Pints With Aquinas - Why More Young Catholics are Identifying as "Traditional" w/ Brian Holdsworth

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

Why are younger Catholics (and not-so-young-Catholics, like me!) identifying more and more with "traditional" Catholicism? I interview my good friend Brian Holdsworth and ask him this very question. If you're interested in learning more about "traditional" Catholicism, then this episode is for you!     SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Catholic Chemistry: https://www.catholicchemistry.com/   GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show.   LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd   MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

G'day, how are you? My name is Matt Fradd. It's lovely to have you here. Today I am joined around the bar table by my friend Brian Holdsworth to discuss a whole host of things. One of the primary things we'll be talking about is why younger Catholics, and even not so younger Catholics like myself, are identifying more and more with traditional Catholicism. You may have seen Brian's excellent videos that have been coming out for a while now. He's got a great YouTube channel. Many people don't know this, but Brian and I have actually been friends for years now. Back when I used to run a website called theporneffect.com, this was back just a couple of years into my marriage. So at least 12 years ago, he was the dude who created my website. He's a really talented guy. And yeah, I think you're going to love today's show. So thank you for being here. If you have not yet subscribed, consider doing it and clicking that bell button.

That way you'll know every time we put out a new episode. Also, you should probably be better at prayer than you are. And an app that can help you do that is hallo.com. If you go to hallo, can help you do that is hallo.com. If you go to hallo, H-A-L-L-O-W.com slash Matt Fradd, you can learn more about this fantastic Catholic app. It's 100% Catholic. It's very well produced and you should have it. They have a completely free version of their app that has stuff, for lack of a better word, updated on a regular basis. But they also have, if you subscribe, you get access to a whole bunch more stuff. If you want a three-month trial to get access to everything they have, including their sleep stories and all sorts of other things, go to hallow.com slash Matt Fradd and sign up on that website and use Matt Fradd as a promo code.

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many of them lead into new age ways of thinking. You don't want to do that as a Catholic. You want to get hallow. hallow.com slash Matt Fred. All right. You doing all right? I'm doing good. Thanks for asking.

Here's my interview with Brian Holdsworth. Brian Holdsworth, hello. Hello, Matt Pratt. So you must be getting comments on this look that you're going for. I am. Unfortunately, there's been a lot of pressure thanks for bringing it up because it's something i do feel like i need to talk about a bit let's do it i'm not going to name names but there's been some pressure to conform to maybe more of a pre-covered world where where things were clean and tidy and this is your wife i'm not naming names i like names you got a great beard keep

it going yeah thanks thanks yeah it's it's working for me so I was saying to you prior to us getting on the blower as we call it in Australia which means phone so I guess that's not technically a blower you and I have known each other since about 2007 you developed my first website, The Porn Effect, back in the day. Right. And yet I imagine there's a lot of people who just think we're talking for the first time. Yeah, it is funny how I call it providence. I don't know what else you'd call it.

But it does seem that it's a small world when you kind of have these encounters and you build these relationships far out of the context of youtube and what we seem to be doing now these days but uh i remember a lot of those conversations that we used to have back then where we would talk um we would talk about the website for the first 10 minutes and okay yeah i want this to go here and that to go there and i want this this design element but but then we would drift off into conversations about apologetics and the latest cath Answers episode that we used to listen to. Yeah. And who our favorite apologist was or whatever book we've read recently. And even Blue Sky a little bit about like, especially you, because you were involved in apostolic work at the time, whereas I was just doing my day job.

Yeah. And I remember talking to you about, wow, what if we could become an apologist one day or get more into that? Don't say that. Well, mostly you. Mostly you. Yeah. Well, I tell you, I was just so thrilled to see that you started a YouTube channel because I love having discussions with you. I remember those with great fondness as well.

And just remember thinking, like, this dude is incredibly insightful and articulate. And I always loved your take on things when we chat back in the day. So it's really cool that you've got an outlet for that. It seems like your channel is doing really well. Yeah, thanks. It's been an interesting experience. It wasn't something I expected to become what it is, but now that it's gained some traction, it's become one of those things where I have to reorient myself and figure out, well, what do I do with this now? And where does it go from here? So I'm still figuring that out, I guess. But I suppose that's been your experience as well, right? I mean, you try different things out and then something catches fire and you try to figure out, wow, maybe I should put more energy into this. And so I still have my day job and that's always been

my career ambition. But now there's this YouTube thing going on and I've always been passionate about apostolic work. So it seems like something I want to spend more time on. Yeah. What's it been like for you kind of growing a Catholic commentary YouTube channel? How has that been for you? I mean, really unexpected. So I first got into it because I wanted to learn videography for professional reasons, right? I mean, I do a lot of websites and branding and media stuff. And so video seems like a good fit in there. And a lot of clients were asking for it. So I started to dabble in it and tried to learn it. But I knew that I wasn't going to get projects immediately. I needed to maintain a routine of practicing it. Otherwise, whatever skills I acquired, they would just sort

of fade away. So I thought, well, a YouTube channel is something that could be a good way to just keep a routine going. And at first, the channel wasn't even really Catholic-oriented. I mean, anything I do is going to be informed by my Catholic faith, obviously. I'm really passionate about it. But I think the first handful of commentaries I did were more political than anything else. I did one on the carbon tax debate that was going on in Canada, and then the euthanasia debate, which was also going on in Canada. That's what really inspired me to do it. I was I was planning on doing it for a while but then

procrastinating because I was insecure about it and then I went out for lunch and I was listening to CBC radio CBC is like state-sponsored media here in Canada which you're familiar with obviously but I was listening to their radio program where they were talking about euthanasia and assisted suicide. And they had a pro-euthanasia person on there. No counterpoint, though. And they were acting as if this was an open conversation. And it really wasn't. And I was so frustrated after listening to that that I went back to my office and just flicked the camera on and ranted for about 20 minutes. And I thought, wow, that was cathartic, if nothing else.

ranted for about 20 minutes and i thought wow that's that was cathartic if nothing else and so so i'll maybe if i refine that a little bit i could i could use something like that and so i did that was one of my first videos and and uh and it seemed to just really uh i i hit the ground running it seems and and that was a pretty strong confirmation that i should put more energy and effort into it and so i did i'm always worried when I talk to you because you always seem to have, I always feel like you're maybe a little too humble. I mean, that's not what I mean. Like you're too kind of self-effacing. I'm like, you're actually really, really insightful.

