to creep in ever so slightly by professors who thought they were being terribly up to date and know this was the spirit of the council which just ended. And he remarked to me, how could it be that I was raised on the Baltimore Catechism and the doctoral formation of the other mass, as well as my classmates and his class consisted of 80, and they rejected the faith and I did not. To this day, Matt, I can only tell you that it was the grace of God, because we were all formed identically by this mighty engine that was the Roman Catholic Church up until 1965. So to that question, I don't know. In the seminary in 1970, we were still permitted to wear cassocks. They were not obligatory. Again, half the seminary wore the cassocks, the other half did not. There had begun the loosening of discipline, a setical discipline, the discipline of study, the discipline of... In every way that used to dominate seminaries, that was crumbling little by little. And I could remember that there was still remnants of it. So meals were very formal. The faculty sat on their platformed tables and the seminaries sat in this large refractory and only one at every table was designated to be the one who brought the food to the table from where the nuns would prepare it in the kitchens. It was a discipline that I loved, a tradition that I loved. That began to fray over the six years that I was there. But what was happening in the classroom was cataclysmic because I saw with my very eyes priests, most of whom no longer believed at the doctor of the church. I remember that one or two priests were still faithful when you could tell that because they wore their cassocks. We flocked to them for which we got in trouble. The faculty decided that they had to begin weeding out any candidates who were showing any kind of partiality to the Roman Catholic Church as it existed before 1970. And they had no avenue of dismissing us. So they adopted the communist method in the Soviet Union, where if you didn't conform you're considered to be mentally ill. And so all of us were not conforming to the heresy in the classrooms, which was ubiquitous. Could you give me an example of a heresy taught in the classroom or the most exaggerated thing you heard? Oh my God. Oh Lord Jesus Christ is not God. No. Teaching Catholic seminaries. Yes. And Scripture, that was where most of the damage was done, Matt, because the script professors were saying the way the church had interpreted things like the divinity of Christ, the performance of its miracles, the perpetual virginity of the mother of God. This represented an ability to understand the contemporary ways of seeing a text. And then the script professors would go on to say, so therefore the church is obligated now to jettison these. This is 1970. You couple that, Matt, with going into moral theology class, where the entire moral heritage, patrimony of the church was rejected in order to proffer a whole new no holds barred immorality. And being forced to swallow this, and the few of my friends and I who battled them in the classrooms were all sent to psychiatrists because they declared that we were mentally ill for stubbornly holding on to a paradigm of the church that was damaging to Roman Catholics. That's how they put it. By 1972, that had percolated down to the private lives of the seminarians. If Christ is not divine, if he never intended to establish a Catholic church, what am I doing here? What am I doing here? A celibate social worker? Is that what I'm called to be? Well, do you want to say no longer? Oh, sure. They no longer believed in celibacy. Okay. Well, there you go. All right. So, I'm doing many, many priests who left the church and married, but what was left were young men who were not interested in ever marrying women, even if they had an opportunity. How did that happen? You're saying they were homosexual? Yes. And to this day, I don't know how it happened. It's a very good question. I've often asked some of my priest friends, how could suddenly in 1970, 60% of the seminary I was in were subscribing to that agenda. I don't understand it to this day. If you had to guess, because you're saying prior to the revolution that took place after the council, this wasn't the case. No. No. So, the discipline of so strict, Matt, up until about 1966, right before I entered seminary, that seminarians, when they were in their rooms, cells were obliged to keep the doors opened. And if there were any visitation of seminarians to other seminarians, which was only restricted to certain hours of the day, they would have to talk to their friend over the threshold. They couldn't even enter the womb of the seminarian. This is about the church's way of putting as many safeguards upon any stray, moral infractions that they may be considering. That along with the strict formation with spiritual direction and strict moral theology kept at bay the concupiscence that lies in all of them. It worked very well. Men were cultivated in the way of perfection before 1966. Gradually, that was all relaxed. By 1972, not only could there be visitation in the rooms of the seminarians, but with the doors closed. Things were happening in six out of 10 seminarians. To the shock of people like me came from a very pious Italian Catholic family and a wonderful parish in Jersey City, New Jersey. This was incomprehensible to me, but it was happening before my very eyes. The only thing that we could do was be a vanguard against it, for which we were punished. How did you make it through seminary? Great difficulty. It's unpleasant to even talk about it, Matt. They tempted stopping me and other seminarians of my Catholic mind all the way through to my ordination. I suppose they considered me to be a rain leader because I would gather together seminarians and I would instruct them how to refute professors. For some reason, I was able to take control of the seminary bookstore. By the time I was two years away from ordination, three years away from one year, which gave me an opportunity not only to supply professors with the required texts, but also to fill the shelves with books I thought they should be reading. You could imagine what I had on those shelves. I remember one title that I had ordered. You're probably familiar with this, Dr. Ludwig Aerts, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. I thought, I have to have this into the hands of these young men so they can go into the classrooms. Little did I know I was needing my own noose because one of the dogmatic professors who did not believe in dogma came into this classroom one day and said, I heard that John Perakon has ordered the Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma and it's on his shelves. I would tell all of you not to buy it because this is simply a relic of a dead past. Now, if you have seminarians being told this time after time after time, it would make concupiscence very easy to read. It appeals to the pride too because you have the intelligentsia, or at least those who are on top, basically looking down their nose very condescendingly at this old relic of the past. They were looking at the relic as being 16, over 1900 years of Christianity. I am really excited to tell you that I have partnered with Theotokos Rosaries. These are, without a doubt, the most beautiful rosaries I have ever seen in my life. Theotokos Rosaries sent me one maybe about a year ago or so. I remember being absolutely blown away. 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I remember what moved me so much is when I sent this to my, I won't say who because I don't want to call them out, but a family member who doesn't actually pray the rosary, they started praying the rosary. I think it's honestly because it's so beautiful and so sacred looking. Again, go to dailywire.com slash shop to pick one up today and thank you to Theo Tocos Rosaries for partnering with us. Okay, so this took place in a lot of places around the world. Almost every seminary. Yeah, so here's the question. Why not think that the Catholic Church is not the Church Christ established then? Because I mean, you've got our architecture becoming ugly, our doctrines becoming muddied, the seminarians, all this stuff going on. This revolution that took place, there might be Catholics who are watching this going, all right, so all of that is an excellent argument against this Catholic Church. Therefore, the Catholic Church is to be found in Eastern Orthodoxy or some Coptic faith, but not this Roman Catholic thing. Precisely. Or they mean taught that recently Abu Dhabi documents signed by... Yeah, we could go on. ...the 14th predecessor. Yeah. That all the churches are equal. That's what they would be taught. That your essential role as a priest is to be a mover of social change. Yeah. I cannot tell you Matt how deeply this penetrated half the seminary. So they were going to go out and be social catalysts for every kind of avant-garde front group and they did. Yeah. You're bringing back memories that are so unpleasant, but it was a very unpleasant period. It was more than unpleasant. And they recognized that they had to obliterate everything that bespoke the church before 1970, as you just mentioned. It's architecture. How to be gotten rid of. It's music. It's music. How to get rid of. It's the vestments of the priest. How to be gotten rid of. I remember that the seminary where I attended had closets upon closets, upon closets in the sacristy, upper and lower, filled with vestments that could be in museums, as would be every Catholic church. But you couldn't wear them. Not only could you not wear them, I will never forget them hiring a dubster as large as this room. And seminaries were sidelined to take all of these vestments and it took them hours to put them in the dumpster. Again we are thinking of vestments that were museum quality. And a few of my friends said, do you see what they're doing? Let's try to rescue some of them. The dumpster was in front of the Christ the King Chapel and we stationed ourselves near the dumpster. And when they were looking we were taking vestments and they caught us. And they said put them back on the dumpster. We said no, we'd like to send them to the missions. And they said to me, I'll never forget, no priest ever should wear stuff like this again. They used a Corsair expression for that. And we watched these vestments be destroyed. So you had to have the entire raising of the churches that existed with all its architectonic symbolic structure having to with the liturgy, having to with the style of priests and the way they dressed and lived. So for instance the casket was no longer required when I was there. It was abolished soon after I left, was attained. But they allowed them to be wearing this new invention called a clerical shirt. You've seen it. This little white tear in the middle could be easily