The John-Henry Westen Show - June 17, 2026


Fr. Perriconeļ¼š Why Young Catholics are TRADITIONAL


Episode Stats


Length

27 minutes

Words per minute

146.6

Word count

4,093

Sentence count

134


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 And already in 68, we were battling John Henry because we knew as the mass goes, so the church goes.
00:00:10.020 So many of our followers would have come to know and love you from your story of what happened with your interview at Matt Fradd's.
00:00:20.220 You know, you recounted the story of your celebrating mass for the conversation, which was she was asked, what's the worst evil she'd ever seen?
00:00:27.300 and it was about communion on the hand. And, you know, I went to you at the time
00:00:34.860 because you had received a lot of criticism for that. No, it can't be true. It's not true. And
00:00:40.540 there was pictures of her and so on. And basically you sent back the photo of yourself with her
00:00:45.260 and doubled down on saying, this is what you told me very honestly. This issue though is a big one
00:00:51.220 because there's a lot of parishes, obviously, that are very down on people receiving Holy
00:00:56.100 been on the tongue like a practice i remember one priest going off and how this is like animals we
00:01:02.960 feed animals this way it's disgusting um and what i'm wondering is i just he knows no end
00:01:10.600 sure but it's hard for the faithful who see this i i remember speaking with bishop schneider who
00:01:18.400 honestly told me it's probably one of the greatest it's very similar to what mother teresa said
00:01:22.500 actually. One of the greatest offenses that the world commits today, because it's an offense
00:01:27.240 directly against God. And he saw like COVID and stuff, like, you know, maybe a direct result of
00:01:33.300 what we were doing that way, receiving our Lord in a manner which led to his being trampled under
00:01:39.580 the feet of the attendees. So how do the faithful encourage their brothers and sisters to receive
00:01:49.220 our lord worthily on the tongue and kneeling i mean kneeling might not be possible for many people
00:01:54.400 because they're they're you know they have problems kneeling standing whatever but um how do we
00:01:59.560 encourage that in in the midst of a of a ecclesial culture that might even frown upon it with charity
00:02:06.180 and uh gentleness and for example we have come to the point where we know that over 75 percent of
00:02:13.540 roman catholics no longer believe in the real presence that's been verified by reliable
00:02:17.920 statistical studies uh what we do well it's it's like the the missionaries in the 19th century
00:02:26.060 um we have to begin from the very beginning so i would suggest to your audience if you find
00:02:32.020 a catholic you're bound to seven out of ten say to him may i tell you something what is it
00:02:39.120 um you see the tabernacle and it might be difficult for them to find the tabernacle
00:02:44.120 their church but help them to find it and say you know why there are locked doors on it why
00:02:50.980 because as catholics we believe that the word incarnate truly living dwells there
00:02:59.500 they might be they never heard that before and so if that's the case then ought we not to treat
00:03:07.980 the god who is with us in a fashion very different than the way we treat ordinary people
00:03:13.120 they might agree with that and you go forward he said why don't you try this when you come into a
00:03:19.460 church make something called a genuflection and then show it to them assuming they never have
00:03:25.960 never seen it before and likely they have none and and then simply say to them you should try
00:03:33.000 this every time you come into church and maybe other people will watch you and if you want to
00:03:38.040 go even further, when you receive
00:03:40.060 communion, why
00:03:42.020 don't you receive our Lord on your tongue?
00:03:43.860 Because as Catholics, we believe that the
00:03:45.900 hands of the priests are consecrated
00:03:47.540 and he alone should be handling
00:03:49.960 the body and body and soul and divinity of
00:03:52.000 Christ. And then why don't
00:03:53.980 you try genuflecting before you
00:03:55.860 receive? And
00:03:57.800 others might look to you
00:03:59.840 and see you're a good example.
00:04:02.400 Now, I think if