And I wish you'd just shut up and like start a YouTube channel and frigging just do it. And you're like, I don't know. What do I know? And I always get nervous because I feel like I'm the opposite. You know, I just run a bullet a gate. And I don't think I'm nearly as insightful as you are. But anyway, I'm really glad that you're doing the work that you're doing. Like what's been your experience, let's say like in, in, of YouTube kind of commentary that you, you didn't expect. Maybe you've made enemies that you didn't expect to make or, you know, allegiances,

or maybe you get spotted in public and people look at you like you're some sort of expert. Like how's that been? That's, that is a weird experience getting, getting spotted in public and people look at you like you're some sort of expert. Like, how's that been? That is a weird experience, getting recognized in public. I think the first time it happened was that if you've ever been to Edmonton, we have like this worldwide water park, whatever they call it. It's the largest mall in the world or the second largest. I can't keep track. Anyways, it was my birthday and we had a tradition of going there for my birthday taking all the kids out there and my wife and my wife and i were taking a breather in the hot tub and this guy from across starts glancing at me kind of out of the corner of his eye and i'm just a bit like what i don't recognize this guy just why why is he and then he kind of like bum scooches over and he's not in a hot tub that's

oh yeah yeah yeah and he was like are you and and I've never had this experience. So I'm just I thought he maybe recognized me from high school or something. Oh, yeah. And I was like, maybe. I don't know. He's like, are you on YouTube? I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I am. And I mean, I had only been doing it for maybe a few months at this point. So I really would never have expected somebody to do that. It's humbling. It's humbling and scary. Especially when you're half naked. It's probably the least opportune time when you'd want to get recognized, right?

That is definitely it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do okay with that. My wife is far more private. And so when people come and approach us, I mean, it's a normal experience. Well, not normal, but I mean, I have some experience with it. So I tend to respond to it in positive ways. And she feels a lot less comfortable with it. So if anybody feels like

she's ever been rude, it's just because she's shy and she doesn't know how to act in a situation like that, especially in her bathing suit. Yeah, yeah. Good stuff, good stuff. What's been some of your most successful videos, successful in the sense of numbers? I think the most successful one is Why Christianity is Dying in the West. Another one would be How to Defeat Pro-Life Arguments. So it's a little bit, in some of these videos,

with the titles at least, I've done this reverse psychology on, I would say, the opponents of our positions on particular topics. So the former one, the one about why Christianity is dying in the West, that one was really one that I published for Catholics. I wanted people to get a sense of why are our numbers declining and what is it that can maybe revive our evangelistic efforts. And strangely enough, atheists just descended upon that one because they thought this was going to be a real pile on situation where we're all going to trash Christianity together. And that's in large part what they did do. But that connected some dots for me that, you know, you can attract maybe the audience that is

uncatechized and has not been reached very well by the church by coming up with titles like this. So I did one similar with the pro-life one, where all these pro-choice people descended upon it, because they thought, we're just going to destroy pro-life arguments right here. And when in fact, what I did through the whole video was explain what, if you're going to, if you're going to go after pro-life arguments, you have to understand what the arguments are because using these bumper sticker slogans is not going to convince or convert any pro-life person. So you have to direct your attention towards what it is that is convincing to

them. And here's what their argument is. And it's typically very logical. And so I've had a lot of people comment on that video saying i came here to think to find out you know how to go after pro-life people and wow i discovered that there's actually it's not just hatred of women in the patriarchy there's actually you're like yeah no that's that's what it is we just hate women a pro-patriarchy that's basically the argument therefore abortion's evil right um how have you dealt with criticism just personally because i mean you're on youtube and people there's a certain type of person who just comments in general do you know what i mean like someone who comments and and now of course you have that feature where you can thumbs up a comment if

you like it and so people are saying things that they want to be recognized. And I'm sure you've got your fair share of criticism. How's that been? Yeah, for the most part, not too bad. I have, I think, the right type of temperament for it. I'm a little bit sociopathic where I don't, if sociopathy is on a spectrum, I'm somewhere on it. I don't want to say like I'm a complete psychopath, but i don't lay awake with my emotions terrorizing me all night long yeah um whereas some people maybe a more phlegmatic personality would just be like oh my gosh i can't believe people said that about me so i would have thought you were phlegmatic no no i'm i'm i'm choleric melancholic

hey i'm i'm melancholic choleric what's up there you There you go. Yeah. And I could be the reverse. I mean, I've never taken a test. I'm self-diagnosed obviously. But I think that temperament makes it easier for some of that stuff to just bounce off or for me to treat it for what it is. A lot of it says more about the person than their superficial appreciation or lack of appreciation of who I am or what I'm talking about. Right. So whatever judgments they can make about me, of who I am or what I'm talking about, right? So whatever judgments they can make about me, I'm like, yeah, okay, that's fine. Yeah, I mean, when people criticize me,

my first thought is, oh, crap, what did I do wrong? Like, that is actually what I think. Sure. I worry. And I'm sure there's a lot of legitimate criticisms, but a lot of them aren't. And one of the ways I've kind of gotten around that is by speaking to people I love and who I trust and who I say, like, please rein me back in if I start veering off in some horrible direction one way or the other. I got several people like that.

And I've had a few of those people actually reach out at different times and actually call me on stuff. And it was actually awesome. Like it hurt a little bit. Like I was a little embarrassed because I knew that person. I loved them because they pulled me aside privately. i was really able to hear it and that that was really cool yeah i i've yeah i mean i've had similar experiences i think the right kind of person has to do that for sure um when when you're in this arena where attacks seem to be coming at you from all angles i mean maybe this is something for people within your personal network to appreciate. You're not really dug into social media. I'm still

trying to liberate myself from it a little bit, but there are still opportunities where people from within my network, so people I have personal relationships with, will also get in there and say things that are a little bit antagonistic. And that does sting a little bit because you're already getting it from hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. Sometimes it's nice to be able to think, well, I can retreat back into my personal network and my personal relationships and they'll have my back. And then to feel like they don't at times, I mean, that and I don't think they realize it. Right. I think that they think that this is just sort of like the kind of interaction they would have with you on a normal basis.

If you were having maybe a political conversation face-to-face, yeah, we could disagree about things. But sometimes when people are piling on and then they add to it, I mean, that does sting a little bit. So learning to cope with that, learning to be humble within the midst of that, and I hope that's the effect through grace that we can learn some humility by that. But it does hurt sometimes for sure yeah there's a part of me Brian that wants to just fade into obscurity I mean I don't pretend that I have terribly prominent but there is this desire to just you know moving a sumo with the family right now you know my wife incredibly talented very gifted speaking to the hearts of

women you know there's this desire that I'm just like Cammy why don't you you Right now, my wife is incredibly talented, very gifted, speaking to the hearts of women. There's this desire that I'm just like, Cammy, why don't you take it from here, and I'm just going to buy a bookstore and play solitaire and drink vodka and try to love my kids well. Play solitaire, drink vodka. Sorry. You know what I mean? And just sort of let it die. Just let the whole thing die.

