Pints With Aquinas - Is the American Church the BEST Church? w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Fr. Pine talks about the state of the American Church 🟣 Join Us on Locals (before we get banned on YT): https://mattfradd.locals.com/ 📖 Fr. Pine's Book: https://bit.ly/3lEsP8F ✝️ Show Sponsor: https://hallow.com/mattfradd 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd We get a small kick back from affiliate links.

Hello, my name is Father Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St. Joseph and this is Pines with Aquinas. Sometimes people will ask me, hey, Father Gregory, which church do you think is the best? Or, Father Gregory, do you think the American church is the healthiest church currently on offer? And by church we mean like local church or kind of regional expression or national expression of ecclesial life.

And I think it's an interesting question. Mind you, I think it's a quintessentially American question because we just love making comparisons of just such a sort. And, but I think it's an interesting question because it helps us to focus on what we have and maybe the strengths of the way the Catholic life has lived here in the United States. But it also brings out some of the things that we don't or weaknesses to the way in which Catholic life is lived here in the United States

So even while it is a bit over the top, let's go ahead and think about it. Here we go So I think that nationalism or patriotism is a natural expression of love So when you're from a particular place I think you tend to love that particular place, I think you tend to love that particular place. And you also want others to love that particular place. Now, mind you, in Western Europe, that's more complicated because of the 20th century and like the ravages of totalitarianism and the many people who died. Nationalism has a kind of a bad name and an awkward fit.

But, yeah, in a lot of places throughout the world, there's still that vibe, that kind of nationalistic, patriotic vibe without necessarily the negative associations that others will have of it. And so people, you know, they typically love their place and they want you to love their place, and that's true even among Catholics. They'll like ask you, you know, so what did you think of like the liturgy and what did you think of the young adults and what did you think of the vibe at the retreat or this, that, or the other thing, which is cool.

And I think that you can respond to that question without having to be super scientific or super exhaustive and say like, well, I made like an Excel spreadsheet and a macro to calculate the respective strengths and weaknesses of all local traits. Like, no, just take it easy. I think you can just say that you love a thing because it's yours, and that you can appreciate

other people's things because you see the way in which they love them, and you can just say that you love a thing because it's yours and that you can appreciate other people's things Because you see the way in which they love them and you can enter into that love So like a mother for instance will tell you that her kids are just the best kids in the world and when she says that She's not saying yeah, like all other kids are worse or I did an exhaustive study of all kids in the world and mine came Out on top. She's just saying I love my kids a lot, right? And I wouldn't trade them for anything, which is cool. Now I think we can do something similar with the church in its local expression. So I want to just highlight a couple of things about the American church, which I really

love and which I really appreciate, and then turn at the end to places in which we can improve or ways in which we can be more conscious of limitations of the expression of Catholic life in the United States and how we might push through. Okay. So one is, I think that we in the United States have just kind of gotten through a rough patch. So it's no secret that the appropriation of the Second Vatican Council was not straightforward and was in many cases, not good. So in Europe, everyone has the date 1968 in mind because it was a big, you

know, like student revolt slash protest manifestations, whatever you call them. And a lot of that was anti-clerical and anti-ecclesial. And the fallout of that was very significant. We had similar things in the United States, perhaps not with the same vehemence or vociferousness, but like Catholic University of America and the Charlie Kern affair was a big kind of rally point when when it comes to challenging Turkish authority and then just doing all kinds of transgressive things. And so this, you know, like the late 60s, 70s, 80s into the 90s, you know, it's just just tough. It's just tough to be Catholic, especially if you found yourself in a situation where, you know, there's like liturgical experimentation going on and just tinkering with church doctrine and just wild speculation as to what the future held, because that can be very destabilizing

and very discouraging. But I think we're in a place now, where in many places in the United States, if you're willing to drive a little bit perhaps, but still in many places in the United States, you can find a liturgy which is celebrated with some dignity, teaching and preaching, which conforms to the Catholic teaching and preaching. So like in short, you have,

you know, orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and that's encouraging. Like you can find it. You might have to look a little bit, but you can typically find it. Granted, there are still places where it's just crazy town USA, but my experience of the European Church, and I was assigned in Switzerland, but I lived for certain periods in, you know, other countries, specifically Germany and in Austria, and had some, you know, like some finger on the pulse when it comes to, where did I visit, Portugal and Spain and France and the British Isles and Slovakia and blah, blah, blah.

