The John-Henry Westen Show - Meet the Priest Who Left the Diocese to Join the SSPX Despite the Excommunication

00:00:00.000 That morning I woke up and I saw the news. I went to my chapel. I fell before Our Lady. I wept.

00:00:05.920 I wept. And I thought to myself, they've been coming after the church all these years,

00:00:10.780 and now they're coming after Our Lady. And that I could not stand. I could not take that. And it

00:00:14.600 was like scales fell from my eyes. And the rose-colored glasses were off. This was not about

00:00:20.440 being conservative or liberal. It became clear to me that the church had gotten infested with modernism.

00:00:25.840 hey my friends now for a few weeks we've been hearing about the issue of

00:00:33.200 priests who have decided to join the sspx because i mean initially it was thought

00:00:41.300 oh well rome i mean we're going to open up a pathway because i'm sure when the

00:00:46.480 excommunications happen it's going to be like we're going to have a flood like happened in 1988

00:00:50.880 How we got to the fraternity of St. Peter, it was that.

00:00:55.440 It was the excommunications in 1988 that caused this influx to form something else when all sorts of priests who were part of the SSPX leave and join.

00:01:05.460 So they had prepared that.

00:01:06.980 They didn't see that happen.

00:01:08.440 In fact, what they saw was two priests, I think, actually came over.

00:01:12.400 But, believe it or not, after the excommunications, and I guess subsequent things that happened, there was now quite a few Catholic priests who have gone the other way, decided to leave their diocese, as it were, and enter or join the SSPX.

00:01:35.180 That's a big decision. In fact, even in the United States, there was two within the period of a week, a few weeks ago.

00:01:42.400 At least that's when it was announced, because the bishops took action to enunciate their punishments on them.

00:01:50.000 And I wanted to talk to those priests because I thought, wow, what a decision.

00:01:55.000 You're entering into something that is, you know, by and large, at least by the mainstream, condemned in quite a formal way.

00:02:04.720 So I wanted to get into that.

00:02:06.120 And we've got with us Father David Mary Engo, who is one of the two priests mentioned in America.

00:02:12.400 He is in the Diocese of Knoxville, and it was the Bishop of Knoxville that put out that statement now a few weeks ago.

00:02:21.080 Father David, Mary, thank you so much for joining us.

00:02:23.120 Thanks for having me.

00:02:24.380 Let's begin, as you always do, at the sign of the cross, if you could lead us, Father.

00:02:28.140 In the name of the Father, the Spirit of the Son. Amen.

00:02:31.080 Amen.

00:02:32.280 So, Father, that's quite the decision.

00:02:35.320 I want to get into your background a little bit first, though.

00:02:39.500 Tell us about your priestly vocation and, you know, how long have you been a priest and all that?

00:02:45.240 So I joined the Capuchin Franciscans in 1986.

00:02:49.060 It became a postulant.

00:02:49.900 So literally 40 years ago, this past August, I entered the doors of the Capuchin Friar and became a friar in the York province.

00:02:56.480 At the time, there were no Franciscan reforms out there, as far as I knew.

00:03:00.140 The CFRs of the Bronx hadn't existed yet.

00:03:02.380 So I got to know Father Benedict Rochelle and that crew very, very early on when I was still 17 years old and had been discerning with the Capuchins.

00:03:10.680 And I spent five and a half years as a Capuchin.

00:03:13.200 During that time, the CFRs broke away and began.

00:03:15.700 And I was taken in by a lot of the older guys who remembered the old days and kept encouraging me to study the Capuchin Franciscan history and to really try to live what we had been given that was being lost.

00:03:28.380 And the more I continued to try to do that, I was becoming the opposite of what they were trying to form. 0.83

00:03:35.560 So by all rights, I should be a tree-hugging, feminist, pro-women ordination, crazy liberal. 0.55

00:03:43.580 But I was going the opposite direction of what they were trying to form me as.

00:03:47.560 And then when the order decided to, in the formation house, start praying the Mother Thunder edition of the breviary,

00:03:54.400 which was all this inclusive language stuff where you couldn't call God Father or Lord or King and

00:04:01.280 the glory be went in the name of the Creed of the Redeemer, the Sanctifier. We actually had to use

00:04:06.580 that and I said, I'm out of here, I'm gone. So I joined the CFRs in the Bronx, which was a good 0.66

00:04:12.380 community and good men, trying to be faithful, living the life well, but it still wasn't exactly

00:04:18.080 what the Capuchin life was in the early days. So from there, they kind of didn't tour reform

00:04:23.020 movements over the time, trying to find the actual Capuchin Franciscan life. And in doing so,

00:04:30.280 always growing in that deeper understanding of the faith and more conservatism, right? I used