And I don't know if that is like, that's probably not humility, right? That's probably fear. That's probably like this fear that like the weight of all this now that I'm like, gosh, I gotta, I gotta not screw up. I gotta know what I'm talking about. And I do screw up and I often don't know what I'm talking about. Right. So there's this, you know, but I don't know. I just. There's this, you know, but I don't know. I just. Obviously, obviously the opposite wins out with you though. Right. I mean, you're still doing it and you must gain some level of satisfaction from doing it. Yeah, I do. I often. Yeah, it's so I'm really skeptical of self-diagnosis.

Hey, me too. Like I like I, you know, you encounter people and they like the Lord is calling me to do this. And I'm like, really, eh? Me too. Like, you know, you encounter people and they're like, the Lord is calling me to do this. And I'm like, really though? I mean, because you're a Protestant and so you've got a lot of it wrong or whatever, you know, but you think, I don't mean to bash on our Protestant brothers and sisters, but obviously we disagree with a lot of things they think and they disagree with us. That's fine. But you know, like the point is, if you can look at somebody who tells you with a straight face that God has commissioned them to do this, and you know that that's probably not true, or what do you know? Maybe that it is. You know, that's got to be possibly true of us as well, you know? And I just,

I've never had this strong sense that I'm doing exactly what the Lord's calling me to do. I envy people who have it. I'm just like, I pray. I hope I, you know, Lord, like use it for your good. But I think it's a healthy, that's a, that's a healthy indication of some humility. I hope I, you know, Lord, like use it for your good. Um, but I think it's a healthy, that's a, that's a healthy indication of some humility. I mean, what the, what the exact, uh, ratio is, who knows. But, um, you know, there's that, that excerpt from Chesterton's, uh, orthodoxy at the very beginning where he, he recites that anecdote where he was talking to one of his publishers and they meet somebody on the street and then that guy leaves and he's left with it just as publisher and his publisher says something like you know that guy is going to do

all right in the world he believes in himself and chesterton says you know where all the people are who really believe in themselves and he points out a bus that was driving by that said uh i can't remember the name of it was a well-known insane asylum was printed on on the side of it and he said that's where all the people who who without any any measure of hesitation just yeah they fully believe in themselves and i mean we've all seen shows like american idol where these people get up on stage and you cannot convince them that they aren't the next pop star right and they cannot hold a note they can't find a key they can't sing at all. But there's no convincing them of that, right? So I think experience has a lot to do with this. I mean, I would like to think that if any of those kinds of people that have those experiences have any humility, eventually after

experiencing that over and over again, where you're being discouraged either by other people or circumstance or the effects of whatever it is that you're trying to do. Eventually, you have to take inventory of that and say, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Yeah. And, you know, maybe early on, you see this a lot with obviously young adults, right? Like you haven't you don't have a lot of those kinds of experiences, at least in a really tangible, professional way. And so you you think, wow, I can do anything. And your education experience has even told you that you can do anything. So when the day comes for that job interview

or for whatever it is that you, the big ambitions that you have, when those failures start to set in, hopefully that experience will tell you something. And that's the way I've approached YouTube and any episode that I'm doing. It's that, OK, this has unexpectedly turned into something. A lot of people have have been supporting it and have been watching.

Therefore, I'm going to continue to do it. And it's been something that I've used in a prayerful way to say, God, if this is something you want me to keep doing, then keep opening doors for me. Yeah, I like that. And I will walk through them, even if I don't really want to, right? And as long as you do, then I'll keep doing it. But if it looks like doors are getting closed in my face, then- Yeah, I like that a lot. That's kind of my approach as well. I often say to people who are saying like, how do I do this? How do I get published? Or how do I speak at some of these conferences? It's like, don't push too hard just just give it to our lord um if you're cold you'll get the cool kind of

thing like it'll come for you in a way right and that shouldn't be your objective your objective shouldn't be oh i want to be on the stage at steubenville if that's the end that you have in mind then you're missing but yeah like i think're right. But I also know that there was a time where I really felt like I had a gift at speaking to young people and like, would have loved to be on the stage. And I don't think that was coming from a prideful position. I just thought I would be good at this. And I think I am good at it. And so I was happy to then be invited to do it.

So I guess, because we wouldn't be like, the only way you know you're being called to do this is if you don't want it. But the pushing too hard thing, I think, is really good. Like if you feel like you're trying to talk people in and like, you know, who should I speak to? And, you know, when you start trying too hard, I think that's probably a warning sign. Yeah. And just be constantly discerning and checking yourself. Try to discern your own motivations and what if it's if it seems to be motivated by vanity um or you know you went to a conference and you saw matt

frat on stage and you thought wow he's so good looking and confident and i just want to be like him that's not that's not the right reason to be up there and and maybe that that's a bit of a an indictment of our sort of celebrity Catholic culture to a degree as well. It's so hard. How do you avoid it? There are people who are articulate and insightful and we want them to share those

insights articulately and there are platforms to do it which collect an audience. How do you avoid the kind of Catholic celebrity thing in that sense? I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's dangerous. It's a minefield. So I just want to take a quick moment to tell you about Ethos Logos Investments, because they're an amazing Catholic investment group that will help you invest with character. I used to think that investing was something only rich people did or old people did or people who were, I don't know, just good at complicated things. But this is actually not a

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Go check them out today. It reminds me of one of the first big conferences that I spoke at. And there were people there who I had admired from afar who were speakers. And we had the whole VIP lounge thing going on and a bit of the red carpet rolled out for us. And my immediate impression from getting a more candid interaction with some of these personalities was, I mean, I want to be generous and charitable here, but it wasn't good. Um, I mean, I want to be generous and charitable here, but it wasn't good. Um, I was, I was, I was really discouraged by it.

And maybe these are individuals with more experience than me. And so they've been doing this for a while, but I found the effects of the, the celebrity culture and the big red carpet conference speaking experience to be a real turnoff for me. Um, and, and I, I consider that something of a, maybe a grace and a blessing that it's just my temperament that I'm sort of like, I'm very contrarian and I'm very skeptical. And so when something strikes me as unexpected, I'm sort of like, whoa, I kind of recoil from it a little bit. And that's what, that's just the natural experience I had for that. And I hope. I want to dig into that a little bit

because like, how possible is it that you were just misinterpreting people who may have been exhausted or prepping for a talk or sure. Yeah. You know, cause that's something I'd noticed too. Like as I started speaking with Catholic answers, right. It's like, it's like this gradual thing where you start making more demands. Like if people are asking you to come and speak somewhere, right. At first you're like, yes, of course, you know, and then you're like, well, you know, I would, i would i'd like to be paid because i gotta leave my family for three days so there's the first kind of thing right and then it's like and i'd actually rather not stay at a random person's house because i don't know them and i just i don't want to be in that situation so i'd like a hotel

you know so that's the next thing right and it's like and i you know three stars and up would be nice because i stayed at this one place and I heard something that was suspect, you know. And, you know, and then it's like I all of that stuff seems reasonable to me to start making requests like that. So it's hard for me. And maybe it's maybe it's all about the primarily about the intention. And maybe that's why you can't kind of pinpoint once you've asked for. I mean, if you ask for a jar of blue m&ms maybe you probably have gone too far come to think yeah yeah and i think as long as we are attentive to to our lord's