Whatever. Some other places, not a ton, but some other places. And it just seems to me like this is more so the case in the United States than it is in a lot of Western Europe at least. So awesome. And also you just encounter less in the way of like teaching and preaching from outer space. Like when people just say just crazy things because it seems to them that now is a time in which to

yeah like entertain every wild theory and use it as a way by which to confuse the lay faithful there's just there's just a lot less of that so the days of liturgical woe and cringe while not wholly and entirely over I don't suspect that they'll be ever wholly and entirely over they have waned okay while the time of liturgical you know like contentment and anti-cringe have waxed. Okay, so that's first. Second is hope. I think that there's a general spirit of hope in the United

States. Now, mind you, in our conversations, odd-intra, sometimes we can give vent to a sadness, an anger, a despair. But I think in general, the vibe is pretty strong of hope. Like I'm thinking of, you know, in the nineties, when I first started paying attention to homilies, you heard a lot about like demographic crisis and vocational crisis. Like we're going to have to close every parish and there will be no Catholics

and everything will be terrible. Um, I think there's just a lot less of that in a way that's not true of the European continent. Um, so I think you hear a lot more of demographic and a vocational crisis. And you have just like whole offices of certain chance areas that are dedicated to like managing people's departure from the church. And that's like a big consideration for them. They like want to do it in a way that's efficient and that, you know, has

good statistical, you know, best practices in place. And it's just like, what? So you'll find it in Europe that many ecclesial bureaucrats are effectively like euthanasia nurses, just kind of sitting at the bedside of the patient who may or may not want to be put out of his or her misery, but that's just what's happening it seems. So that is just devastating.

That's really dispiriting to be present for that type of thing. And I just say that's largely absent in the American church. Maybe I'm being somewhat sanguine, but still. So there's still tough stuff to be dealt with, to be gotten through, but it's a pretty, you know, like good outlook, I think, vis-a-vis the future. And I think that that's encouraging for priests.

Now, mind you, there's still like quite a few young priests who leave the priesthood in their first five years. We'll talk about, you know, kind of vocational, ongoing discernment or whatever other euphemistic way to say, I didn't know what I was getting into, now I'm into it and I am collapsing, or I stopped praying my bereave-ry, or I fell in love with a woman and I don't know what to do subsequently, whatever, you know, there are various reasons for which.

But like, I think among priests, there's a kind of sense like, I don't have to do too terribly much, like I don't have to be heroic. The New York Post, you know, calls a hero any man who does his job, says John Mulaney, hero tutor, teaches after school. I think it's like hero priest administers the sacraments, teaches and preaches the faith, serves the people of God. I think we saw this especially during the pandemic when it became heroic just to do your job.

I think that a lot of priests have more confidence now in doing their job and of the efficacy of that and of the souls that will be saved in doing that. So there's just like a lot less despair filled experimentation and like, let's all leave the church in relative, you know, like, what tranquility as you'll find in some places on the European continent. Also, I think the vibe among lay Catholics is healthy in the United States, pretty darn healthy. So I think that you like, I consider two different aspects of it. There's the relationship vis-a-vis the hierarchy, and then there's a relationship vis-a-vis the apostolate. So I think the vocation of a lay Catholic is, you know, your baptismal graces are destined for,

you know, the salvation of the world, for making holy this present evil age. So you are leavened. And I think that that sense is pretty, it's pretty keen among many lay Catholics in the United States. And so it, but it doesn't end up in like a, we've become the professionals and we only use the hierarchy for reasons of a sacramental administration, which we would do ourselves except for the fact that we haven't been ordained. But we'll, we'll manage that later, which is sometimes the vibe again, that you get in the European continent, which can be super anti-clerical and which can be just kind of

tortured, you know, because it's like they want to love the church, but the ordinary means whereby to love the church are kind of ruled out ideologically. So there's that. But then among lay Catholics, you know, thinking in this sense vis-a-vis the apostolate, yeah, there's many people who are super enterprising and super kind of like, the Spirit is one of volunteerism. So there's the sense if you want to do something, then do it. Okay? You know, you can ask your pastor permission and you can try to do it within the context

of your parish life, or you can just be about your business, you know, like start the podcast or write the book or launch the ministry or whatever. And if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But there's no sense that you're not like looking to other people too terribly much to furnish you with what you need for the apostolate. Whereas again, in many places on the European continent, there's this kind of sense that the church administers them and there has to be a budget and

you need to get the requisite permissions. And if it's not, you know, like I can't, I can't possibly do it. Now there is still an enterprising spirit among many and of, you know, like a sense of volunteerism, but I think it's just more present in the United States. And I think in part, that's because of our peculiar history. And that's because of just the general vibe of us-based life. Um, and I think it's just like, it might reflect something of our founding. The fact that the United States has always been a place of somewhat principled pluralism.

Although, you know, like as a Catholic, you couldn't vote in the state of New York until like 20, 25 years after, you know, the establishment of the Republic. But yeah, I mean, the U.S. is pretty anti-Catholic, at least for its first 150 years, 175 years as a nation. Some of that has to do with immigration. Some of that has to do with like a general suspicion of papistry or whatever else. You know, like people talk about the middle of the 20th century with the election of John F. Kennedy, how that was a kind of turning point with the acceptance of Catholics in civic life. But I don't know.