00:04:03.580 that's the only way we are going
00:04:06.020 to perhaps proceed to the future
00:04:07.840 with each and every individual speaking to them with great charity and simplicity about what we
00:04:16.080 have the privilege to possess in every single catholic church and especially when they receive
00:04:20.960 communion and tell them that you can now be a true apostle by your simple example because others
00:04:28.940 will see you when you kneel to receive communion that you receive communion on the tongue
00:04:32.720 and will wonder themselves,
00:04:35.800 gee, I wonder why they are engaging
00:04:38.760 in these kinds of singular, unique actions.
00:04:42.780 And that is the way others will be drawn gently.
00:04:46.900 It will take a long time.
00:04:48.260 I remember the great story of Edith Stein
00:04:50.960 when she was a prominent professor of philosophy
00:04:53.360 before her conversion,
00:04:55.360 and she visited Cologne
00:04:56.320 and she saw the glorious cathedral there
00:04:58.480 and she thought she might take an interior look
00:05:01.080 at its architecture, which she admired.
00:05:03.180 She sat in the last
00:05:05.140 pew, this glorious
00:05:07.080 cathedral, and
00:05:09.020 she relates that she saw
00:05:10.800 Catholics coming in
00:05:12.820 to that cathedral.
00:05:15.460 They would bow,
00:05:16.760 bend their knee.
00:05:18.740 They would go into the pew, stay
00:05:20.840 only for a few minutes, leave,
00:05:22.980 bend their knee again, and depart.
00:05:25.240 She said to herself, John Henry,
00:05:27.600 it almost seemed
00:05:28.960 as though they were visiting someone.
00:05:35.300 And it made her explore the faith more deeply.
00:05:38.700 You know the rest of the story.
00:05:40.660 It was probably, that was one of the things
00:05:43.260 that brought this great saint and martyr
00:05:46.240 into the Catholic Church,
00:05:48.300 just observing a Catholic genuflecting.
00:05:52.300 No words were said.
00:05:54.340 What words need to be said, John Henry?
00:05:56.540 The action is so dramatic.
00:05:58.960 it's so tutorial and and and when it's done with a great amount of affection others cannot but help
00:06:07.700 to be moved by it yes there will be the fanatics there will be those who have had you know pounded
00:06:15.220 into their heads that you know you're like cattle but eventually they're going to seem like the the
00:06:21.820 boars that they are and people will no longer listen to them they would become a fringe
00:06:26.840 and it may be in a decade we'll be able to see 10 more catholics giving our lord the adoration
00:06:35.300 he deserves maybe more than 10 so father one of the things that i as our audience at life site
00:06:40.820 very very broad in perspective and and from different backgrounds a lot of them are pro-life
00:06:46.960 activists not even catholic and and then there's the you know the other side you might say the very
00:06:52.800 very devout Latin Mass, only Catholics, but the Latin Mass has been for you something that right
00:06:58.100 from your seminary days it was attacked and you have stuck to and promoted all your life long.
00:07:03.260 So there's going to be a lot of Catholics, very sincere, very Orthodox, pro-life Catholics who
00:07:09.020 fight for the truth every day, who really don't get it with regard to the Latin Mass because
00:07:14.760 some of them are blessed with a parish that is Orthodox, but a Novus Ordo parish,
00:07:20.920 and they've probably seen Latin mass gone it's in Latin it's foreign to them they have no Latin
00:07:27.480 you know the my generation there was no Latin but they're wondering what is this thing about
00:07:35.380 the Latin mass they're intrigued with it now because all the bad guys are fighting it but
00:07:41.120 they sort of don't get it what is it and why do you cling to it so much and how are we to understand
00:07:49.460 it because we don't understand it. You go there and you don't understand anything.
00:07:52.880 I think we begin gently by saying to them, as Catholics, we are all traditional. And what
00:08:01.120 do I mean by that? It means that all of us are breed the air of a tradition which goes back
00:08:09.740 2,000 years when Mother Church has been infallibly giving to us the revealed religion of our Lord
00:08:16.780 jesus christ you would agree with that in that sense we're all traditional because we follow