00:04:35.460 to call myself a John Paul II conservative. I wound up in Massachusetts with a small group,

00:04:40.420 and I started going to seminary with the Franciscans of the Immaculate. So Father

00:04:45.400 Isaac Grellier was a very, very famous guy. You know, he's about two years behind me in seminary,

00:04:49.500 and we were in class together. We were both taught by Fr. Peter Damien Fellner, and Fr. Peter was

00:04:54.860 amazing. He was a great teacher. We used to say that a theologian is like trying to drink,

00:05:00.140 most theologians, you try to drink from a water fountain that's dribbling. Fr. Peter was a fire

00:05:06.140 hose. You just couldn't take it in, you know? Every class was amazing. We studied right out

00:05:11.360 of Bonaventure's works, you know, and in the true Franciscan style. And one thing he taught us,

00:05:16.820 which is part of my story,

00:05:18.280 is that he taught us to defend the doctrine

00:05:20.680 of co-redemptrix and mediatrix of all graces to the death.

00:05:23.940 To the death.

00:05:24.900 Yes, he really like constantly reinforcing it,

00:05:28.140 how important it is.

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00:07:59.380 So I was actually the first priest to be ordained

00:08:01.980 out of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Seminary.

00:08:04.580 I wasn't part of that community, but I was the first to be a dean from their seminary in 1997.

00:08:08.880 So I've been a priest.

00:08:10.160 Next July will be 30 years.

00:08:12.800 Oh, wow, 30 years.

00:08:14.900 And most of my ministry has been youth evangelization through Youth 2000, parish missions, retreats.

00:08:21.300 And again, always being the John Paul II conservative, seeing the problems in the church,

00:08:25.300 thinking that somehow the answer lied in just being faithful to the true teachings,

00:08:29.640 but in the soil of what is now the modern-day church, you know?

00:08:34.580 And so as time went on, I founded a community in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and it flourished.

00:08:42.860 And then in 2017, it's a longer story that we need to get into, a lot of things, a lot of details went into that, but the bishop suppressed the community.

00:08:53.880 And I had said to the bishop that I joined to become a, went to his diocese to live Franciscan life.

00:08:59.060 I'm going to keep living Franciscan life.

00:09:01.240 And he told me, well, wherever you want to go live it, you go live it.

00:09:03.500 So I'm incarnated in the Diocese of Fort Wayne in South Bend in perpetual vows to live the Franciscan life, the Capuchin Franciscan life.

00:09:11.240 So for the past nine years, I've been kind of wandering, trying to find where I can live Capuchin Franciscan life.

00:09:17.960 I visited various religious orders throughout the world that were living more radical, again, conservative Franciscan life and couldn't find it.

00:09:26.060 and um so i settled on um i came back to help the diocese of knoxville back in 20 23 priest friend

00:09:35.220 of mine was dying and he asked me to come help him so i took care of him while he was dying i took

00:09:39.520 care of the parish he died on the feast of the mack of the conception and as god had told him

00:09:43.520 he would and he was buried on the feast of the lady guadalupe and then the diocese asked me to

00:09:48.580 take over the parish so they had no bishop at the time bishop stick had left beckman hadn't arrived

00:09:53.480 jet. And so for two and a half years, I think it was, I took care of the parish and it grew,

00:09:58.200 flourished very well. But I'm not a pastor of a parish. I'm not a diocese of priest. So I would

00:10:04.680 say I was made for the pulpit, not the armchair. So I asked to live kind of like as a Franciscan

00:10:11.320 hermit on a friend's property. And the bishop gave me permission. My bishop gave me permission.

00:10:16.660 I'd had full faculties in the diocese of Knoxville and quite a preacher of different parishes,

00:10:22.400 different events, so forth. Even just five months ago, I was out there preaching on St. Francis for

00:10:29.300 the year of St. Francis by the diocese, advertised by the diocese, and good friends of many of the

00:10:34.560 priests in the diocese. My nephew's a priest in the diocese. He's one of the kind of lawyers.

00:10:39.700 And so that's kind of where I come up to this point in my life of moving over towards the

00:10:45.120 Society of Pope St. Pius X in tradition. That's quite the decision, given your history,

00:10:49.460 especially given that you're doing well, especially in light of excommunications and sort of

00:10:59.200 condemnations. And by the time you're doing this, you're already seeing the kind of shunning,

00:11:04.760 if you will, of the SSPX pilgrims refuse to enter into shrines. Lourdes bans them. I mean,

00:11:13.720 it sounds insane, by the way, while they're letting in Muslim groups. 1.00

00:11:18.040 Yes, well, it all became to me clear that something more was going on here. 1.00

00:11:23.180 What really happened to me was that when Cardinal Fernandez announced that you could not call,

00:11:28.060 it was never appropriate or whatever, however he stated, to call Our Lady Demtrix,

00:11:33.340 yeah, Obedience of All Graces. 0.82

00:11:35.360 And as I said, I was taught to defend that doctrine. 0.97

00:11:37.760 I promoted that doctrine.