prescriptions about what it means to follow him and to carry our cross if there's nothing sacrificial if if everything about it is an experience of luxury and accolades then i mean maybe we got to balance that out somehow um and and i think it's it's it's not just one side of the equation that is guilty of this i think we as as speakers and celebrities need to be conscientious of this but also the people who are putting on events like this and conferences um don't go so far into treating them like celebrities and yeah i mean that's that's tricky because i got a friend who um will only take an Uber. So if he, if he, he'll fly somewhere, he doesn't want you picking him up. And for his point is like, I just don't want to be alone

in a car, like maybe with a woman, like I can't have any of that happen. I want to. And so I get why he's doing it, but I could also see some people seeing something like that and being like, who does this person think he is and yeah and i think some measures like that are reasonable it would be something else if you said pick me up in an uber and i make sure it's a lincoln or something like that right i mean sure i mean there's there's a little there's a little yeah yeah no but it is fascinating i've i've pretty much stopped speaking since march i've traveled to a few places and i gotta say i'm loving it especially as the world feels as if it's spinning out of control you know going through big public places. I just get

anxious going through security and I mean I might just be being uh what's the word? Paranoid? Paranoid yeah. Yeah I mean I don't travel well either um i've had enough bad experiences uh one related to your show no less oh yeah that's right you were supposed to be on the mad fred show see if you've got a show named after yourself yeah you've probably gone to the dark side see see my channel is just named after myself though and that that that has more to do with the fact that i just wasn't prepared when i started it because i didn't i wasn't what's it was just brian holdsworth that's fair enough i mean you do a solo podcast right yeah yeah yeah man it is it is tough to assess our own i mean married helps, doesn't it? Like you come home and it's like your wife's sick and the kids are throwing a tantrum and

the house is a mess. And it'd be like, it'd be, I think a lot more difficult to stay grounded if I was like single and had an apartment somewhere. And it was, yeah, all about. Yeah. I think vocation period, um, period will keep you accountable to some degree. And it will be a channel of grace for you that will hopefully keep checking some of this stuff. I do often think that like if you're in a marriage where like as a bloke and your wife is like happy with you.

I mean, not all the time, but like she loves you and, you know. Right. That's a sign that you're probably a decent person. you and you know right that's it that's a sign that you're probably a decent person by the way and i'm and i'm also not saying like that if you're single there's no way that you know you you're doomed to selfishness don't hear me i wasn't saying that because i know there are some single people who are very other focused and beautiful and also i'm just saying me personally if i was living alone i'd probably fall into that but yeah like if you're in a relationship with somebody and they they love you and they like to be around you, like that's a sign that you're probably at least not a complete narcissist.

Hopefully, yeah. Or I mean, maybe in my case, and opposites tend to attract, right? So they say. So in my case, my wife is not a narcissist. No, no. She's like I said, very phlegmatic and so the choleric side of my personality um they they tend to collide sometimes but they also tend to blend really well whereas i'm always making demands and she's always accommodating demands so on the one hand that that could breed narcissism in

someone like me but the the other thing about uh phlegmatics is that they do have a breaking point from what i've been told in that they will accommodate and accommodate and accommodate and then they'll explode on you um if you haven't been showing them any appreciation for for uh all that they've been doing for you and uh i mean not to get too personal but there have been moments in our marriage where we have been butting heads and i have to back up and realize wow i've been just leaning too far into my own comfort zone and i have to i have to take stock of what her needs are and what the kids' needs are as well. So if it's not happening every day, it does happen eventually in a good and healthy vocation, I think, where

you're both committed to realizing your potential of sanctity and maturity. Here's a question for you because you just said not to get too personal. And as soon as you said that, I went, no, no, no, get too personal. This is what we're here for. So a question for you is like, you know, like it's obviously easy to sort of idolize people.

I remember prior, like back in the day, like 15 years ago when I knew of Jason Everett, but I didn't know Jason Everett. I had really unrealistic views of what his family rosary looked like or something. Right. And that was unhealthy in a way because I was trying to replicate what I thought good and holy families looked like, you know, in a way that was just not realistic to my family, to my family's temperaments and things like that. Right.

But at the same time, you know, you can obviously share way too much. Right. But at the same time, you know, you can obviously share way too much. And on YouTube, where there's all these people that you don't know, and it feels like that's a bit gross. But at the same time, I would like people to be honest about their struggles in marriage and their struggles with fatherhood. So I don't feel like I'm completely alone. What do you think that line is? And have you struggled to find it? If I have struggled to find it, it's because I'm not personal at all. My channel tends to not exhibit a lot of my personality, right? Like it's more just, here are my thoughts. And even when people interact with them, I tend to be like, well, let's keep it focused on the arguments and not the personal, right? At the same time, if this is authentic apostolic work,

if we really are the church, then there does need to be a personal dimension to it. There are ways as well to take advantage of that celebrity nature as well. Because I think when people come along to a channel that they perceive as being big, like this person's a big deal, they've got a lot of comments and a lot of views, then, I mean, my little contributed comment is just going to disappear within the funnel, the vacuum of all of this. And every now and then I will notice that somebody is in a habit of commenting on my videos, either in a positive way or an antagonistic way. And I did notice that recently that someone was, they had attached themselves to my channel. That sounds kind of

pejorative, but they had started to watch my content because they had seen a video that was a bit bigger, right? And so it tends to attract a new audience. And then they just started going through all of my videos and commenting on all of them. And it was all antagonistic and a bit rude at times. And I remember saying, thinking like, you know, I could just get in there and argue with them,

but maybe just grace in the moment said, you know, you could just say something really nice to them. And as someone who is perceived as being this person on a pedestal, that's going to mean a lot to them. And, and so I said, you know, I don't think you've really exposed the weaknesses in my arguments, but I'm really glad you're watching because for one, I mean, that was an authentic thing to say too, because I don't watch a lot of content that I disagree with. Um, you know, and here's a person who didn't just watch one and say a nasty comment and then go off back into their comfort zone. They continue to watch all of my content and I, I really admire that. And so I authentically offered them that, that, um, that compliment and the very next comment that I noticed from them, they were still disagreeing,

but you could tell that their whole disposition had softened quite a bit. And I just thought, wow, that was a real teaching moment for me on how I can use the platform that I'm on and the position that I'm in to interact in meaningful ways. Because usually I just get in there and I join the fray and fight with people, right. And that doesn't tend to be very productive. I tend to, I tend to read comments, heart the ones that I like, but not really interact with people.