removed. And some of them were wearing that. Then they decided that was not enough of a separation from the church before the Ancients of the 15th century. So they started wearing different colored shirts, not black ones. Now your audience might think, oh that's so minor. It's not minor, man. Symbols are not minor. Symbols constitute our existence as human persons. They communicate everything we love and everything we believe. And so when someone would deliberately not wear black, which was the dress of Catholic priests for a thousand years, they did that intentionally with an express purpose in mind. And I know that for a fact. They wanted to create a disequilibrium where ordinary Catholics would look and say, but why? See, we don't ever remember seeing this. And it was their way of saying, because everything has changed. Down is up. Up is down. It's funny because just about a year ago, I saw a bishop in this country who has made a prominent name for himself, man, wearing a gray white clerical shirt. You know, this is like a bull seeing a red flag for me. I know, Matt, why they do this. See, but I also think there's got to be a distinction made between at the beginning when these things were implemented and why they were implemented and then 50 years on. Like, I think it's fair to say that the reason a Catholic priest might be wearing a white shirt with a collar, he's not necessarily trying to make the same statement that those you were dealing with, wouldn't you say? Maybe not. But nonetheless, he does know it's a departure from the tradition, especially from a bishop who is educated enough because he's quite bright and would recognize that this is not the tradition of the Catholic Church wearing a different color, clerical uniform. But you see, this was happening right during the Council, Matt. If you see pictures of our beloved Benedict the 16th, he, along with many other Germans and French pedici, were attending the Council dressed in suit and tie. Now, again, one might say, oh, what is the difference? It is a huge difference, Matt. They knew in 1963 when they were attending the Council, the sessions of the Council, that they were breaking from a millennial tradition and they were wanting to telegraph something. And that came to bear fruit because what they were telegraphing was carefully designed. I was ordained in the 76th. Up until my ordination, they attempted to stop me from being ordained. We made a, they still had the tradition of, before priesthood, the deacons would make a seven-day retreat at the seminary. In fact, I had tried to invite Venerable Fulnişin. I still have the letter where he kind of graciously said he couldn't attend. And then from that retreat, we would go to the cathedrals to be ordained. And two days before ordination, I was called into the director's office and told I wasn't going to be ordained. Two days. My parents were all said to see me at the cathedral. Oh my goodness. What was the reason? They gave no reason. They said they thought me to be, they didn't say this, but they had to do Lululean. They thought that I would be a menace to the Catholic people with my ideas. I'll never forget going to the chapel and sobbing, afraid to call my mother and father. I pleaded with the mother of God, please don't let this happen. I didn't see how it could not happen. He called me in the very next day with the eve of ordination. He said, we've attempted to devise some kind of reason why you should not be ordained and we can't come up with one. That would be convincing to the archbishop who is a heresiac, Peter the Ogerity. So you are going to have to ordain you, but we know who in this seminary are your friends. And if you attempt to make any disruption by disruption, they may introduce you in the Catholic faith and to the parish we are assigning you, they will be disciplined. Wow. A mafia style tech. Exactly. You know, we're not going to kill you, but we're going to kill your family. I went on to be ordained and I was sent to a wonderful parish which I'm sure they were very embarrassed of, always maintained faith and it was that. That was a glorious time for me those 10 years. And then I decided to take out my studies and I did and I started teaching. I want to pose that objection to you again. Why not think that all of this chaos is an argument against the Catholic church? Because it sounds pretty drastic. It is drastic what you've shared. It's chaotic. Sure it is, but it may not... This sounds like an argument against Catholicism. Why isn't it? Because I knew that the faith would be triumphant, had to be triumphant. I knew that the one true faith as it had been proclaimed by the Catholic church for 2000 years was the right and true faith and I was willing to suffer anything in order to have that Catholic faith revived again. I never for a moment that had any doubt in my mind, the kind of doubts that were being deliberately cultivated at the seminary and every rectory and every diocese and chancellor office. I knew they were all wrong. Not because I was right, but because our Lord was right, that the Catholic church was right and just as martyrs were called to defend the faith, especially those wonderful English martyrs, I was called to do the same. While I could not hold back the tidal wave that was coming against me, I had to stand there against the tidal wave and somehow you'll stop in the small little ways I could, given my little parish and given the classroom I finally went to and giving the lectures I attempted to begin to cultivate in many parts of the archdiocese. Yes, small clusters of persecuted, confused Catholics all being robbed of everything, but all I could do were these little things and I pretty much in the beginning had no support. I now see that there is a rising of young men that want to take their place saying to the enemies of the church, stop within the church and it gives me such joy. Joy is not the word, I mean, they did. They make me feel such strength. There were none of them in 1976 when I was ordained except a few of my friends. What's funny is you think that the revolution would have squashed it all down and now it's out of memory and now we've got these new Catholics and so they'll get on with the program, but quite the contrary, we see young people desperate for tradition, desperate for beauty, desperate for sound, solid doctrine. This has to be a work of the Holy Spirit because there's simply no other way of explaining it. It shouldn't be for all the reasons you just talked about when there are bishops who are publicly attacking the faith and attacking the mass, not only the traditional mass, but the ordinary mass since some dice, he's not even permitting Catholics to take up the reverential position of receiving our Lord on their knees as the church had done for millennia. Something wrong and yet in spite of this frontal assault, these young men are rising up. It makes me very emotional to see it. 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To donate dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby, that's pound 250 baby, or you can visit preborn.com slash pints. That's preborn.com slash pints. Now you've written an excellent book of essays. Your essays have been collected into a book called, Tortures Against the Abyss, which I believe was published with our friend, Pete Kostnevsky's. Your friend, yes, Peter. Yeah. So we'll put a link to that below, but I have to say I really loved it. Thank you. A lot of people today, and this is unfortunate, but fine. Like, well, I don't have a lot of time to dig into this big, massive tome, but this is short, very edifying essays, I think. I found it that way. I really enjoyed them. People have said that, Matt. Peter and I were talking about the value of the book. Some publishers rejected it because they said that collections of essays don't sell. Well, I'm not a businessman, I don't understand. But when I went to Peter, he said, no, I think that this would have a very, very soundly terry purpose. Because as you just said, Matt, they're kind of soundbite. You could read one in two minutes. Exactly. And I think there's enough substance there to two things, to ring the bell against the deception, but then to offer a solution. And I think you expressed it well. I think, therefore, it's not formidable to a Catholic because they could say, well, we have to read the whole thing through. Yeah, like if this book that Peter gave me, because it's about this thick, right? If that was just one single volume, I would have thanked him very much, but it would have stayed up on my shelf until who knows when. The fact that it was little essays, I'll have my coffee, I'll have my cigar, I'll read it. And I find it very edifying. So for those who are watching, we'll put a link below so that people can check that out. I need to get to this. You had breakfast with Mother Teresa? On more than one occasion. Come on, tell us about this, please. So I had, oh, I guess it was around 1987. I just started teaching at St. John's University and a friend of mine said, the sisters in the South Bronx, I'm looking for a priest to come and say a mass for them. And I knew they were a very orthodox order. And again, I tried to associate myself with any sprigs of hope. So I was a bit afraid of the South Bronx at the time because it was really kind of, it was named Fort Apache because the crime was so high. But I told the woman, tell Sister Priscilla, who was the period of the comet, that I will say mass on every week because I had a lucid schedule now that I was teaching. And so there I would go into the South Bronx. The good sisters would lock my car in a little space so it would not be vandalized or stolen. And I would say mass for the sisters. What a joy that was. And on several occasions, St. Mother Teresa was at my mass. And then the sisters would serve breakfast to me because they were framed by the old disciplines of the nuns. They would serve me a beautiful breakfast with, they were not permitted to eat breakfast with the not even Mother Superior, Sister Priscilla was from Great Britain. But Mother would come in and sit with me and would chat with me. And I felt so privileged. And that happened on two or three occasions. And our conversations were so telling that. I could remember once, I could say this, you could edit it out if you like. But I said, Mother, you've been in the worst areas, sectors of the world imaginable. And you've seen the greatest evils. Tell me of all the things you've seen, what can you tell me is the worst evil you've come across? I suspected she was going to say abortion or euthanasia. She looked at me without missing a beat. She said communion in the hand. Wow. I said, Mother, truly, she said, absolutely, Father, she said, what dishonor, 12 plus is savior. And I remember she had told that very same story to a priest in the