But yeah, so I think that Catholics have always felt a little bit outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned. And so there's this sense that like, you got to get after it, or otherwise it's not going to get done. And then another thing is in the United States, we are very resource rich. There are just many ministries, many apostolates, which tend to many needs among the faithful. So this is true in physical proximity, but also virtually.

And virtually that stuff has just exploded in the last 10 years. And so you have online stuff of every imaginable sort. And a lot of times when I met people in Europe, it was because they had come in contact with an American-based apostolate through the internet. Like one time I was in Berlin and I was taking the ubon because I was going to a movie just By my lonesome cheers to that. I was going to see Top Gun Maverick speaking of God bless America And I was like whatever transferring at the station. I bopped on and the door swung open at the next stop and this guy came on he's like

Yeah, since he putted a good a good a pine and I was like it spins And this guy was gonna be confirmed the next day, because he had come across American based, you know, like Catholic media, you know, Bishop Aaron and Father Mike Schmitz and whomever else who had been super influential in convincing him as to the efficacy of the church's teaching and the sacramental life and you know, Christ's presence, you know, so that's awesome. And I think that that is a great gift. And I

think it's also a gift to the world beyond. And for us, you know. So that's awesome. And I think that that is a great gift. And I think it's also a gift to the world beyond. And for us, you know, who are Americans in the church, I think there's the sense that you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You can reappropriate certain resources. But like people teaching RCIA now have a lot more than they had previously with like Symbolon from, you know, the Augustine Institute or Credo from the Thomistic Institute or whatever else, you know, you can cobble together your own plan, give people things to watch at home and to read that have already been published. And then, you know, you're the one who is kind of mediating that teaching. So you don't have to reinvent, you can just, you know, be instrumentalized as it were by

those who have gone before you. So I think that these things all taken together, they produce a kind of good outlook vis-a-vis the future. So there can be times which are dispiriting and discouraging, certainly for the community that worships in the old right. The last two years have been tough with Triditio and its custodians and its appropriation and a lot of dioceses, especially if you had many options, now you have very few options, or if you had one or two options and now you have no options. I think that that community has just been going through a tough time. And so, yes, so generally good outlook

with some exceptions to that. But I think Americans generally feel, in their experience of the church's life, willing and able to fight for what they love, what they know and love, and that having been kind of baptized by fire with a culture war as early as the 1960s and 70s and stuff like that,

we've just kind of gotten in the habit of pushing forward. So those are all good things, okay, which is awesome. Now, Europeans having heard to this point are like, when are you going to start acknowledging the many blemishes? All right, that's this point. And then Americans might be thinking like, all right, stop talking. Well, we're going to keep going because I think that we need to be honest about the discourse because you're always going to have advantages and know, advantages and disadvantages, you know, like urteil und nachteil.

So here are some places of improvement. Criticisms basically that I've heard while living in Europe or while living in, you know, South America. And then, yeah, ways in which I think that we can make good on that. So one is, yeah, like American Catholicism is oftentimes like comparative, which is to say like, we're conscious of the fact that we are us and we are not them. And then, and this is the fatal last step is like, we are better than them, which whatever, you can make that jump if you want. But I just don't think that we've experienced enough to do it with like any confidence. And even if we were to experience more, I just don't

know that they want to make that jump. I think that we need to be profoundly grateful for the many things that we have and we need to be profoundly humble for the mercy of God which has visited us with those. But I don't think that it's entirely healthy to like adopt a spirit of exceptionalism. I mean if you want to do that with respect to the polity, fine. You know like bang the drum, beat the breast, go for it. But with respect to the church, I think that there's something about the universal church which is prior to its local expressions, which is prior to the particular church. And I think that we need to keep that in mind, not in the sense of like, I am just a

citizen of the world state, but like, no, you're a member of the body of Christ. And the member, like membership in the body of Christ is not determined by nationality. It's determined by the distribution of graces and gifts. And we're meant to, yeah, to act in accord. So I think that comparativism, yeah, I mean, it's just what it is. Yeah. I just don't think it's that helpful in these types of conversations. Now, mind you, I've just done it for like 12 minutes, but here we go. Okay.

Also, sometimes American culture is accused of being crass. So like in Switzerland, the trains are like museums. They're, everyone speaks in hushed tones. It's incredible. Like you could do whatever you want when it comes to like nap or like read a very involved metaphysical text or you know just count how many minutes you can think about nothing consecutively. But during the summer the trains get a lot louder and in part that's just because of tourism. But like when you listen on the trains, you just hear a lot of American accents and you hear a lot

of American accents at raised volumes. So we have a reputation abroad of just kind of being loud and being like a little bit disrespectful and unthinking when it comes to our neighbors and the footprint that we leave.