00:11:38.780 I preached on that doctrine always.

00:11:41.880 And so that morning I woke up and I saw the news.

00:11:45.380 I went to my chapel.

00:11:46.680 I fell before Our Lady.

00:11:47.620 I wept. I wept. And I thought to myself, they've been coming after the church all these years,

00:11:53.660 and now they're coming after Our Lady. And that I could not stand. I could not take that. And it

00:11:57.440 was like scales fell from my eyes. And the rose-colored glasses were off. This was not about

00:12:03.280 being conservative or liberal. It became clear to me that the church had gotten infested with 0.98

00:12:08.100 modernism. You know, Pope Pius X had said and presented that it had seeped into the veins of

00:12:12.140 the church. Well, if something gets into the veins, it's going to travel throughout the body.

00:12:17.340 And what I was seeing coming from the dicastery of the doctrine of the faith of all places,

00:12:22.340 what's coming from the dicastery for the liturgy and all these other dicasteries,

00:12:26.440 and for the Holy Father himself, I'm watching the Pope with his hand over his heart

00:12:30.280 as they're blowing on a turkey whistle, a turkey bone whistle to call on the spirits, 0.65

00:12:33.940 and watching the Popes participate in apostasy of pagan worship and allowing it in front of them. 0.66

00:12:42.220 It just became clear to me that it had reached the head. 0.77

00:12:45.580 and the body was sick. And sorry, I love the church. I love the faith. I have given my life

00:12:56.640 to the church. I'll give my life to her. And I'll give my life if it's the church who takes it from

00:13:01.580 me to defend her doctrines, defend her truth, defend her beauty, to defend her. So when I saw

00:13:06.900 that doctrine was proclaimed, I realized I had to do something. I couldn't stand on the sidelines

00:13:10.740 anymore in the shadows. All the preaching I did in thousands of parishes to hundreds of thousands

00:13:17.300 of teenagers throughout this country, it was being undone when they get home to the local

00:13:22.700 modernist parish and they were giving communion in the hand, or they were told they had to stand

00:13:28.360 and kneel for consecration time, or crazy things happening. It was all being undone by the modernism

00:13:33.800 that even good, solid priests didn't realize they were being part of. They were just formed in it.

00:13:40.740 And so I started investigating the society.

00:13:44.460 Actually, Father, I should say this.

00:13:45.860 Father Isaac probably won't want me to say it, but I'll tell you,

00:13:48.260 he called me up that day when the doctrine, when Phinehas said that stuff,

00:13:52.500 and said, are we done yet, Father? Are we done?

00:13:56.420 And I said, we're done. We're done.

00:13:59.000 And so I began to investigate the Society of Pope St. Pius X.

00:14:04.740 I researched through and through every detail.

00:14:07.560 I researched the opposite sides, looked at both angles, and I realized that the society had the answer.

00:14:14.020 They're not set of a contest.

00:14:15.820 They don't deny the Holy Father.

00:14:17.160 They don't deny the Church.

00:14:18.900 Just at this point, because of what's coming out of the head, you can't, with reverence and love, you can't be obedient because of what's being done.

00:14:26.940 I can't celebrate the Novus Ordo anymore.

00:14:29.260 I cannot go to a parish and put the Eucharist on people's hands knowing that the desecration is going to happen and the possibilities that are there.

00:14:35.400 I have to do reparation for all the times I did that as in the Novus Ordo.

00:14:40.080 I can't participate in that anymore.

00:14:43.000 And only that, as beautiful as you can say the Novus Ordo reverently, it's valid but deficient.

00:14:50.360 Because the prayers you're praying, you're not praying the prayers that actually are asking God for the things the faithful need.

00:14:55.860 Because the liturgy itself was stripped of those essential prayers.

00:15:01.660 So it just became clear to me.