Archdiocese of New York who was saying mass on the occasionally and it had gotten to the ear of the current ordinary of the Archdiocese of New York at the time. I will mention his name. He wrote an article saying how dare Mother Teresa take issue with an approved discipline of the church. He reproved her in an article because this priest said was disclosing to other priests and other people in his concussions what she had said about communion in the hand. Anyway, I came to love her. What was her personality like? She was ebullient and warm, engaging. I remember one person who participated in the Holy See's investigation of her life said you know that you are the presence of a saint when you can't wait to be with them the next time? Because she was magnetic. There with her, her gnawed hand, she had hands like a truck driver. She did such incredible hard work with all the sisters. She had asked me what I was doing and I said, Mother, I'm pursuing my doctorate. And she said, Oh, Father, is it going well? I said, Well, the tuition is very high. My physician was not paying for it. She said, Oh, well, Father, we may be able to help you. You live in absolute poverty here. How could you help with the high tuition of graduate school? She took leave of me. He said, May I leave you, Father? Yes. And afterwards, the superior of the convent, Sister Priscilla, God love her. I don't know where she is now. Simon said to me, Father, Mother told me you were having a hard time with your tuition. I said, I am. She said, Well, the missionaries of charity will pay her entire tuition. And they did. Wow. Because of Mother. Saint Mother Teresa granted me this favorite present. That is remarkable. Was she as famous at that point? She was. Yeah. In fact, I guess it was a few months later, she addressed the UN. Wow. Yeah. She invited me to be present in the General Assembly room. I've never said that before. And so, here I was sitting in the General Assembly as she was addressing the UN. And tell us what she said. Is this when she mentioned abortion? Yes, that's right. Yeah. That's right. So, you get it. It's probably on YouTube. Yeah. But it was so impressive. And she was unrelenting about it. I know. How did you feel as she was kind of stating these firms? I felt like standing up and cheering her. So well recognizing that so many of the priests I knew and so many at the seminary would probably hate her for saying that. Because to them, it was simply a very easy option. You have to remember that. I don't mind mentioning his name. A Jesuit father, Robert Dryanon, who was elected to the House of Representatives, I think, mid-80s, was one of the major proponents of abortion in the House. So this was the mood at the time that anything went except the traditional doctrine of the church, not disciplined by the Society of Jesus, but yet other priests, who are mind us so well, were Jesuits. Father Pribuf, Father Vincent Michele, were being cast aside and hidden because they were embarrassment to the Society. So you have to understand that that speech not only upset the intelligentsia of the United States of America and the ruling elites, but certainly of the Roman Catholic Church. You had Joseph Bernadine, Carter Joseph Bernadine, who was the prince of the American hierarchy for all the times that he was in office, who developed what he called the time to sing this garment, where without saying it, he was trying to devalue the moral importance of being opposed to abortion by saying it was part of a garment of pro-life. Very clever these people. I think it would not, at least as a cardinal, would not come out and say, oh, you Catholics making a big fuss about abortion, leave it aside. That would cause too much of a splash, even at that time. So how did he design his descent? I'll set up a weapon where we'll talk about many different issues of life and how dare they consider capital punishment to rank anywhere in its sinfulness with abortion. But that's the kind of thing he was doing. Yes, this was, so she caused consternation that many inside the church as well. Thank God for holy nuns. I'm thinking of another holy nun who I'm sure you've met, Mother Angelica. Oh, I was on her program twice. What are you? Yes, I was privileged to be on her program twice. These good, beautiful lionesses who stand up against the chaos. It was a great, great day when she came on the program. I must have been a priest a few years, and she was wearing a modified habit. It was still a habit though. And at that time we thought we could. And she appeared on the following program in the full Franciscan habit that we now know, and she said, I'm doing this in order to show you religious what you should look like. God bless her. I think that was wasn't that in part a response to the shenanigans at the World Youth Day in Denver where they made a Sheila. You might be right. You're my, you remember that? They put a woman actor during the Stations of the Cross. Yes, I do. And she was furious and she went on, turned on the cameras and she went off. It was lovely. Yes, she was. She was a bull that she was, she took no prisoners as it should be. You know, also at those masses, I know that this was the fond, fond hope of St. John Paul II that it was attracting youth and many, many youth came there. But I think that he was missing something because at those masses, there were photographs taken of a sacred host being cast to the ground and then being collected by staff into large garbage bags and deposit. I have to say my conversion to Jesus Christ was at World Youth Day in Rome. So no matter what shenanigans took place, it was a good. So only God took good out of evil. That's right. Well, I wouldn't call World Youth Day an evil. No, well, out of those practices that were occurring. There were evil practices that took place perhaps, but I didn't see them personally. But I went as an angsty agnostic kid who thought Jesus was for idiots and old people. And then I encountered happy people who weren't sarcastic or sadonic or cynical. I thought, who were these people? And they were attractive. They didn't make any sense to me. He did make a great, great, great mark on the church with these youth days. It's funny because my crotchety old age, I look back at those desecrations, Matt, which filled me with great sorrow. And I guess I paint the entire World Youth Day with that brush. And maybe I shouldn't. And it's good you told me what you did tell me. I'll never forget that. And I'll communicate it to others. No, I really, I really will. Well, it is hard, isn't it? I mean, when you've endured so much evil and so much intentional deception, it's hard for all of us. Maybe this is just the truth about getting older in general, where it's, you know, and I'm not saying you're cynical, but I think the temptation towards cynicism, I understand it because at least that way I can't be let down. It's like a giving up in a way, I think, a cowardly way to go out if you just look at the world and go, well, it's all going to hell, which is not at all what, I'm not accusing you of that. Your book is the opposite of that. But you are right about that. And I find that with some of my priest friends, older priest friends, not the case with the new priests that I'm meeting. I am now doing the traditional mass and a new parish, I just told you. The pastor is John Mary Vianney. I'm 11 years old, I'm a priest. And his cure is just as holy. And it brings tears to my eyes that I thought, my dearest savior, I never, never dreamt that I would see such a revival of the faith. And here are these two priests right before me. And they're not cynical and they're not despairing. They're just so happy that they could take the parish where they are and give them the patch morning of the Catholic faith. That's what makes them happy. Some of my older priest friends have settled into a kind of despair. One of them, very brilliant theologian and philosopher. I count as a very dear friend. One variable we call me at least once every two weeks and say to me, John, I'm sinking. I see this wall of descent and the synodality and the vicious being appointed. I just don't know what to do anymore. And I felt so awfully bad for him because he's such a good priest and we've become such good friends. And as a priest, Matt, I don't want to stop preaching to him as a friend because he's my equal. And all I can tell him is that there are sprouts of green. Tell us about these sprouts of green that you're seeing, would you? Well, those, no words, these priests. I met, I had to go to a place in New York for some reliquaries because we need reliquaries on the altar for the salvation of the mass. And a few of my friends accompanied me that I had with me today. And I walked in and there was this very young man in a Roman collar, Rabbi, as I'm wearing and he was very gracious. And I said, Father, how are you sort of, Father, I'm not a preacher, I'll be a priest in two years. His mom and dad were there. They were going to be preaching his chalice. This is a very moving moment. And I said, oh, it's so nice to meet you and where you're studying. And I don't want to give you extra details. And he's studying for Midwestern archdiocese, not the best. And then I told him my name and that he said, oh, Father, myself and my seminary and friends are reading your book. I'm not saying that for Vanity's purpose, but the hope that there are these young men who are feeding themselves and are looking for places to feed themselves at the trough of our mother church is teaching. And he was joyful. And he was happy. And I said to him, you're in a difficult archdiocese. And without any kind of fricassees, I am. And I said matter of fact, matter of fact, there's work to do. That was his attitude. I'm not going to grumble about it. In fact, I find it exciting. And I said, well, you say the traditional mass when you're ordained. He looked at me and he said, absolutely, Father, and all my friends will. First, a sprout of green. You, secondly, the audience that you have. Again, I begged your forgiveness before the interview of not knowing about it, only because I'm a little bit anti-Diluvian about media and things like that. Like I said to you before, I'd rather sit down with St. Thomas as someone called to tell us. But when people began to tell me about the breath of the people that you are reaching, I simply said to myself, this represents the triumph of the faith in Matt Fradd. And it represents the dying on the vine of the heretics who wanted to replace it. Even though they are still yelling and shouting, I really believe that they are as strong as they are, as they are, because they know they have lost the death throws of the death throws. They know they're still managing the levers of power and they still have the money and they're still in control of all you see. But I think they know the