I just, it would just take up too much time. Yeah. And that, that was a resolution I made a few weeks ago because I found I was, I was way too distracted and way, uh, way too sucked into,

uh, all of it, not just the comments, but the analytics and everything. i had just resolved it was probably at the beginning of advent where you feel like you just you take an inventory of your whole life and you're like wow what do i need to work on and that was one of those things where i was like okay i'm just not looking at the comments or anything for the next little while when i publish a video i'm going to publish it and walk away and just focus on family time after that how do do you see, like for me,

I've got to set up restrictions to make it so that I can't easily kind of go back on the resolution I had just made. So that might be things like deleting the YouTube studio app, you know, or deleting the YouTube app or leaving my phone in my office and driving home without it. You might have a lot more self-control than me, but how do you see to it that you stick to that resolution? It depends on the resolution. I mean, one of the things that I've done is I've changed the password on everything except for my YouTube account because I need fairly easy access to that. But I've changed the password to Twitter and Facebook. I've saved it in a text file and buried it in a folder structure on my computer so that if i do want

to log in i have to go like through 10 levels deep in the folders and go find it which is a pain um so that if i'm gonna do it it's very intentional right like it's a password that you can't remember clearly yeah it's like 16 characters long and it's all random characters and stuff and um so i i have to go dig that up. I mean, what does that say about how pernicious social media is that people have to go to those extremes just to stay away from it? I mean, I applaud you for it. I think it's awesome. Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, well, that's the nature of social media. There was a documentary that just came out about it recently. I don't have Netflix. And my wife told me that everyone was telling her about it. I'm like, I've been saying this for 10 years. It is amazing how far we have to go down the rabbit hole before we realize, wow, this is a dead end.

It's the worst. Here's a question for you. Would St. Paul have been on Twitter? The answer is no. Next question. Probably not. the answer is no next question probably probably not um it can you imagine if saint paul was hashtagging things i would i'd lose all respect for him yeah it's true it's true i know when in the early days like slam dunking on people by quote tweeting them and oh man there is the odd person out there whether it be twitter or facebook where i'm like, wow, they're really doing this in an admirable way.

But I think that they must have a really good upbringing or just a good genetic disposition. Because, I mean, in my best moments, I'm okay. I'm not causing trouble. But in my worst moments, it's... Oh, me too. Me too. The other day, somebody accused EWTN of marching towards white supremacy. I just couldn't believe it.

So I couldn't help it. I quote tweeted, funny how all these racist Catholics would kill for an African Pope right now. Man, did that raise the ire of woke Catholics on Twitter who were all clutching their pills and yelling at me for being a racist. It's crazy. I mean, it's like, but what I did is I threw that bomb in and then deleted the app and pissed off and had a beer somewhere, you know? I can't stay in it. I can't stay in it and respond to people. It's incredibly satisfying. Like I said said that first time i i i i published that that youtube video or i i rather i recorded it um was extremely cathartic and there

are times where i will see things that bug me even just at a parish level i'm like you know i wish i could talk about that with that person or with some people and since i can't i'm just going to do a youtube video about it yeah um so i mean on the one hand it it is very satisfying but on the other it can stir up a lot of trouble sometimes i will tweet something or i will prepare the tweet or a comment and reply to something and i'll sit there and i'll just bask in the brilliance of it and then i'll delete it because i know that it's just it's not but that has a similar effect it's somewhat satisfying satisfying and cathartic, but it's... I wanted to ask your opinion about how it feels like, to use two terms that are probably pejorative, how woke Catholics and trad Catholics seem to be gaslighting each other and being pulled to both sides. Like this comment from this one guy who basically accused me of being a racist for saying that we would like an African boat. It's like that's just I'm like, this guy must just have been like seriously trolled by MAGA, MAGA, MAGA Catholics.

Right. But then I also think these MAGA, MAGA, MAGA Catholics have also been kind of gaslit by the woke Catholics who, you know, so love your take on that if you have one. Well, obviously we're growing more and more partisan, whether we're talking about the US or Canada. I imagine it's the same in most places in Europe, at least Western Europe, where the effects of all of this media and especially social media through the technology that we have available to us, it is widening the chasm of polarization.

And I think a lot of the reasons are, for one, the algorithm creates this comfortable little world where everything is a bit of a feedback loop and an echo chamber. It only shares with you the things that you want to see. And it's easy to mistake that for the climate that you're in, right? Because you're in this digital climate and therefore, wow, this is what the world is like. This is so nice. And then you encounter somebody that is in their own little climate and your bubbles collide. And for the first time, you're shaken out of that foundation and it's kind of traumatic and you tend to respond in a bit of a fight or flight way. And then the other dimension of this is the nature of those interactions. I think it's perfectly just to treat an idea with contempt, but it's not just to treat a person in uncharitable

ways, in contemptuous ways. But the problem with social media is that it's the person, the personhood and the dignity and everything that comes with that is concealed by nothing more than an avatar and some text. And so it's far too easy to look at that person and treat them like merely an idea, because you really just have the idea on the screen a lot of the time, right? And so you will respond instinctively to them like they're nothing more than an idea and in a very antagonistic and contemptuous way. And then a person on the other end receives that. And it's an injustice to their dignity. And they naturally escalate as well because, you know, it's sort of a measure of self-defense almost. Because, you know, it's sort of a measure of self-defense almost.

And so this goes on and this is the mechanism by which we are able to encounter the world and interact with the world primarily today. And I think the experiment has failed. Oh, sorry. You did a video recently on why more young people are identifying with traditional Catholicism. I'd have to talk about that a little bit. Yeah. Maybe kind of, yeah, reformulate your thoughts on that here. Sure. Well, I mean, this is an impression. I don't have a lot of statistics to back this up. I mean, a lot of it's anecdotal from my own experience, but the pandemic does seem to have amplified these effects a little bit. So, for example, the old parish I used to go to, it was in population decline. But because of the pandemic, they've had to lay everybody off and virtually not many people are coming.

And that's just my impression from driving past the parking lot on my way to the other parish that I go to. There's not many people there. driving past the parking lot on my way to the other parish that I go to. There's not many people there. Whereas the extraordinary form, the FSSP parish that I go to, they've had to add a priest and I think two new masses to contend with the number of people that are coming since the pandemic started. So that's my impression, that traditional parishes are growing. I also got exposed to a parish in Denver, Colorado. It wasn't an FSSP parish. They did offer the ordinary form, but just in a very reverent way, according to the letter of the law, according to the documentation and the instructions that we have. And they, from what I heard, were on the verge of collapse. They had maybe 10 or 20 people

coming to Sunday Mass, were just about ready to close the doors, and a new priest came in, and he completely renewed the place, leaning towards traditional liturgy. And now it's a bit of a destination parish there, where they have beautiful English proffers for the ordinary form, chant, the whole thing is chanted. They have a choir and a scuola, and I think they even go ad orientum. They renovated the parish to better appreciate sort of the geography of the liturgy. And now it's just a massive parish. When I was there, I was there meeting somebody who goes to that parish, but he kind of included me on some of the things that were going on there. Joseph Pierce was speaking there on, I don't know if you're familiar with him he's an author and a biographer yeah he's awesome um and this

