Canon 212 founder Frank Walker joins me to talk about his journey to becoming a conservative Catholic writer, why he started a website, and why he thinks Catholics should have a voice in politics. We also talk about how Catholics can use their voices within the Catholic Church to make a difference.
00:01:27.940Well, I started volunteering with a site similar before, and I was writing articles for them, and I realized that the time spent on this sort of work, instead of writing articles, can be more influential.
00:01:45.260It's nice to have a place where people can learn, can be more Catholic and more conservative when you consider it as an alternative to what's in the media.
00:01:54.380So I do it, and I've been happy to see, you know, the community that's built around it and the things that we've been able to accomplish.
00:02:02.360And writers and people like you who look at it, it really makes a – I think I like to help people like you get all the information you need to do what you do.
00:02:16.540Well, from my perspective, that's 1,000% the case.
00:02:19.620And I just want to underline the point here because the war room's philosophy, it's all about agency and giving our posse, our war room posse, all the information with which that they can then access, study, decide, diffuse amongst their friends on their own social media.
00:02:42.400So that people in this movement can really make things happen rather than just being passive and receptive to other people's decisions and actions.
00:02:53.500I think what you're doing here with Canon 212 is absolutely important in that, especially in the Catholic, the traditionalist Catholic, the conservative Catholic side of things.
00:03:18.780It came back after, you know, our youth.
00:03:23.040But then when she passed and then all – it kind of took over the online media and all these podcasters.
00:03:29.720And it's almost as bad as it was before now that Francis is there because they won't address – so many things are outside the Overton window.
00:03:42.240If you can't – if you don't say that he's definitely absolutely pope and there's not any questions about it, then you don't get a voice, you know.
00:03:50.260So, yeah, it's good to have an alternative in the media and the MAG – what they – you know, Politico hit you today about the MAGA people saying MAGA is not really legitimate Catholicism.
00:04:04.920It's the regular people and they need to have an organization and leadership in a community because when you have a pope who's not Catholic, we just don't have that kind of community.
00:04:14.100And I like what you and the previous guests have said about alternative ways to exert power on the church.
00:04:22.120You know, and Pius X, the great, as spoke of the last century, was put in by a veto of the Holy Roman Emperor.
00:04:29.860St. Ambrose back in the early church was there by a popular vote.
00:04:35.940And we need to build the church from the ground up because this is where the actual Catholics are.
00:04:41.920Tell me something then as someone standing at the gateway of news aggregation.
00:04:49.400What do you think MAGA can do moving forward, especially within the Catholic sphere, MAGA-orientated Catholics?
00:04:58.080What can we do over the course of the next generation to try to make our voice known more in the governorship, the winning of the church?
00:05:09.900I suggested on the show to Steve yesterday that really the laity ought to be in charge of appointing bishops and even the pope itself.
00:05:19.980And I cited the fact that in the early centuries of the church, it was the faithful of Rome by acclamation that picked the pope.
00:05:27.960And you mentioned the case of St. Ambrose.
00:05:30.240And I've had some people, especially in the traditionalist camp, sort of pushing back on social media, saying that was really a Protestant formulation.
00:05:41.640Do you think the laity is equipped to make these decisions to do with the winning of the church and that this medieval superstructure is doing a good enough job?
00:05:50.800Or do you think actually perhaps it's time to be thinking about something new?
00:05:55.360Yeah, I don't believe that you can have to separate power from the church.
00:06:02.060The church has always had power behind it since the time of Pepin and Charlemagne and the papal states.
00:07:14.500And the war room and the MAGA movement can help create that situation and support the church and support the ancient mass and the faithful people.
00:07:22.900Could you just tell me a quick – why did you pick the name Canon 212 for your aggregator, for your website?
00:07:33.860Well, a friend of mine came up with that for me.
00:07:36.540And the name, it says that you have a right to speak truth to power within the Vatican.
00:07:44.840The only thing is it says that you need to do it respectfully, which I, you know, as you know, I don't always find so appropriate.
00:07:51.140But that's what the canon law of Canon 212 means.
00:08:06.820So, look, my final question to you as the person who's sitting there looking at all the news coming in.
00:08:14.020What do you think the war room posse should be looking out for when they're seeing the headlines and the stories in the mainstream press, and even perhaps in the Catholic press as well, as we run up towards the conclave?
00:08:26.220Are there any sort of misdirection plays that you're expecting from the mainstream media that the posse should be especially looking out for?
00:08:37.220Well, some people are suggesting that there may be a more, they may be shifting to the right.
00:08:44.260And even though they don't have a conclave that would shift to the right, there's nobody in there.
00:08:48.480There are very few Catholics in the conclave right now.
00:08:51.760And I think by canon, while that makes it not a valid conclave, you can't expect a Catholic to come out of a conclave like that.
00:08:58.200But nevertheless, the powers that be, the way they work, the pendulum swings, they want it for hundreds of years, a Catholic church to have no true pope and a false pope and an uncatholic pope so the pendulum can swing.
00:09:11.400And so that might be their next thing.
00:09:12.840They try to get somebody, I say like a Mike Pence.
00:09:20.020Father Jerry Murray in the New York Diocese mentioned that somebody more conservative.
00:09:24.240You yourself mentioned yesterday they might be looking for somebody that can actually appeal to the actual Catholics and not everybody else but Catholics.
00:09:33.320So I would watch to see the news and I would look through the Catholic press to see what they're considering.
00:09:42.540Michael Sean Winters, the big liberal at the National Catholic Reporter, he says that he thinks that we're going to be complaining no matter who they give us.
00:09:50.360So he's very much an insider and he, you know, if he's saying that, I wouldn't expect, you know, somebody that's an actual Catholic, but perhaps a little better.
00:10:01.400The National Catholic, the National Catholic distorter.
00:10:04.700Look, just before you bounce, as you mentioned earlier, this is an important thing about Francis' doubtful validity.
00:10:11.580Can you just give me like one minute on what you mean by that and what its implications are?
00:10:17.320Well, I mean, you're not allowed to mention his validity, but it makes it very difficult.
00:10:23.120Like the whole concept of a pope being somebody who guides a church has been erased.
00:10:28.940Cardinal Mueller, the famous conservative currently yesterday, said you're blind if you expect pokes to be, to guide you on Catholic teaching.
00:13:04.580Dave, just firstly tell me, you were listening to the previous segment there, and the reference, of course, to our Protestant brethren.
00:13:13.440What's the view within your own church community on the death of Pope Francis from a Protestant perspective?
00:13:23.320Well, it's very similar to the Catholic perspective.
00:13:28.100We all believe or should believe in objective truth, right?
00:13:32.740Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one.
00:13:35.400The Jewish community, the Protestant community, the Catholic community, we believe in objective truth, and we have the Catholics to thank for a lot of creeds that are down on paper, starting with Nicaea, and then all the rest of them in Turkey.
00:13:52.180I was just over in Constantinople, Istanbul, and was just blown away.
00:13:57.180And unfortunately, all of us need to do better, you know, to work with the Eastern Church and in unity together, but we have objective truth on our side.
00:14:06.740In politics, I ran on the Republican creed.
00:14:09.800I said there's nothing wrong with the creed.
00:14:11.800The only problem is none of the Republicans keep it, and I think that's analogous to the church.
00:14:17.580We've worked for millennia with the Catholics at the beginning to put this stuff on paper, and I think we need to stick to our knitting there and share that with the press, that we have objective guidelines.
00:14:29.720We're not making this up as we go, and I think that's the strongest thing we can all do together is just row in the same direction with the same content, which comes from God.