end has come. But how else can you explain the frenetic hysterical reactions to the presence of the traditional mass and all the young people that is attracting? Yeah, and they're not being told to do it. They're seeking it out. So yeah, your program. I look at it, it's funny because I shouldn't be advertising people, but so many new public companies are spreading out and they are republishing Matt. This is a very, very hard to bury forever. What would you say that the kind of modernist project was? What were they trying to replace Catholicism with? Because I mean, I've had the same experience as you. Even in the 90s, I remember after my conversion in the year 2000, meeting unhabited nuns. God bless them. I'm sure they had a difficult life and I don't want to judge them who the hell knows what they went through. But you know, telling me that the church doesn't teach contraception is evil and just this on and on and on. What did they want to turn Catholicism into? A catalyst for a kind of Marxist change. Truly, you've had people like liberation theologians who were doing that, the Leonardo Balfe, Gustavo Gutierrez, who were proffering Roman Catholicism without God. And I think this was their aim. Certainly the demise of our traditional way of disorders represented that kind of dream, the utopian religion without God, a secularist model. It's St. Paul's acknowledging a religion while denying its power. That's right. And I think that was their dream. They no longer wanted any mention of supernatural or the transcendent. They thought that these were damaging to man's human dignity because after all, what was one of their models and their siren songs, man has come of age. I heard that autonosium in the seminary. And men come of age, no longer need a religion that's constantly talking about the supernatural and constantly talking about the cross and a hope of resurrection. This is irrelevant to me. You know, Udolf Bultemann, until the end of his life, after he had written the demithologization books, we got up into his pulpit in the Black Forest, and he opened up the text of the Gospel, and he read it. And then he closed it. He was supposed to preach a sermon. He placed the Bible on the pulpit, left, went into the sacristy. You know the story. I'm preparing myself. I don't know the story, but I'm not looking forward to it. Went into the sacristy and began to sob. Oh, that took a turn. And his sacristy said, doctor, what is the problem? He eyes filled with tears. He turned to the sacristy and he said, I have nothing to say. He meant that he had successfully decapitated revealed religion. Wow. By demithologizing the entire New Testament, his book was on the seminary list for required reading all throughout the world. He knew what he had done. It reminds me of Ernst Renan's friend, Beauvais, in France, after he had written the life of Christ, his first attempt even before a boltman of demithologizing the New Testament. Beauvais said, we have finally accomplished what we thought was impossible. We have dethroned Jesus Christ as a member of the Trinity. This is what they were after. It infected everyone, everyone. And it's the problem. Now that's what I experience in your experience, but as far as the sprouts are, I see young people coming to the traditional mass as you do. And all they are hungering for is the catechism. They are hungering for the traditional mass. They want to be saints. And this is so alien to the utopian spirit that was being prophet when I was praying. And that continues to be prophet. I just heard the quote by priest friend sent me a quote by the new archbishop of Westminster. I don't even remember his name. He actually boasted about the fact that I have to bring the Catholic Church in England to new places that they never knew before. I know what those new places are going to be. And I almost felt like saying to him, but you've brought England there now and all you have is a corpse. But they still think there's work to be done. That shouldn't depress us, man, because they are the past and you are the future, not me, I'm an old man now. That brings great buoyancy to me and to others. And then I can look at the payoffs with this decay. There are too many wonderful things happening. Why do we need Thomas Aquinas? Why should we pick him up again and read him and teach him in our seminaries? And what was the result of throwing him away? I said in one of my essay, I think it's entitled Aquinas, anyone trying to be as mild about that as possible. But I call him the fortress of Mother Church, the impregnable fortress. And when that fortress is breached, the faith is breached, his quasi-angelic intellect gave us an apologia for the faith that appealed to both the wisdom of the faith, but also to reason, which made it impregnable. Why else did Pius did Leo XIII? Two years after he was seated on throne of St. Peter, right, St. Peter's nepotism. And he says the only way to reconstruct the world, because it was the whole European edifice was decay, is return to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. And in that marvelous encyclical, he went through all the reasons why, because he represented the apogee of what human reason could do. He did not in any way make it equivalent to the faith, but made it an indispensable path to the faith. So that reason was given its proper respect, as it ought to be by Almighty God, made an image and likeness, but it doesn't replace the faith that brings us to the faith. He has this marvelous combination of faith and reason, which in a certain sense, that exalts the human person. And yet he gives us an understanding of the faith that makes us understand that as exalted as we are made in the image, likeness of God, we are still his creatures, and without his grace, can do absolutely nothing. In that same encyclical, you recall that he said this angelic doctor, or what he called a common doctor now, to make sure that he stood over and above all the other doctors of the church. He said he takes the entire tradition of the church up until him, meaning the great fathers and doctors, and he makes all of them his own. This is amazing. So that when we read Aquinas, we are making the whole tradition of the church our own. So when you say why is Aquinas necessary? Because no one has been able to do this any better than that humble Dominican monk. And he did it with the utmost gentleness, and charity, and child likeness. Like you, I remember so many of those stories of that child likeness. One of them was he was walking in the cloister deep in prayer, or probably reflection upon some difficult metaphysical problem. And a very playful brother came up to him and said, Father Thomas, Father Thomas, come with me. There are pigs flying in the sky. And he stopped him with his hulk. He breathless, he followed the brother, and he looked up at the sky. He said, where are they? And the brother said, oh, I was only kidding with you. Why did you come with me? And he said with child likeness, because I never thought a brother would not tell me the truth. Yes. Why can go on a disposition of why he's so necessary to look what happened because we jettisoned Aquinas. The Second Vatican Council just blew off like a wheel, a detachment, a miss axle. Of course, this is all carefully being cultivated by attacks upon the angelic doctor for the entirety of the first part of the 20th century. And one of my great, great heroes, as I'm sure he is for you, Matt, Father God of Gulligrad, talk about a warrior. He battled these people, the Danelous, this Gillibax, the Kongars, Labordats, and we're trying to say that a new historical understanding of the Catholic faith should detach us from this overly stayed encasement of metaphysics that St. Thomas put us in. Well, little did they know that this false encasement was like the clear picture of milk that contains the milk. It makes sure the milk is safe. It's contained in one spot. Doesn't detract from the milk, but without the encasement, we wouldn't have the milk. Aquinas does that encasement. We all have mobile phone service. It's time to support a phone company that supports us. Switch to our sponsor Charity Mobile because they're different. They're proudly pro-life and impacting the culture of life in America. With Charity Mobile, there's no compromise on service, quality, or affordability. You get the same nationwide coverage as the major carriers with no contracts. And their customer service is staffed by pro-life Americans, which is really cool, actually. Every month, they take a percentage of what you pay and send it directly to the pro-life, pro-family charity that you choose. Come on. Over the last 30 years, that's added up to millions of dollars, making a real difference. An old plan, start under $50 before taxes and fees. When it comes to phone service, Charity Mobile makes it easier than ever to buy the way you believe. New customers can use my code, Matt Frad, to get a free phone with every new line plus free activation and free shipping. So it's pretty simple. You might have your phone bill actually support what you believe in. Check out Charity Mobile and see for yourself. To get started, visit CharityMobile.com slash Matt Frad. That's CharityMobile.com slash Matt Frad. And use promo code Matt Frad at checkout. Spring is here. Summer's on the way. And you really start to notice how much of life happens in one place. The kitchen table. That's where the conversations happen, where the phones get put down, hopefully, and where the day actually slows down for a moment. For me, being intentional about what I serve there really matters. And that's a big part of why I use good ranchers. Good ranchers partners with local farmers and ranchers to deliver 100% American meat straight to your door. And that might sound like obvious, but it's not obvious. 