was just sort of a regular uh weekly kind of thing that goes on there where they've got a person like joseph pierce just appearing on the scene and giving a talk um and so i got to have dinner with him that night and i just thought wow this is such a rich a rich community life and it's as a result of showing some appreciation for the tradition that has come down to us and preserving it or maybe restoring it in place. So that's what's going on. Why it's happening, I think, is maybe a little bit harder to diagnose. a little bit harder to diagnose um i think that there are there are easy answers to explain uh maybe if you if you see this trend in a negative light i think there are some easy answers to explore um one could just be the pendulum that swings back and forth from generation to generation

and and this to me is a real sort of post-modern phenomenon that has a lot to do with pop culture uh the way that it sort of pits generations against each other especially children against their parents yeah so we look at our parents generation and whatever it was that they were into and we say ah that's that's lame and we go and chart our own course right yeah and unfortunately this does tend to look like a bit of a pendulum um so if our parents were all boomers and and they were really into the novelty and the age of aquarius and ripping out um sanctuaries and renovating them with pastel colors and iconoclasm then okay that's that's their thing um as a rebellious millennial i'm gonna look at that and say well that's just lame

what's what's cool what's what's vintage what's what's what's really compelling what's the thing that i can go to dinner parties at and be like oh i was the first to do this new thing that nobody else is doing and in our case it's what was actually old is new again right and so it's that that sort of vintage um appreciation for things where you become a connoisseur of things that were maybe cool in your grandpa's generation or something like that so that's maybe part of what contributes to it. I would like to think that it's a bit of a rediscovery, though, of what was good and what has been lost, if not in the soul of the church and within the veins of the church, but at least in the expression of how our faith life has lived out in the church. These things disappeared, and now some of us are kind of rediscovering it. The expression

being red-pilled, I mean, that's a common enough thing, right? Where you discover something that you didn't know was the case, and it sort of opened your eyes to a whole dimension of reality and truth that you just didn't realize, right? So a lot of us i think that we're discovering maybe pre-conciliar documents that was a big one for me uh reading uh pashendi dominici grieges by uh post-empires the 10th um which is the the anti-modernist encyclical right reading that for the first time i was just like i was stunned stunned. I was, it was almost a crisis of faith for me because almost everything he was describing could be aimed at Catholicism in general in Canada. If it, if not just the Western Canadian context that I find myself in and here he was, he wasn't just criticizing it. He was anathematizing it. And was like wow so other than saying the synthesis

of all heresies what does he mean by modernism what do you mean by modernism was it too well looking at everything as sort of a personal experience and and more subjective and more what is it that i prefer so if we're going to look at the liturgy, the response you always get to admonitions about what's going on and to invitations to re-explore the traditions of the church is always like, oh, the kids aren't going to like that, or I don't like chant, or I don't like smells and bells and all this kind of stuff. all this kind of stuff. Well, the thing is, it's not about what you like, not about your personal preferences. Your religion isn't an expression of what comes from within. It's something that comes from without to you in order to bring you up into the divine life and to divinize you and to save you. But if our response to that divinization or that invitation towards divinization is always one where we're like, oh, but I don't like that. I'm exploring what's inside of me, and what you're saying doesn't resonate with what's already within me. The point of the

Christian life is to be transformed, is to allow whatever you are in whatever condition you are in to excel into sanctity. And so that's one of the biggest problems with with modernism as as as i seem to be understanding it through that encyclical at the time this is a long time ago when i read it too um i think i was actually reading it around the time when um when i was going to be on the show with you back then i i might have even had it on that flight but um so so my memory is a little bit vague but um this this idea that that religion is a very personal thing from which everybody should be allowed to have their their own expression of a little a little hobby for sure exactly yeah yeah um i think another difficult question to ask is like how do we get here like

um you know there was obviously some sort of rebellion against something that was perceived or was negative. Right. Have you spoken to older generation Catholics who who aren't a fan of returning to the Latin mass? And have you asked them? Of course. Of course. What? Yeah. Well, I mean, we have this. So for those of us that that are more exposed to the extraordinary form and have this appreciation of it. that are more exposed to the extraordinary form and have this appreciation of it. So for me, prior to the pandemic, every Sunday was a high liturgy, right? And it was chanted, the whole thing. It's an hour and a half.

All the accessories were there, multiple altar servers. It's a big production. From what I have heard from a lot of people, even people who were altar servers back then, was that, yeah, they had the opportunity to do that. But what a lot of priests were doing in most parishes, if it wasn't a cathedral or something like that, they were showing up, they were doing a low mass, typically, a lot of abuses where they were skipping over things, doing it as fast as they could. I think someone called it, someone commented, on my website where they said, yeah, I remember this. We called them the quickie where the priest would just show up and go through the

very basics of it, skip a lot of stuff, and then get out of there in 25 minutes. You know, the homily. For those who aren't following, we're talking about pre-Vatican II Latin. Absolutely. That's right. Yeah. And this was apparently the norm. Now, I didn't live through it, so I don't really know what it was actually like. But for those of us who are pining for a 1950s Catholicism, because we knew that the numbers were high then and the seminaries were full, maybe that's true. But it sounds like it was a bit of a shell for a lot of people. All of the accessories were there and it looked pretty from the outside. But the content of faith for your

average catholic um was was maybe a little vacuous and and that might be true for the clergy as well because if if we if we did experience an age of of reform and neglect and abuse that happened after that well that's the same generation of priests who were ordained prior to the council that that ushered in all of these abuses and were totally okay with it. So there was obviously some need for reform. And for anybody who's familiar with the liturgical movement that goes back to the 19th century, people had been talking about it for a while. They had recognized that there was a need for reform to be taking place. And we're trying to bring that about in maybe measured ways.

Even Pope St. Pius X, who is looked at as sort of like this anti-modernist pope, he made revisions to the liturgy that based on the kind of rhetoric that goes on among traditionalists, they say that, you know, you can't change anything

in the liturgy at all. Well, he changed the divine liturgy. He completely rewrote it, from what I understand. That's a major change that doesn't get talked a lot about outside of the Mass. So there was recognition of reform that needed to take place. But obviously, things went off the rails in that experiment. I'd like to think that it's being pulled back onto the track a little bit now.

What do they call it? The renewal of the renewal? Or maybe the way that the two... Reform of the reform. Yeah, and the extraordinary form and the way the ordinary form kind of complement each other and are maybe informing each other now. Because if you go to an FSSP parish like I do, we've all got our missiles out. We're all responding. We're all chanting and singing along. We are actively participating, which was the goal of that renewal, right?