00:08:22.580 that then you could direct them to saint paul when he's in many places he talks about you know
00:08:28.720 you must pand on the tradition you must take the tradition that i have given you we asked them to
00:08:35.440 look at um second timothy um where saint paul begins with oh to mothaeus custodi
00:08:41.740 to the um god the tradition the deposit custody depositum positive what deposit of sacred
00:08:51.600 teaching so you say to them all of us are traditional because we follow the teaching
00:08:57.280 of the church which have been given to us over millennia and part of that is the manner in which
00:09:03.900 the holy sacrifice of the mayor is celebrated and why was it celebrated that way because we
00:09:09.980 recognize that this is the sacrifice of calvary again that is a notion very very distant to many
00:09:17.080 catholics and you would explain that and if it is the sacrifice of calvary no wonder mother church
00:09:23.440 over a period of 1500 years adorned it with the beauty that we see in the traditional mass
00:09:30.520 including the latin language which has been anointed by the church as a sacral language
00:09:38.260 having said all of that that we are all i recently wrote an article on that doesn't appear in my book
00:09:46.160 why every catholic is a traditional catholic for those reasons but then we move on to simply say
00:09:52.120 well the mass is in and can be celebrated in the nervous world quite rapidly and i understand why
00:09:58.940 you two go there but but understand one thing and this is i think a pretty good argument let
00:10:05.580 say you have a diamond and that diamond is set in a uh a junk pile well it's still a diamond
00:10:17.600 but its setting certainly obscures its preciousness as opposed to taking a diamond
00:10:26.140 and setting it in a gold setting.
00:10:31.880 Suddenly, the diamond is able to glisten
00:10:34.780 and show forth its beauty far better
00:10:37.780 than when it was on a pile of garbage.
00:10:43.000 You see, you say to your friend,
00:10:44.700 this is the same diamond,
00:10:47.440 but the setting makes all the difference in the world,
00:10:50.460 doesn't it?
00:10:51.380 Well, the holy sacrifice of the mass,
00:10:53.060 whether it be the Novus Lord or done as it should be,
00:10:56.140 or the traditional mass, has the sacrifice of Calvary being represented for our adoration
00:11:03.720 in a self-same manner? We have to be clear about that. But you cannot deny that the setting
00:11:12.220 is all-important in order to communicate the proper traditional beauty, the doctrinal beauty.
00:11:19.500 and that's our argument the that is what is drawing so many catholics the traditional mass
00:11:26.640 has all the surroundings all the accoutrements all the symbols that have been carefully
00:11:36.600 accumulated by mother church over centuries to give paramount importance to the doctrine that
00:11:43.460 This is the sacrifice of Calvary
00:11:45.300 now being presented to you in an unbloody fashion.
00:11:49.340 And all the details of reverence and beauty
00:11:51.760 just direct man who's made of body and soul
00:11:55.520 to the adoration of that sacrament.
00:11:59.060 We don't see this quite the same way in the Novus Ordo.
00:12:05.500 Even though the ceremonies surrounding it
00:12:07.920 sometimes in a beautifully said Novus Ordo,
00:12:09.960 even Ordo Orientum, might try to duplicate that.
00:12:12.620 if a catholic looks at the words that the priest is saying and compare them to the words the priest
00:12:19.680 says in the traditional mass he will see a world of difference um we have prayers that have been
00:12:30.060 stripped of their sacrificial and um high meaning that they originally had in in the prayers of the
00:12:42.020 traditional Mass. So for all these reasons, I say to all our friends across the spectrum you just
00:12:48.540 described, let them just look at the Mass that way. The same sacrifice of Calvary in the Novus
00:12:55.600 Lodal and the traditional Mass, we believe that as Catholics, and not to, it's dangerous for our
00:13:02.080 souls, especially when the Novus Lodal is done as it should be. But the setting makes all the
00:13:08.760 difference in the world. If you have a Rembrandt and it's set in a garbage dump laying there and
00:13:17.040 you have a Rembrandt, which is in a magnificent museum in Europe, well, you're going to look at