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When you subscribe, you'll get free meat for life added to every box and $25 off your first order with my code PINCE. That's free meat in every single box for life plus $25 off your first order when you use my code PINCE at checkout. Good Ranchers.com. American meat delivered. You mentioned the summa contra gentiles and I love that. I find that more fun to read than the Summa Theologi. Many people say especially scholars. Yeah. And I think what I loved, of course, I'm sure you remember it, is what he had to say about Muhammad, the blistering words he had for Muhammad. And I'm concerned that there are Christians who think that there can be some sort of a rapprochement. Yeah, with the Muhammadans. Why is that not the case? Why should we see Islam as a threat? I first want to say what Aquinas were to say, we have to love them. They're made in the image of the like of God. We have to hate their pernicious error. Not for one moment, Matt, allow sentimentality to enter into that charity, Akkaditas. Yes, we love them because they are made in the image of the like of God. That love means that what we must give them is the truth. St. Thomas says the greatest exercise of holy charity is to tell them the truth. Yeah, I remember a bishop in Australia, God bless him. I won't give any more information than that. Trying to say how we like the Muhammadans because we're both people of the book. This is what leads Catholics to lose their faith because there's no faith, there's no content to adhere to anymore. And then we wonder why we abandon it. But they say, matter of our Lord's words, I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the way, the truth and the life. No one shall come to the Father except through me. The ascension, you know, go forth and teach all nations, teach them what I have taught you. There's no doubt in anyone, no doubt in the Dines of the Church for all the years up until 1965 that this is the one true church and we had to give up our lives and our breath telling them and certainly recognizing that where there is error, we have to identify it and we have to fight against it and we have to marshal every argument to protect Catholics from it. And now suddenly we abandon that vocation that is all of ours as Catholics to say nothing of being the vocation of shepherds of the Catholic Church and to say that somehow it is equitable with the Roman Catholic faith. This is going to do exactly what you say is going to mislead so many Catholics who are not astute enough to recognize that maybe sometimes bishops are not telling us the truth. And in their naivete think, well, if a bishop has said it or if a department of the Holy Seer said it, it must be true so I just have to embrace Islam and that's exactly what's happening. Even more so in Europe than it's happening here. I read in several churches in Belgium have now given their beautiful churches over to Islamic worship. Again the teaching, the suggestion is they're just as good as we are and they are not and Catholics should not be afraid of saying they are a false religion and if they need any more proof, look at the scorching critique that St. Thomas gives of Mohammedism. And as you point out and I'm glad that you did that, that none of this, just like the critiques of the revolutions that took place after the Second Vatican Council are not a judgment or a critique of any individual who has been taught these ambiguities. We should love them and we should love our Muslim brothers and sisters. But if Catholicism is true and it is, then we don't love them by allowing them or by not correcting them and by not re-emboldening the faith of Catholics to know what truth is, what error is. I read a study recently that said if Europe stops all immigration entirely, that Europe will be a Muslim country or the most popular name for children written now is Mohammed. So they couldn't take it during the time of the Crusades but it looks like they're taking it now. So what do we do? We have a lot of European listeners who watch this. Well, simple Catholics simply cannot tolerate this in their own way to fellow Catholics and even to priests when they speak this nonsense from a pulpit or an adult education class, have to raise their hands and say, Father, you are absolutely wrong. Mohammedism is a false religion. Every religion is false. They may have some tidbits of truth that we could look at but that does not make the religion true. The Roman Catholic faith is the true religion. They have to tell their fellow Catholics. That's one of the spiritual works of mercy to instruct the ignorant, isn't it, Matt? And a wonderful way to exercise it during Lent. I consider that under the rubric of arms giving. Arms giving is relieving the estate of the poor and all the poor are so the poor but those Catholics who have been left with nothing, they're destined to do the faith. And then every time that this nonsense is spouted by Bishop or a high rock, to simply write a letter or tell your fellow friends, Lord, respect to his office because he has succeeded the apostles. This is wrong and you cannot fall for it. We're seeing hope in Europe though. I just read a newspaper article that said that baptism, adult baptisms are through the roof in France. I heard that. Yeah, come on. Talk about St. Thomas Aquinas that the greatest act of God's power is to draw good at you. Good at the people. And this is what's happening, Matt. This is the reason why we have to have hope and smiles on our faces and be a bullion because this is happening throughout the church universal. Old God is still there. I thought they remind you of the old, who you're too young to remember, in the heyday of the Soviet Union they would have their May Day parades. May 1st, which is the reason why Pius XII established the pieces of St. Joseph, the work one on May 1st to counteract that. And what would happen is the gerontocracy of the Soviet Union would gather on this platform high above the red square where they were marching out nuclear missiles and all their armaments. And they were old men. They were wheezing. They could not even see anymore, but they were holding this decrepit, failing Soviet empire somehow together. And it fell one day, as we all know. With all due respect to the hierarchies of the church, they remind me of that gerontocracy of the Soviet Union. Old men trying to hold up a tissue, an empire of lies. It's falling apart. And you see that in the joy of these beautiful Dominican sisters here from Nashville. There's like a hundred and something of them in this lovely mother house here in Nashville. I get the occasional literature. I have the two beautiful sisters of life. I'm sure you're familiar. I know them very well. Coming on recently and they're just joyful and beautiful and they look beautiful. The habit is beautiful. It's so important. Yeah. Because it just fills up with such a joy, doesn't it, for you and I to see them and nothing makes me happier. The only thing that makes me happier than seeing another habit is a priest in a cassock. I love the cassock. Tell me, how do we encourage our priests to wear the cassock? Whenever I see a priest, I always thank him for doing it. Number one. Number one. Because I'm sure they get a lot of criticism. Even when they go to the yasas and priest meetings, they're shunned. That's tough. So how do we encourage them then? That we the Catholic people need you to be an icon of Christ. For me, when I look at you, I'm like, here's a man who takes his priesthood seriously. Exactly. And since I take my sin seriously, I would like you to take it seriously and I can tell that immediately by what you're wearing. All at once. This is the power, the symbol, isn't it? Yeah. In the 90s, priests would say, yeah, call me Jim. I'm right. Okay, Father Jim. You're all Father John for whoever. I'm not saying a particular priest, but... Sons, clerical dress. So I knew that type very, very well. That type has faded because that was my generation and they're either dying or... I was going to say in jail, but I don't want to say that. But they are no longer with us and this new crop of seminaries are coming. But yes, when you see a priest, tell them you're happy he's wearing a cassock. And then to other priests, say, you know, I would love you to wear the cassock. I saw Father So and So and he's only 27. He was wearing the cassock. It made such an impression on me or I saw a priest in a restaurant in New York, which is happy to be frequently people being so differential and filled with a sense of relief, almost a sense of protection, Matt, to see the... The cassock is like, here's Hercules. That's the title of one of my essays. If you've read it yet, the priestess... No, I haven't. The priestess Hercules. And that's what we stand. We stand like Olympiads for the Catholic people, but the dress is all important. We have to wear the cassock. The great-grand-choreographer of ours wore his cassock. It was threadbare, but he was never without it because people there saw a protection from the awful effects of a secularist world that you mentioned. They're trying to tear you to pieces, but the priest protects you. And this is his armor. I think this is a good question for any layperson out there. If I said to myself, all right, suppose I'm on my deathbed. Do I want a man like you coming through the door or someone who's like, call me Bob? No, I don't want Bob. I love you, Bob, but you don't know who you are. So how can you help me? That's the essence of it, isn't it? If a priest doesn't know who he is, how is he going to help others to know what they are? Poor sinners in need of the grace of Christ. Yes, the priest in the cassock means everything. He understands his own identity and the Catholics who see him know he understands his own identity. He draws them like a magnet. The cassock is a magnet. I remember walking into an elevator about a year ago with the friends of my layman and we were going up to a restaurant on the third floor. And when I walked into the elevator with them, they're already a family, a Spanish family, mother and father, seven or eight children. And when I walked in, the mother and father said in Spanish, kneel down, father is here. But all these children knelt down and I bless them. And these are the great joys of my priesthood, but that's the kind of reaction that good Catholics should have. Here is father, the rule should light up. And think of how they would have been scolded if it were another priest, perhaps. Don't kneel, don't kneel. Which I think is an act of pride, actually. Of course. Like when the bishop doesn't allow me to kiss his hand and God love him, but it's all when the priest doesn't allow me to call him father, it's like, this is not about you, actually. This feels more prideful than just allowing me to show you honor. You're absolutely right, Matt. It's a proclamation. Look how humble I am. Maybe it's even fear of how you ought to comport yourself. Do you know what I mean? Of course. Don't treat me like that because then I'll have to live up to that. That's a very, very good point. And that's the reason why so many shed clerical garment and clerical garment all together, Matt, because they didn't want to live up to the expectations that they know Catholics have of the priest. And that was the case when I was in the seminary. They didn't want anything to do with this symbol that represented life of perfection. Aquinas says in one of his Episcopal that the reason why the priests of religion, we Franciscan Dominicans, are, I have to take the vows because they are on their way to becoming perfect. But the diocesan priest doesn't take the vows because before he's ordained, he knows he must be perfect in the interior life. And I've never forgotten that. Father God of Gulligranz writes two beautiful books, Matt, on the priesthood. If any