And from what I'm told, that wasn't the case in the pre-conciliar church. Yeah. And certainly if you start kind of making up your own rituals, even if they look super hokey, they can feel a lot more meaningful, right? For sure. Yeah. And especially to people in a culture who are conditioned by this idea that you need to find what makes sense to you and what resonates with you and then live within that and express that in your own personal way. At least there's some consolation in that for those who otherwise would have just seen an empty a whitewashed tomb uh what do you think are some of the potential pitfalls as many of us return to

sort of the uh the tridentine mass and and that sort of lifestyle like what's what's some of the pitfalls that you're seeing people fall into or that we could at least potentially fall into well obviously there's that adversarial dynamic that you were describing earlier, where people that are maybe more inclined towards a contemporary spirituality and those who are really attracted to a traditional one, where we're all baptized, we're all confirmed, we're all living sacramental lives, but we are really not treating each other with dignity and respect and charity um that's and again that's that that is probably a lot to do with with the whole social media dimension but i mean that that whole polarization i i don't think is really helping the church and it it runs

the risk of um this whole pendulum swing uh aspect to it as well where we instead of responding instead of appreciating what good might be available to us in the ordinary form or in the documentation that came out of the Second Vatican Council, we produce a false dichotomy out of it, where we say, oh, the council should be rejected, and there was nothing redeemable in it, and therefore we should just return to the way things were before that. But again, we've already diagnosed that the way things were before that. But again, we've already diagnosed that the way things were before that wasn't providing for the sanctity of a lot of people. Now again, that's anecdotal from what I've heard from people, but if that's true,

we needed to find a way where people could actually participate in the liturgy, where it wasn't something that was just merely being done on their behalf, but something where they were praying and intentional along with it. So I think we need to allow a healthy conversation to take place and to appreciate that there are some things that have come from the council. It is difficult to have a conversation, though, when you have certain traditionalists who are basically saying the Novus Ordo shouldn't exist and the second Vatican council was invalid and Pope Francis might be the Pope. How do you converse with somebody like that? Especially if

you're going to daily mass, there's this lovely novus ordo and you've got someone telling you it's basically illegitimate and by extension therefore you probably are as well. That's the trap. That's what I'm seeing happen. Even if it's not fully explicated like that, you get that sense that people who are going to their local parish are being sneered at by these people who at least appear to think that they're better than them. Right. And that perception, again, is largely formed, I think, by the brand of traditional catholicism which comes to people through the experiences maybe they've had on social media again um the thing

that i keep emphasizing for people is that the people at my my fssb parish for the most part i don't think a single one of them is on twitter like it's the minority by far um because they just recognize the pitfalls in it and maybe their own personal limitations to resist some of the temptation that might exist there. And so they just avoid it completely. Whereas the few encounters that you might have on Twitter with a so-called traditionalist, that really just doesn't represent the culture. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I would encourage people to, first of all, go experience it for yourself. Don't let those limited experiences really shape your perception

of it. No, I completely agree. I remember having these different preconceived ideas that were totally obliterated when my wife and I started attending the FSSP parish in San Diego. I remember being so apologetic for our kid being noisy. We had all these other bloody kids in their oversized suits sitting perfectly. And I was apologizing to the priest. And he said, look, I know enough about original sin to know those other kids aren't normal. You're fine. I was like, wow, thank you so much. You get these beautiful mothers breastfeeding their children in church, not feeling they need to go away somewhere and hide.

I thought that was beautiful. I mean, how beautiful and body positive is that right i mean that was 100 our experience of attending the extraordinary forum we were super nervous going into it uh we didn't know what to expect we didn't know if people were going to judge us for not having veils and long skirts or if our kids were were misbehaving and and you know just the the general insecurity that comes with the fact that you don't know what's going on. You don't know how to behave. You don't know how to respond. When I received communion, I said, amen, before he put the host in my mouth, right? It was just things like that where I, afterwards I was like, oh, what a goof, you know? But then when we went,

by the end we had calmed down. We were able to get drawn into the liturgy a little bit and several people came up to us afterwards and were like, hey, you're new. Welcome. This is amazing. That didn't happen to me at my old parish. The first time I came there, I was not approached by anybody. My experience of going through RCIA was a pretty bumpy road. Whereas our reception into the FSSP parish has just been very smooth

and very welcoming to the degree that my kids didn't want to go back afterwards when I gave them the opportunity. That's really beautiful. Yeah. Do you think, here's the thing too, right? Like novelties that are being introduced, right? Maybe Catholicism can sustain itself on them while being Catholic is an acceptable thing to be, while people are identifying culturally with their Catholicism. But it feels like we're pretty much done with that right now. And I think that is in part why we need to return to tradition or just die. And by return to tradition, I don't strictly mean return to the Latin mass. Right. But so are you saying like novel cultural expressions?

Within the liturgy. Like I remember when I was in Ireland for the offertory, people for the offertory were bringing up like paintings that they painted in class and a field hockey stick. And the idea was we're supposed to give everything to God, offer everything. And you're like, that's gross. Yeah.

Not gross. I mean, it's a good, it good it's you know it came from a good place i'm sure but right right right i mean the thing about church teaching is that for the vast majority of catholics it doesn't come down to them because they read the second vatican council documents or the encyclical the modu proprio or whatever it is for the most part it comes to them through word of mouth through the culture and the community that they're in or through their parish priest or whatever if they're really dialed in maybe their bishop maybe they heard their bishop preach at a at the cathedral or something like that and and so a lot of these novelties that were first introduced i think a lot

of faithful catholics thought oh this is what we're actually supposed to be doing totally as a faithful catholic i'm gonna go along with this new program right i'm not gonna i'm not gonna resist my bishop or my priest or anything like that 100 um and and so they did they poured themselves into it and unfortunately it hurt the church in in very obvious measures and statistics and and i think what a lot of catholics are doing now is they're like maybe i should read sacrosanctum Concilium. And then they are, and they're discovering, oh, wow, none of this stuff is in there. You know, a real, again, I don't like the expression that much, but a red pill moment for me was when a liturgist said to me, you know, if the ordinary form was done exactly according to the letter of the law

and the instruction, it would be almost indistinguishable from the extraordinary form. Yeah. Unless you're somebody who really knows those nuances. Wasn't that true until the new mass was promulgated? I mean, if you read Sacrosancto Concilium, I would agree that it's almost indistinguishable except people, you know, respond to hearing the gospel and that in English and also responding to some parts in English and things like that.