00:13:23.160 the Rembrandt in two different ways, which is absolutely clear. On January 23rd, 2025, I was
00:13:30.300 released from federal prison after being pardoned by President Trump and one of the DC-9 who
00:13:35.060 peacefully rescued babies at a late-term abortion facility. And I'm free today because good people
00:13:40.180 like you never stopped praying, speaking out, and following our story on LifeSite News. LifeSite
00:13:47.080 fought for us when it mattered most. Now they need your help. Your gift will keep LifeSite News
00:13:53.400 fighting for life, faith, family, and freedom. Please click the link below and give today.
00:14:00.080 I've seen the impact firsthand, and it matters. Thanks. God bless you.
00:14:05.060 Viva Cristo Rey.
00:14:07.180 So one of the things that is happening today is, and you've noted it too,
00:14:12.560 we see many more Catholics joining the church, especially young Catholics.
00:14:16.100 When you go to the TLM, particularly in some areas where it's offered by an order
00:14:21.260 and it has more prominence, it's populated by a lot of young Catholic families.
00:14:29.500 That's very different than a lot of the Nova Sorda parishes in those same places even.
00:14:35.060 You've seen this. At the same time, the numbers of Catholics are actually going down in a big way
00:14:42.840 because the numbers of baptisms are way down. The numbers of Catholic marriages way down.
00:14:49.020 So despite the influx in Easter, we've seen more Catholics join the church than ever before. A lot
00:14:55.300 of parishes, it's almost universal. Yet at the same time, and there's this boom among young
00:15:00.700 Catholics going to more toward tradition. At the same time, the numbers of Catholics are going
00:15:06.400 down. It's an odd thing. What's your thoughts on that situation? Especially the young who have not
00:15:13.580 been inured to the sacred want to touch the face of God. And that is offered to them at the
00:15:22.100 traditional mass. The presence of God is a thick reality for them. When they experience and
00:15:30.660 understand this reality, their hearts are moved to love God and to properly love their neighbor.
00:15:37.540 They move away from it completely uplifted and almost changed. This is what these new generations
00:15:48.060 younger than i who have seen a deracinated culture a culture which only promotes uh the
00:15:57.840 olympian man and they find that sterile and barren and they are tired of it when they enter the
00:16:05.440 traditional mass it is like entering a whole supernatural world which is present for them
00:16:11.820 and their hearts are uplifted.
00:16:13.500 This is the reason why they're coming
00:16:16.040 to the traditional mass.
00:16:17.740 In spite of all that those who should know better
00:16:21.580 have been attempting to stop this,
00:16:25.600 they still find it.
00:16:27.200 It's so funny.
00:16:28.900 After Tradicio Custodas,
00:16:32.040 many, and I've written about this, John Henry,
00:16:35.200 many young Catholics of the generations
00:16:36.940 you are referring,
00:16:38.620 thought to themselves,
00:16:39.420 what is this awful, horrible thing?
00:16:41.820 That it's being banned throughout the world.
00:16:44.460 It's almost being treated like child trafficking.
00:16:48.560 What could it possibly be?
00:16:50.480 And so what they did is they're so adept at their iPhones and they can, you know, navigate the computer as I cannot.
00:16:58.720 They looked for this traditional mass.
00:17:01.660 And what they saw, John Henry, to their amazement, was heaven on earth.
00:17:07.500 and they were transfixed and said this is not wicked this is not something that should be
00:17:16.140 banned i must try to find out where this mass is and because of traditional and because of these
00:17:23.880 young people knowing contemporary methods of communication it introduced them to the digital
00:17:29.860 Mass in a way that those who know better never, ever imagined. Moreover, you see that baptisms
00:17:39.200 erupt, even the Novus Ordo. Well, that is in Novus Ordo parishes where they try to at least duplicate
00:17:46.400 the supernatural atmosphere that is present intrinsically in the traditional Mass. That's
00:17:51.700 what they saw. They saw that wonderment of the supernatural, and they wanted that. And the music