priests are listening, you should get them and read them for Lent. The priesthood and perfection. And the second book was the priesting union with Christ. I hope they're both in print. Maybe Cluny has put them in print. Something just occurred to me. It seems like part of what was going on in the 70s and 80s, maybe, in sort of eradicating solid teachings on doctrine and morals was we want to alleviate people of guilt so that they can just be free. But it just struck me that it's the lack of solid doctrine that has perhaps led to scrupulosity. In other words, if there's no content that I know about and yet I'm still burdened, I know that I'm not as I should be, but I haven't been taught what is virtuous and what is vicious. Do you see what I mean? If I don't know how to act, if I don't know what I should repent of, then I'm... I have a slight reservation to that, Matt, because you have to understand that most parishes and most continents are being taught, certainly in America. They no longer have the reservations you've just subscribed to, which they did, because if they are told each and every week like an antiphon, God loves you just the way you are. Well, Matt, you no longer feel guilty about anything because there isn't any sin. I see. So you're saying that, yeah, but, you know, right. And if you listen to one prominent Jesuit, who's publisher of a magazine, who's Kasi telling that us that serious infractions of the sixth commandment are simply ways of showing love and he's not stopped, I simply say, I don't think Catholics have any kind of scrupulosity about anything. Okay. Well... Because they have not been taught. Well, maybe let me rephrase that. I would agree with you that if I don't accept the moral law, then perhaps there's not much room for guilt. Or thinking that there is one. Yeah. I think there's also a lot of young Catholics who are in the church. I guess that's who I'm referring to. Okay. They know they're guilty. They want to repent. They want to love Jesus Christ and be good men and good women. But if they haven't been given clear instructions on what is vicious and what is virtuous, you see, the importance of a tender conscience. This is very important, but the error of scrupulosity. There is a distinction there. There is, and it might lead to excess because they're not given the proper direction of the church by the priest who should be giving it to them. So they'll look at land, for instance, and say, now this used to be the time of asceticism and fasting and bringing our bodies into subjection, but if they don't have the guidance of a priest, that will likely be taken to excess. Yeah. And I see that happening a lot. And I have to correct it. I said, no, no, you are not doing it. Just talk about doing small things. It can be just as efficacious for our Lord. With consistency, not flashes. Exactly. And so you're right, but the priest needs to be doing that direction. I guess you're right. Because I do see that because with these sentiments that these young people have, they know they are being called to God somehow. They're not being taught how because they don't have the priest teaching them. So it becomes a do it yourself asceticism, which is very dangerous. St. John of the Cross tells us that it leads either to despair because you just find, I can't do this or pride. I'm better than the rest because look what I'm doing. Look at me. Look, there are a lot of people who watch this show and hopefully they'll tell us in the comments who are converts to the Catholic faith. And everywhere I go, I meet people in the airport and in bookstores and shoe stores and they're saying, I watch your show. I love that interview. With so and so I converted this last Easter. You know, praise the Lord. What advice do you have to them on how to begin developing their, what is the interior life and why should we care? How should they develop it? The interior life is simply doing everything for our by autumn day, a gloria, everything we do in the course of the day for the greater honor and glory of Almighty God. And that doesn't omit anything from the moment they wake up and have to grow in their cells to face the world. That's being done for the honor and glory of God, my dear friends out there. And so therefore you should do with perfection. Waiting for the light and it might be late for work and might be an exclamation of impatience and recognizing, no, this is a chance for virtue. I will not be impatient on my autumn day of gloria. I'm giving my life to Almighty God and going to the office and putting up with unfairness perhaps or, you know, obstreperous people who are at the office, another modification, you see, and at my autumn day of gloria. And what is happening is a Catholic begins to see that I don't have to do these long fairs that do it yourself. A serious Catholic will be doing it because these little modifications are just as significant to our Lord and they involve as much modification. How else are they going to? All of this is being done for the honor and glory of Almighty God. The smallest things. What they might want to do is read Deco Sardes, abandonment to divine providence. Okay. Yes. And they will see that sanctity is something that every Catholic can do. Every Catholic can become a saint. Every Catholic's cold to become a saint. And this becomes a joyful venture because when we are cooperating with God's graces and sanctifying every part of the day and all the work of the day and all the people that I come in contact with, especially my family members, and what will happen, especially engaging in that beautiful prayer with our Lord in our own words, which Mother Church has classically called mental prayer. What does our Lord do? He promised that I will send you the Holy Ghost and He transforms the soul. And what He leaves with us are the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit. So I'm going to encourage your audience to go to your catechism and look up the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit. I will give you the first three. You'll see the rest. Joy, peace, love. This is what should characterize every Catholic who is falling more and more in love with our Lord Jesus Christ crucified every day. And that will allow, as Chesterton put it, Matt, it will allow goodness to run wild. That's lovely. That is our hope, resonderta as Catholic, to let goodness run wild. But in order for that goodness to be released, I have to say no to sin. I have to work on those defects that I have. And I best do that with a Father confessor, because he's the guide Mother Church has given me. So I don't do either too much or too little. But I get it just right, that wonderful prudence that the angelic doctor talks about, which is so critically important to the Roman Catholic. What are some private devotions of yours, be it the rosary or some other method of praying that has meant a lot to you and that you recommend to others? Of course, the rosary. Of course, the angel is, I don't know if Catholics are doing the angels every day three times a day. Very important that contact with our lady. Very important we cultivate our friendship with our God, an angel. How do you do that? By simply speaking to him all throughout the day, before I came into this interview, I said to him, I'm doing this interview with Matt and I admire the work he's doing and all the Catholic city reaches, will you please give me the light I need to say the right things and think the right quotes and deliver it in a way that Catholics will find this attractive and appealing. So pray to our God, an angel. Our mourning offering is very important because it sets the pace for the entire day. If I want to do everything for Art by Autumn Day, glory on Matt, then that wonderful mourning offering which we found in the Catechism, I say that as soon as I wake up in the morning, first thing I do when I open my eyes and then I would suggest to them, this might be a little bit too dramatic for some, but kneel down and kiss the floor as though we're kissing the feet of Christ crucified. And then simply saying that beautiful prayer which consists of one word, said the arm, I will serve thee today and everything. Catholics will of course recall that it was the dawn of said the arm of Lucifer that cast him into hell. We are going to recoil from that. We are going to repair that. You see, but little thing. Yeah, this reminds me of Jose Maria Escriva. Are you an admirer, a follower? I had great admiration for him. I dedicated my chalice to him many years before he died. I have, of course, particular devotions. All of us have a particular saint that we have great affection for and cultivate that devotion to the saints. I happen to love St. Joseph. I've been making a constant ovena for the adification, canonization of Interval of Horton Sheen, which he has given me many, many favors already. Matt, had you ever met him? No, once. He gave a talk at a parish in Jersey and I just shook his hand ever so briefly, but I was very, very privileged. I spent 10 years of my first years of teaching as a resident in the rectory of St. Agnes in midtown Manhattan, a very famous church. The very church where Fulton Sheen preached the seven last words. I can't tell you the thrill I received when I first ascended the pulpit of St. Agnes to know that great, great preacher who had such a profound effect upon my life. Preached the seven last words. Yes, to have great effect. The saints are our friends and they are our models and they are very, very efficacious for us to pray to them. We'll pick different saints. Yeah. Well, the guardian angel thing is still very interesting to me because that's not something I was taught at all. And then as I started tonight. As I became a Catholic, I heard that of course, angel of God, which is lovely, but I don't eat. Maybe I'm not listening to the right people, but I'm not hearing an emphasis on this. You just gave it. You should. I'm glad that you did that. Talk to them in an intimate, personal way. I need you to help me with this interview today. Oh, I need you to help me with my taxes. I need you to help me with the children. I need for you to help me make this business decision. I need you better help me now. You know, yeah. This episode is sponsored by Clooney. So Clooney exists to bring back the great Catholic books that form generations, books that shape minds, stirred hearts and led souls closer to Christ. 