And I think that sometimes like American Catholicism can get a similar reputation for being a little bit crass. So we have these kind of strengths of being enterprising and entrepreneurial, but sometimes we can be a little bit too business-like and we begin to treat the grace of God as if it could just be managed. Now, mind you, I think that you should employ best practices. I think that's, you know, it's just like a good prudent way by which to go about things. But I don't think that we can ever presume to have control over that grace as if it were something that we were capable

of managing. So I think we need to leave room for mystery and find ourselves always before the throne of grace as beggars and in a spirit of gratitude for the gifts that God does concede and give. I mean, like with lavish generosity. So you sometimes people say like, give us X number of years and then we'll make Y number of converts or everyone will be converted. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think we want to find ourselves in those types of conversations. Also, yeah, like, yeah, let's leave it at that. Another thing that you'll hear about American Catholicism that just bewilders people in Europe is that it's said to be hyper politicized. Now, from an American's perspective, we say like, yeah, because we've been fighting a culture war for 60 years.

And we know that if we don't fight a culture war, that we will get steamrolled and that we will never roll back some of these nonsensical legislative advances, which are contrary to human dignity and which encroach upon, you know, the liberty of Catholic worship. So, okay, those are true, but I do think that it is a risk of becoming hyper politicized that we just run roughshod over certain nuances or like subtleties in these conversations. And in, in like taking hard stances and just like, gah, you know, doing

whatever we want to do, um, sometimes we just lose sight of the individual. And I think people can feel like a little bit betrayed by that because it's like, you know, you end up sounding more like a member of a political party than you do. Of a universal church, which yeah, I mean, it's complicated. It's just super complicated, but we do need to be sensitive to the individual, especially the individual who struggles and the individual who suffers from a certain ambiguity at this stage in the game and might not know where to turn and whether it's the church, but the church seems to be filled with, you know, people who are, you know, like angry and politically active in a way that makes them uncomfortable. Okay. So what are we going to do about it? Well, I think that we, we need to be willing to introduce principles and

rehearse arguments and help people to think through the matters rather than just like, oh, they say that, well, I'm going to say not that, you know, just like, I don't know, making up our minds and advancing our points by way of contrariity, because we've just come so much to love the fight and have forgot, not forgotten, but maybe lost sight to a certain extent of the things for which we're fighting or on behalf of which we're fighting. So that's that. All right. Last thing is, I think sometimes we as Americans

can be flaky in our ecclesial commitments. And in part it's because I think we have so many good things. There's so much stuff that you can avail yourself of that we don't tend to commit to one or two or three of those things and hold fast. Whereas my experience in Europe was like, there's so little in the way of, you know, apostolates or ministries or places where Catholics can congregate, especially for young people, where the sacraments are administered well and where the teaching and preaching is orthodox and where you know you can flourish as an individual, that when people find those things, they tend to hold fast to them, they tend to cling to them with a certain intensity and intimacy.

And I found it really, really rejuvenating as a priest to be of service to some of those small communities. And it was a constant reminder of the supernatural aspect and of the sacrificial dimension of my priestly vocation, which was sweet. But in the American church, I think that like, yeah, you kind of bop here, you bop there, this is not true of everybody, but it sometimes can be the case where our lack of commitment and other dimensions of life begins to also manifest in our ecclesial life. And that's no good.

You know, I think that we're made to commit and I think that we as human beings flourish in committing. So while there are so many options, a bevy of options, I think that we intend ultimately to limit ourselves to those few things to which we're called. And that takes some discernment, that takes some sorting out, but still the Lord makes Himself known in those commitments, and I think it's worthwhile to endeavor them. So boom! All right, that's what I intended to say. I hope that that's of some help to you, of some service to you.

This is Pines with Aquinas. If you haven't yet, please do subscribe to the channel. Push the button and the bell. You'll get updates. Everything will be awesome. I also contribute to a podcast called God's Planning with four other Dominican friars, which is sweet. It's actually really sweet.

And so we talk about things not unlike this with some frequency. So you'll find weekly episodes coming up on Thursdays with the occasional guest and special series and other things besides. So check out on YouTube, on your podcast app, godsplaining.org. Then the last thing is, yeah, we're having a Dominican Rosary pilgrimage in Washington, D.C. on September 30th at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. So we're all going to come together. I'm going to give a talk. We'll have time for adoration and confessions, a little break for lunch. I'm going to give another talk, and then we're going to have recitation of the Rosary, Vigil Mass. It's going to be boss. So you're going to want to be there. It's going to be a sweet one-day thing. And you'll get to meet

folks whom you've come to know from the Mystic Institute and God's Blinding and other Dominican Apostolates besides. So yeah, looking forward to meeting you, looking forward to chatting with you, looking forward to praying with you ultimately. Know my prayers for you, please pray for me, and I'll look forward to catching up with you next time on Pines with Aquinas.