00:17:57.700 the gregorian chant which simply proves that all the experimentation done in the past 60 years
00:18:05.780 of the cheerleaders of the spirit of vatican ii is dying on the vine john henry if you are looking
00:18:13.840 at least if you're looking for a barometer amongst young catholics now i i've written in one of my
00:18:20.100 articles that the traditional mass is the reverse is woodstock in reverse if any of your audience
00:18:27.600 Notice in 67, there was this horrible assault on civilization called Woodstock, where with
00:18:36.000 immoral behavior and horrific music, they wanted to tear down all that civilization had built
00:18:42.440 for 2,000 years. It was an intolerable time. And that word Woodstock came to represent all
00:18:51.560 that they wanted to do. But it was filled with tens of thousands of young people who wanted to
00:18:55.900 be released, emancipated from any kind of boundary, moral or civilizational. Well,
00:19:03.060 this is a reverse of that. We have a Woodstock, now all young people, but they are at traditional
00:19:09.360 masses and they are propagating this on their own because they can't contain their excitement,
00:19:14.680 John Henry. And so Mass of the Ages, that glorious trilogy is being produced by young
00:19:20.860 people in their 20s and to to to uh uh to a gerontocracy who is still um devoted to the
00:19:30.840 spirit of vatican ii they find this bewildering and they just don't know what how to explain it
00:19:37.980 what to do about it and no matter how they heart try to to stamp it out etrus keeps on on popping
00:19:46.080 up more and more now is this uh counter-revolution going to take root in the next 10 years no it's
00:19:53.720 going to take a long time but if anyone sees that what the youth want is the uh is certainly the
00:20:01.940 signal of where we ought to be going the signal of life well the traditional latin mass has those
00:20:08.260 signals of life well let's talk about that because as the young people not so young sometimes but
00:20:15.400 they are feeling hounded as well because they love tradition they go for it then their mass
00:20:22.820 gets canceled or moved to the furthest reaches of the diocese they're basically for all intents
00:20:28.700 and purposes unable to now go anymore um a lot of them feel like this is insane this is crazy
00:20:35.380 where are they to find hope uh still in the church because it is becoming bizarre for some
00:20:42.480 I feel so bad for the families, for instance, in North Carolina, where, I mean, this is just, the bishop has gone crazy.
00:20:51.060 He's trying not only to eliminate the Latin Mass, which he did, but then also any kind of reverence, even in the Novus Ordo.
00:20:58.540 So how, it seems crushing.
00:21:02.100 John Henry, North Carolina has become the Catholic version of North Korea.
00:21:07.500 Anyway, no, you're right about that.
00:21:09.380 Well, this is where Catholics are going to have to seek the foundations of our holy Catholic faith, and that is in Calvary, in the cross.
00:21:21.620 Our Lord only brings life and joy and victory through the cross.
00:21:30.520 And where there is no cross, the victory is vapid and it's ephemeral.
00:21:34.460 well certainly John Henry
00:21:36.780 those Catholics who are having to suffer
00:21:38.700 these indignities are having
00:21:40.960 to mount Calvary
00:21:42.620 and their attitude
00:21:44.700 has to be supernatural
00:21:45.940 it has to be supernatural as Catholics
00:21:48.840 we embrace the cross
00:21:50.700 ave crux
00:21:51.800 the cross is our only hope
00:21:55.100 it has
00:21:56.880 pleased our Lord to allow
00:21:58.900 all of us to suffer
00:22:00.360 these
00:22:01.500 these indignities of the mass being taken away from us but the reasons are only known to him
00:22:11.480 and we are to embrace this particular cross as best we can with with patience and trusted divine
00:22:21.340 providence that he will give us a victory at at the end now that does not mean that we become
00:22:28.760 quietest, John Henry. It doesn't mean as we embrace the cross, we just sit back in our rooms
00:22:34.000 and say nothing and keep our eyes closed in the hope that when we open them, everything will be
00:22:38.600 fine. That's a sin of presumption. No, as we accept the cross, we still look for ways, we still look
00:22:46.480 for paths forward where we can bring the traditional mass, restore it wherever we can
