The John-Henry Westen Show - June 17, 2026


Fr. Perricone： Why Young Catholics are TRADITIONAL


Episode Stats


Length

27 minutes

Words per minute

146.6

Word count

4,093

Sentence count

134

Harmful content

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Fr. Fr. John Scopes talks about how Catholics should receive Holy Communion on the tongue. Why is it so important to receive Holy communion on the hand? Why not on the knee? And why should Catholics bow their head to receive?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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. 0.89
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. 0.59
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 0.99
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 0.55
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 0.96
00:13:02.080 souls, especially when the Novus Lodal is done as it should be. But the setting makes all the 0.99
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
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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 0.96
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 0.91
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 0.94
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 0.91
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. 1.00
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, 1.00
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? 1.00
00:24:55.260 To listen to us and battle Roman Catholics. 1.00
00:25:01.200 I would say to them, you are very fond of synodal listening. 1.00
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.
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