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And really, that's what this project's about. Countering the chaos and amnesia of modern life by remembering who we are, where we've come from and where we're going. The way back is simple. Take and read. Visit ClooneyPress.com today and save 15% with code PINCE15. But it sounds like what you're talking about too fits in nicely with Therese of Lisieux, that beautiful queen of mine. Yes. Her little way, yeah. Because it's like she focused on what was small, she gave attention to what was small and her world was ginormous. We walk around just dismissing everything that's small and our world feels very tiny and narrow and... A perfect way of putting it, a perfect way of putting it. I have great devotion to her as well. I'm not going to go through all of them. And I have pictures of them all over my residence and to be in their company is so beautiful and to think that this was robbed from Catholics, the whole communion of saints. And now we have to bring it back. And you and I have to be apostles of the saints and help Catholics to cultivate devotion to the saints in their lives and begin with the guardian angels. Are you encountering a lot of people converting to Catholicism in your parish and the diocese? Not converting to Catholicism is coming back to the faith, we call them reverts. An awful lot of them. I come across an awful lot of young people. I give her men's retreat every year and women's retreat, women's coming right up. And there must be at least 140 men who attend this retreat. And I would say about 75% of them are under the age of 40. It is quite remarkable, Matt, to look at these young men who want to be soldiers for Christ. They want to go into the battlefield for Christ. And it just brings me a whole new rejuvenation of my aging priesthood to see. I do see that. And so there are converts. And to see their fervor and their willingness to make any sacrifices in order to promote the faith and they want to understand the faith and go deeper and deeper into the riches of the faith. And they recognize that the faith represents riches. And they will no longer be fooled by the lies. So I see them coming to my lectures that I give twice a week. Yes, I see them constantly. It's a great joy for me. How should we view the Holy Father during this time of kind of immediate access? I remember even when Pope Francis was elected, there wasn't live streaming on YouTube the way there is today. I remember I had to keep refreshing to see who it was. And then five minutes, 10 minutes later, Wikipedia had an article on him. But now everybody with the camera like myself and others is saying the things they think everyone needs to hear. We could probably all do some good by hearing less of it, including what I have to say. But it can really rattle people because we have constant access to what the Holy Father is saying and what he just did. And I suggest one simple thing for Catholics to do. Please. Don't listen to what he's saying. Pray for him every day. Or for acts of mortification from every day. And if enough Catholics pray fervently, he will become like his namesake Louis XIII. And he will begin to roar the Catholic faith. And you and I met and every Catholic will say, I never thought this could happen. And it will. But it depends upon us not worrying about him. Because we have to be candid. Some of the things he's been saying are worrisome. But by not listening to that, we're not going to be upset. Because what good does being upset do for us as Catholics? It sends us, makes us grumpy, makes us speak complaints. And it's simply not good. So to clarify, you're not saying don't listen to the Holy Father. No, I just don't. Don't be on the internet. 24 seven. Yeah. What did he say in this airplane interview? What did he say? What's going on? And I think we ought to pay attention when he's confirming us in the faith. And when he's saying things that are a little bit unusual to the faith, we say a memory for him. And with all due respect, listen and say, well, that doesn't quite fit with the deposit of the faith. And move on. Not to go to our friends and say, do you hear what he said? Because what does it create? It creates number one anger. And some it creates a kind of despair. Yes. And you see a lot. Yeah. And what good does that do us in the end? To be angry and to be in despair. And so one should just simply pray from every day. And for those who don't want to do that, well, I think we just kind of, you know, just talk about, I don't know, growing asparagus with them. Okay. But not, but it doesn't mean that we are ostriches that are with our head in the sand. It means when he says something that's unusual, we simply say a memory for him. Yeah. And maybe say to our friends, yes, he did say something unusual, but gee, I have to talk to five men who won the other cataclysm today. I don't have time to talk about him now. I want him to have mech anovina. I take care of my children. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Dr. Ed, it was Dr. Ed Phaesar, who I think is terrific. Oh, he's marvelous. Yeah. Has he been on your program? He has. He has. And it was an honor and I really hope to get him on again. But he's brilliant, Tom. He brought up a good point. He says the failure of the Holy Father or this or that bishop or cardinal or priest or, you know, lay philosopher or something. If there's failures there to uphold the Catholic faith, to condemn what ought to be condemned. That doesn't relieve us of the responsibility. It doesn't relieve me of the responsibility to say what is true and to condemn what is false when appropriate. And so, just do it. For example, under the rate of about the 16th rule, we said wonderful things. We could not have had the attitude as well. He's saying it. I don't have to. Yeah. There might be the temptation. No, he's right. Yes, he said that, but I have to now say it to the groups of people over whom I have influence and that is my role as a Catholic. That's my apostle. Now, you're a confessor and I'm sure you've heard tens of thousands or more confessions. What are the sorts of things that men and women are struggling with today? Is there overarching themes that you're encountering that you think we need advice to help us with? Well, age category makes a difference. I find young men are entrapped by the social media and the access it gives them to immoral images. That's a quicksand for them, young men, and almost invariably all of them will come trapped by that. Unless I wrench them from that, cut those chains, they'll have no peace and won't know where to go. That's what I encounter with them. Other groups a little bit older, I find do not know how to pray. They think that prayer is this hysteria that Baptists are used to in their churches. I let them understand what all was in the gospel yesterday when you pray and go into your room and pray and seek which you have in the Father who sees and seek will hear you. I put before them the publican and how his prayer was so perfect and lauded by our blessed Savior because of its humility, even as the Pharisee was standing and waving his arms. Thank God I am not like the rest of men. All those histrionics, our Lord does not praise them. I think too many Catholics who have been in this time of famine, spiritual famine, think that maybe that's the way I'm going to get because it makes me excited. I had to try to correct them. Then I think what moves the most is the perfect example of prayer is our Lady. We look at her at the foot of the cross. She was not wailing. She was not in distress. She was happy just to have her eyes make the eyes of her son. The stirring of her immaculate heart was all invisible and yet it's perfect prayer. I try to instruct Catholics of a certain age. That's how they should pray. Then of course of those, there is the very ordinary sins of trying to be a saint within their families and dealing with the children of abandon the faith which causes them great, great agony as you know, helping them to understand that. Helping them to understand what Mother Church calls rightly ordered prayer. That order is so important and it hasn't been taught for a long time. Unless prayer is ordered, it's going to be inefficacious to us. Mother Church always taught us the right ordered prayer through the traditional mass. Every part of it is bringing us to the Holy Trinity in a perfected way which doesn't give way to serenity, doesn't give way to over display in its profound restraint and yet almost delirious joy. It teaches us everything we have to know about becoming Catholics and also how to pray and how to bring our Lord out to our neighbor. I did hear confessions for those 10 years I lived in St. Agnes and every stripe of sin was brought because of community parish and so confessions for all day long. It was so good to see people who were willing to be so contrite and coming to confession. A funny story for you. Confessions never ended in St. Agnes so when it was my turn or the priest's turn to come in either by half hour periods, we're knocking the confessional door and the priest would come out and give the purple soul to the next priest. My dearly beloved friend now gone to God but see Eugene Clark. One day I was a pastor, I was relieving him and I knocked on the door and he came out and gave me the purple stole and he whispered in my ear, Father, I've taken care of all the unusual cases. Okay. Everyone's walk unusual cases from my way especially in Mitem Ann. Yeah. Another thing that we were told during the craziness was that the devil didn't exist and demons are just whatever, imaginary or they're literary devices that personify evils but they're not themselves existent. What should Catholics know about the demonic? That's an interesting question because first of all, they have to understand that it is a defined dogma of the Catholic faith that only angels exist but some of them are fallen angels, devils and their whole role is to deceive us and to bring us to hell. Suddenly though, suddenly. So a Catholic is defying the faith that they don't believe in them and so they're not really psychological constructs or syndromes or literary devices. That's all the nonsense of modernists and atheists, especially atheists, psychiatrists. So we have to understand that Catholics have to have a balanced understanding of the diabolical. And what I am troubled by these days is an imbalance. So we have many Catholics today who have become hysterical over the diabolical thinking that somehow the devils around every corner, they do things like talk about generational sin even though our Lord condemned it. And they have a fascination with exorcisms. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a lot of this online. Oh, this is very dangerous. Before the council, every archdye, every diocese had their own exorcist that would be a priest elected by the bishop who would be able to exercise the power he had given in ordination as all of us have of exorcisms. However, when the church understood that the greatest quality of an exorcist was humility. Mm-hmm. Only because the devil worked on pride. And so therefore it was forbidden for him to identify himself to anyone. So no one ever knew who the exorcist was in the diocese and he would never divulge himself. Because the moment he did that, he recognized he'd be giving his product. I am the exorcist for the bishop. So sanctification was all important. Now suddenly we have a cottage industry of priests who are boasting about being exorcists. This is very unhealthy because it's going to have Catholics, especially Catholics who are well-meaning and trying to escape the crisis, beginning to think that, oh my goodness, but the devil be there and everything I do. Is he waiting for me here? Is he waiting to be there? Is the sin of my father going to become to me because this was never spoken up before the council? There was a balance and that balance is given to us in the prayer of the priest in the office of compland mad. When Mother Church gives to the priest the beautiful text from Saint Peter's epistle, the first epistle of Saint Peter, when he says, be watchful, be vigilant for your enemy, the devil goes about the world seeking souls to the vow, stay steadfast in the faith. That simply meant that a Catholic was to remember that most of the sins, the temptations of sin that are going to come to me in the course of the day are going to be these subtle whisperings by the devil. God is giving me grace and free will to say no to those. Now the devil will continue to try and his manipulations are ever so clever. He's an angel after all, but that's all they are. I have power over him when I'm in the state of sanctifying grace. If I'm staying close to the mother of God, she crushes him beneath her immaculate heel. If I'm bleeding against her throughout the day in many ways, she's going to protect me from him. He's going to flee. So on the one hand, I recognize that he's there to ensnare me throughout the day. I don't worry about it. Yes. And I think any exorcist worth his salt would agree with you. Yes. It's hard to find that balance, isn't it? Because you've got some people who are listening who say the devil doesn't exist. So then when they hear an exorcist like Father Rippegur or somebody lay out, we'll look here's the reality, it's beneficial to them. And then you perhaps have people who've, you know, out of a sort of unhealthy fascination, listened to too much of that stuff. And then as you say, they need to calm down. Yes, I fight a lot of that. So that's what the people you're interacting with, you're saying it's more that than the other, at least in Catholic circles. Yes. The ones I interact with no longer have, I'm not going to spout often nonsense, but there's no devil. That's the exact opposite. I'm afraid the devil's everywhere, Father. And they're thinking too much about the exorcist. And I admire Father Rippegur so much. I just think that emphasis of his might not be the best emphasis we need today. Because it will somehow detract from a Catholic's joy. As I'm fighting the devil again, I have to be joyful because I am armed with grace. I have the intercession of the mother of God and my guardian angel. So no matter how vicious these temptations are, I conquer them. I, and I laugh at them. The saints laughed at the devil and he doesn't want to be left at that. He wants to be taken deadly serious. And when he's left at it is inches his pride and he is wall to wall pride. This is not, not good. So I just think that Catholics had to have this attitude of Saint Peter in his epistle. Yes, be diligent. Yes, be watchful because he is prowling around the wall seeking souls. But if you're steadfast of the faith and using those, those resources and those implements I just talked about, there's nothing to worry about. He's conquered and he's not going to be a problem. I guess you and I both think of that wonderful, was it book six and the Confessions where Saint Augustine is trying to move out of his lust. Beautifully ridden. So powerfully portrayed and finding it so difficult. Do you remember that one portion where he's almost capturing purity? Will you leave us forever? Will you leave us behind? Wow. These, these voices that were transient. And he continued to fight against those whisperings to the end of his life. Matt, we know that he asked his secretary every night to tie his hands to the bed panel behind him. What? Didn't know about that. Out of the humility. No one else must ever think that we ever impervious to those that because he knows how effective they are, especially for men, because he has permission to, to deal with the imagination. Francis de Sales, I think it was who said, uh, we should have patients with the whole world, but primary have patients with oneself. Uh, what does he say? Never become discouraged at seeing your imperfections, but every day begin the task anew. It's good to hear that from a Titan legs and friends. So you don't mistake it for soft advice. I mean, it's so important. So as we, as we kind of come to a close here, uh, maybe some final advice for the Catholic who wants to become a saint, maybe is struggling, maybe is tempted to give up, maybe needs patients with themselves, but also needs to be encouraged to chase after virtue. May I suggest to the audience that you find a good father confessor, because that's going to be critically important. Someone to whom you're accountable every month, who comes to know your soul and recognizes when you're trying to dodge the will of God and when you're not and can call you to account. That's all important. We cannot do this on ourselves. Uh, Saint Joseph, Barbara said, uh, a man who is a judge in his own cases, a fool. Very important. After you find that reappraise, it could be a father confessor for you. Then you begin the serious business, but the joyful business of taking one small step at a time and doing the holy will of God and knowing that if you did that today, by the end of the day, when you make your examination of conscience and you're going through the day and you look at those victories that grace allowed you to win and you say, I'm one step closer to being a saint tomorrow. There's a lot more work to be done. But, and if I should happen to fall tomorrow, I will say to Christ crucified, I'll pick myself up and now I begin again. I'll say the act of contrition and move forward. We have to do that. And that ordered piety, Saint Francis to sales is a perfect example of that man. Ordered piety, nothing to excess and filled with joy and, and yet very, very wise councils in the introduction to the about. Such a great book. Come on. Um, is that, and then maybe a more contemporary author, father, Basil Maturin, okay, virtual guidelines for soul seeking God. Thank you. Haven't heard of Mag Nif, M-A-T-U-R-I-N. Another one of his masterpieces and almost like you'd find it in a, the, the new age section of a bookstore. He simply named it named it self knowledge and self discipline. Matt, read it. It will cause explosions in your soul. Well, and then you interact. Um, go to father Edward lean, L-E-E-N. These are all men who wrote in the beginning of the 20th century. Are there treatises on how to become a saint? We're remarkable. Uh, for Lent, why the cross, the vine and the branches. What is education? Divine intimacy. Divine intimacy of father, C-E-R-B-E-L-E, Mary Magdalene. Another one, I can go on on on, um, Robert, uh, Robert Benson, Monserup, who brought so many into the church. We talked about the devil. C-E-R-S-L-O-S, screw tape letters, hilarious. And yet, and yet a Catholic is getting understanding how does he operate? He operates with subtlety and ever shows his hand. Yeah. Spiritual reading is so important for good Catholics. They should be doing at least 15 minutes of it a day. And, uh, and this way they'll go forward becoming saints. I forget which saints said it, but it was something to the effect of there are many devotions within the church's treasury, choose only a few and remain faithful to them. I like that advice because we have the temptation to vacillate. But I think something similar with spiritual reading, we can look at all of the books and feel guilty that we haven't read all of them and then buy them all and then never read any of them. Right. What good is that to choose one? Consistency, like you said, nothing to excess. Calm down 15 minutes a day. Minutes a day. And by Father Magdalene, Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene is wonderful for mental prayer. Yeah. Yes, I would encourage Catholics. This is very, very difficult. What does mental prayer Catholics might be afraid of? Priests I know are. When Mother Church works about mental prayer, she simply means that we're talking to our Lord in the intimacy of our own words. What could be easier? I mean, Mother Church canonizes children as saints, stambasco, agatha, agna. They were all practicing this. Okay. He spoke to our Lord from the bottom of their hearts. Try to do that every day, 50 minutes. In the beginning, I give spiritual direction to men. They find it so hard. Yeah. But work at it and work at it. And this is going to bring you, this is the speed ramp to becoming a saint. You can't overlook mental prayer because it's easy for us to hide behind the beautiful prayers that Mother Church has given us. But when we come to our Lord and mental prayer, Matt, it's just me and him and my own words, making acts of adoration, contrition, Thanksgiving, supplication. And what he does in return is send us the Holy Spirit and he transforms us in ways that are imperceptible at the beginning, but nonetheless, bringing us close to his sacred heart, therefore making us, if I may say, tortures against the pit. Come on. And now we're back to where we started. No, truly apostles, you know, the Francis Xavier's, that's what she needs now. These like me to be Francis Xavier and Isaac Jogues and Vincent DePaul and lovely. Thank you so much for taking the time. You're very welcome. It was a complete joy. I hope I didn't bore your audience with those details of my personal life. No, I think people will find that fascinating. It's nice to know you're human and where you came from. I find that very fascinating. So tortures against the abyss, rather, we'll put the link below for that. And anything else you want to point people towards? I know you hold retreats. I do hold retreats and they can find out about them. One of my assistants, Frank, told me, I forget the name of my website. It's Father Pericott. We'll put it in there. We'll find it. Okay. It is. He'll know it. And they can learn about the retreats. My sermons are now on. Yes. They're excellent. I watched them. They're great. They're small. They're not, you know, it's like the articles, right? Yeah. And whoever's putting them together is doing a great job with your thumbnails and. Yes. Yes. That's all Frank Minnishak and his great technological abilities. Thank you, Frank. Yes. You know, I don't tell like. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Matt, so much. You are a joy to be with.