00:22:53.580 with graciousness and respect, but always having our mind on victory ahead of us.
00:23:01.580 These times are calling for a prudential strategy, and we can't be looked upon as
00:23:10.640 wild outlaws. That's not what we are. We are militant Roman Catholics who understand
00:23:20.100 what our heritage is what our doctrinal and heretical heritage is and we shall not stop
00:23:27.740 until it's returned and if they knock us down and and and put our hand our heads into the into the
00:23:36.340 dust we'll wipe it off and stand up and march forward again as faithful catholics in the past
00:23:43.760 have done and we'll be over the laity who will do this john henry what happened in reformation
00:23:49.440 england when the mass was being taken away in the north of england there arose
00:23:54.860 tens of thousands of laity in what has now been called the pilgrimage of grace
00:24:01.900 and and they fought and they fought let's remind our audience every one of their bishops save one
00:24:10.840 betrayed christ but that was not going to stop these brave english catholics john henry
00:24:19.020 They stood up, and with their banners of the Sacred Heart, they moved.
00:24:24.840 Men and women were slaughtered by Henry VIII's troops,
00:24:28.300 but they started, and they were unafraid.
00:24:32.700 The Catholics of the Lendee, another example.
00:24:35.420 Catholics are always the ones that lead us out away from the abyss.
00:24:42.280 Finally, Father, if you had the opportunity to speak to Pope Leo XIV,
00:24:49.020 or to the cardinals that are making all the decisions,
00:24:52.560 what would you tell them is the greatest need in the church today?
00:24:55.260 To listen to us and battle Roman Catholics.
00:25:01.200 I would say to them, you are very fond of synodal listening.
00:25:06.080 And that's what you're propagating now.
00:25:08.880 I have theological and philosophical problems with that.
00:25:12.420 But you have a hierarchy.
00:25:14.000 But if you are enamored of this listening, can you listen to us?
00:25:19.020 Can you listen to the needs that we have? I know you're very, very eager to listen to everyone's
00:25:25.680 needs, even those who are the enemies of the church. But we're not the enemies of the church.
00:25:32.320 We are faithful sons and daughters. Could you at least listen to us as you listen to the others?
00:25:38.020 Finally, Father, what would you hope your legacy would be? You have worked in the vineyard of the
00:25:48.420 Lord, as they say, as a faithful servant now for half a century in, uh, and struggled really
00:25:55.520 in a Herculean way against the presiding winds, which were, uh, people have described them as
00:26:05.220 the winds of Vatican II or wherever they come from. It's been, uh, it's been pretty one directional
00:26:11.420 with a few, you know, a few steps backward every once in a while, but the agenda seems to be
00:26:16.660 forging ahead um what would you hope uh your legacy to be that every day i could find one
00:26:23.300 new young man or woman that i can speak to them about the victory of christ and his catholic
00:26:30.860 church that i could tell them where to find it in the catechism and where it is living and
00:26:38.260 breathing in the holy sacrifice of the mass and if i could just find one of those every day john
00:26:44.160 Henry. God will
00:26:46.280 have been so good to me. Beautiful.
00:26:48.240 Father John Paragon, thank you so much for
00:26:50.160 joining us. May God bless you.
00:26:52.480 Thank you, John Henry. Father, would you
00:26:54.240 give us all your blessing?
00:26:56.200 Amen.
00:27:08.460 Hey, my friends, it's going to be
00:27:10.420 an historic night on September
00:27:12.460 the 24th, Archbishop Fulton Sheen will be beatified in St. Louis. That same evening,
00:27:20.440 LifeSite News is hosting a special celebratory banquet just steps from the stadium. We will have
00:27:28.000 Bishop Sheen's own favorite mitre with us for veneration. Come celebrate Blessed Fulton Sheen
00:27:35.400 with lifelong Sheen promoters Terry Barber and Peter Howard. Hotel rooms are already very difficult
00:27:42.360 to find. Most are already booked, but LifeSite has secured a block of rooms for those who join
00:27:48.740 us for the dinner. Reserve your seats today. The link is below. We'll see you in St. Louis.