But, you know, there were other things that took place after that, weren't there? Like other instructions, you mean? Yeah, and other documents and instructions that came out. For sure. Yeah, yeah, there were. So are you saying if you read those subsequent documents

and were faithful to them? That's what he was saying yeah yeah and i'm i'm less versed in them obviously but uh you know i like the ordinary form for example can be done entirely in latin um and if you ever now that those of us who are a little more experienced with digital liturgy because of the pandemic we have more opportunities to see some how this could be done and my family and i we were we're in a big lockdown where I am right now. So things are really restricted. And we, uh, we ended up watching, uh, St. John Cantius, um, their energy. And it was, it was an ordinary form done entirely in Latin. And so my, we all watched it together and I had

to tell the kids, by the way, this is the ordinary form. This isn't the extraordinary form that we go to every week. This is what it could be like. And there's no reason it shouldn't be like this. And I think the more faithful Catholics get exposed to, again, the documentation and then opportunities to see how it could actually be done, I think people will start to come around. I think people will start to come around, but it's slow and painful for those of us who are already red-pilled and want to just realize it and want to have it in our parish community. Yeah. I think it's probably – I've said it. I think it's true that within 50 years, we've got good reason to think that either the Extraordinary Form and or the Novus ordo celebrated in a beautiful way will be the norm i think i think it's got to be it's just what we want and it's and i have met some older priests who really do see it as a sort of a front um i've had conversations with them you know and they get really nervous when they meet these

seminarians who are all into the liturgy and And I get it. I get how that could also be weird, like a priest who's super into having his lace and his ironed cassock and maybe a little too much. Like I get it. I guess there can be abuses everywhere. But I just, it's funny. I wouldn't be like, no, like it's not, whatever you think we're trying to bring about, that's not it.

Like we're happy. We're happy. We're not angry. I remember this one priest. It was actually up in Canada. He was bemoaning the fact that Pope Benedict XVI, back when he was the pope, was totally out of touch with young people today because he thinks that they're into Latin. And I'm like, oh, you are. You're the one out of touch and you don't know

that and i right that was i felt bad for him honestly yeah well i mean that's one of the pitfalls of chasing relevancy because relevancy is a it's it's unstable ground it's always changing on us as soon as we think we've captured it and okay now we can implement this in our liturgy 10 years later yeah all of whatever it was all of our hymnals and everything is going to be irrelevant and painfully irrelevant. Right. So is that really the nature of liturgy? Is it something where every five years we have to try and catch up to whatever the secular culture is doing? Or maybe there's something that transcends all of those fashions where it just turns a blind eye to it and kind of treats them maybe not with contempt but just

sort of like oh that's cute but that's what pop culture is doing right now meanwhile we're doing something that's grounded in 2 000 years of tried and true tradition um one of the and that's going to attract people of all ages sorry yeah i agree i i do agree with that um one of the pitfalls i see is this kind of this this desire to return to tradition ending up being sort of a demand that everyone be uniform in areas they don't need to be uniform in you know like somebody suddenly acquires a taste for the rosary and then starts talking to every other catholic who doesn't pray the rosary daily like they're bad or like they should anyway, or they look down their nose on Byzantine Catholics and we just want this sort of uniformity that the church isn't actually demanding.

What do you think about that? Well, you raised the Byzantine liturgy, and I think that's a really, really good example. And I've heard from where I am, it's Ukrainians. A lot of Ukrainians migrated to Alberta, especially central Alberta. And prior to the council, there was a lot of pressure. And this is anecdotally, so this is what they've told me, where there was a lot of pressure to Latinize or Romanize. That was a big thing here too. And what I would say to a lot of traditionalists who think that it's got to be exactly this way is go attend a Byzantine liturgy, which I have now had the benefit of being able to do because it's the only place where I can receive communion on the tongue where I am.

So we've gone a couple of weeks in a row. One of my reactions to the extraordinary form was, this is so different from everything I've experienced before. Like, shockingly different. That it's hard to believe that this is the same religion. Now, that's because the ordinary form that I was used to, there was a lot of abuses in it. But now that I've gone to the Byzantine liturgy, the divine liturgy, I don't want to say it is shockingly different, but very different. To the degree that for those who are so rigid in their adherence to a purely Latin, Trinitine, extraordinary form, I mean, I'm sorry, but the divine liturgy is just as old and just as legitimate,

and it's quite distinct. And so we have to find an appreciation for both. But there are certain similarities that I think should be essential to the liturgy. For one, just the way that music is treated. So you go to the divine liturgy, at least the one that I've been going to, there's no hymns, but it's all music. And that's a hard thing for someone in a postmodern culture to really appreciate, because music has a singular purpose in our lives, right? It's just this thing that we do to amuse ourselves or to entertain ourselves. infect our daily life in a way where the thing I'm doing is music unless I happen to be a musician whereas that's essentially what it's supposed to do with liturgy it's it's not that we're singing songs at mass it's that we're supposed to be singing the mass or the liturgy itself those prayers that are part of those texts we're supposed to sing them yeah we're not supposed to say them and then okay it's time for a music break and let's sing a song oh that's a very nice song

okay let's get back to praying right and that's what the whole for him sandwich does where it's okay an entrance song this is the it's just like yeah like like wrestling right where this is the priest's entrance music or something like that but no no this is a moment of prayer no it's it's exactly right and i was speaking with dr scott han recently about how you to Mass, going to Holy Mass, Divine Liturgy, is an act of justice. You know, we're giving back to God to the degree that we can, right? And so I was just at Divine Liturgy on Sunday, and you know it was

good when you come out with a sore throat, because you've been singing for an hour and a half non-stop. But it's almost like this, it's beautiful. It's masculine. Definitely, yeah. And so I would encourage, again, those traditionalists to go check out the divine liturgy and let that inform your sensibilities about what is permissible and still distinct from what you think is essential. I think that'll help people sort through it a lot.

And then reorient yourself back towards the ordinary form and allow yourself some wiggle room there to say, okay, well, maybe there are some things that I've seen are abuses and we need to deal with those, but there are things about that liturgy that could be done legitimately. Yeah, no, that's good. Man, it's a crazy time. All right. Hey, absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for chatting with me. I always love talking with you and I always learn a lot more. I actually haven't read that encyclical on modernism. I had heard about it, of course. Maybe you could text it to me and I'll read it tonight. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Cool. And maybe we'll put it, remind me and we'll put a link in the description below. Where can people learn more about you? Obviously, you've got this great YouTube channel, but you're also a very talented graphic designer and web builder. Thanks. Yeah. You are so so brian holder.ca is my website um i also have a community set up there for people that want to support the work that i'm doing so they can join the community and it's this is something i was really surprised by actually i was i was pretty insecure about starting a website like this

um because i felt like i would always have to get in there and be starting the conversations for people. But I can go on vacation like I did over the Christmas break and come back and be lost in the conversations that are already happening there. And there's some really intelligent people that are starting them there. So there are some paid tiers if you want to actually contribute financially to the work I'm doing. But there's also a free tier as well if you want to just get in there and we'd be happy to have you that way as well. And then, of course, tier as well if you want to just get in there and we'd be happy to have you that way as well and then of course if you just search for for my name brian holtzworth on on youtube or uh any of the other platforms that are out there uh if i'm on there you should find me awesome thanks a lot brian yeah thanks man it's good to talk to you thank you very much for watching

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