00:15:03.120 everything just became clear that the society had the proper response and as franciscans saint

00:15:07.760 francis told us in the rule when it came to obedience that if we're ever commanded anything

00:15:13.120 that's against our conscience or against the rule we cannot obey we remain reverent and docile to

00:15:20.800 authority but we cannot obey and so in this situation i i am reverent to the local bishop

00:15:26.080 i pray for him every day my own bishop every day i pray for the holy father i'm not a set of a

00:15:30.720 contest. I love the church, but at this point, I can't obey. I use the example of if dad's drunk

00:15:40.440 and asks for the car keys, you can't hand him the car keys because he'll kill somebody, maybe kill

00:15:46.180 the family. I'm being asked to do things I can't anymore because it's offensive to our Lord

00:15:52.660 sometimes and there's other things that will hurt the faithful. I cannot bless homosexual couple. 1.00

00:15:58.440 I'm sorry, you know, fiducius supplicants. 1.00

00:16:00.640 I cannot give communion to the divorce and remarried.

00:16:03.780 You know, I cannot participate in what I'm being asked to participate in as a priest.

00:16:08.420 I may be forced to someday.

00:16:10.700 So, you know, I came to understand that these excommunications and all this other stuff,

00:16:17.920 I have to say, St. Athanasius has been a great model for me, you know.

00:16:20.820 I have to stand with the church, to stand with the faith.

00:16:22.980 um and uh and i was also good as i was going through this process i began to contact the

00:16:30.700 group of capuchins in and france and who have maintained the faith uh maintain the capuchin

00:16:35.900 life and they were communicating with me saying father stay strong you know this is our charism

00:16:39.700 this is who we are we were founded during the trend you know we have to be faithful to everything

00:16:43.660 church gave us and they were right so i'm just wondering what do i do how do i do this how am i

00:16:48.060 going to live it? And a young man came to see me and sat down with me. And I thought it was going

00:16:53.280 to be the usual question, what do we do now that the bishop has closed down all of our Latin Masses

00:16:57.420 in our diocese? It was just shut down on the Feast of Christ the King. So it was about six

00:17:03.000 months afterwards. And so he came to see me and said, Father, as soon as they announced the closing

00:17:09.060 of the Latin Mass, I drove out and spoke with the society, spoke with Father Fullerton and asked if

00:17:14.320 we can find a priest. He told me if they could find a priest who would support them, they would

00:17:18.160 support the priest. And I said, you know, JP, you're an answer to my prayers. I said, because

00:17:23.660 I just finished a holy hour asking God what I'm supposed to do. I called Father Fullerton. I spent

00:17:27.500 an hour and 40 minutes on the phone with him. He's the district superior. Went out to meet with him

00:17:32.000 for two hours and began the process of becoming an affiliated friend of the society. And we began

00:17:39.400 the Latin Mass again in a dance studio basement and been rebuilding ever since. We've been going

00:17:44.040 for quite some time under the radar. We just came out of the shadows on the Feast of St. Michael,

00:17:49.480 purposely on the Feast of St. Michael. That explains how to get beyond this

00:17:56.020 communication threat, or the actual and whatever. I want to know about this bishop, if I might,

00:18:03.360 just your bishop in Knoxville, he shut down the mass when this young man came to you, said?

00:18:08.880 Yeah, so about, it was about a little bit more than nine months ago, the bishop in

00:18:14.020 He announced that, more than that, he announced that he was going to, and so we had three, in the Diocese of Knoxville, we had three traditional Latin masses at the Ossetian parishes.

00:18:23.880 And he came in, he said that he needed to close all the traditional Latin masses.

00:18:28.900 Like right when he came in as bishop, or when?

00:18:32.860 Wasn't long afterwards.

00:18:34.380 Yeah, wasn't long afterwards.

00:18:36.200 Okay, so he came in under Francis, and if I'm right here.

00:18:41.060 Yeah, May of 2024 was appointed and installed, ordained, if you will, July 2024.

00:18:49.220 So still under traditionus custodius, but that's pretty hardcore.

00:18:53.480 He shut them all down?

00:18:55.060 All down.

00:18:55.520 On the feast, it was announced that they'd be shut down the feast of Christ the King.

00:18:59.440 I'm told that one of the priests asked him, on the old calendar or the new calendar,

00:19:03.140 to which he responded, what do you mean?

00:19:05.760 He didn't know there were two calendars.

00:19:07.200 so he allowed one of them to continue the last one and one of the parishes was christmas day

00:19:12.440 was the last traditional latin mass which put a big shadow over christmas for everybody there

00:19:16.800 and so they were wondering what to do do we get in the fraternity of saint peter do we get in the

00:19:21.760 institute of christ the king do we go to saint paulius the tenth what do we do i go to the

00:19:25.920 society and so there was a division among the latin mass community what to do um the there's

00:19:31.860 a retreat house we have in the diocese in Benton called Christ, King of Peace, Prince of Peace.

00:19:37.160 And it was donated to the diocese by Dr. John Grady, who kept the Latin Mass alive during the

00:19:43.920 dark days. And when he thought everything was in the clear, he donated all the property to the

00:19:50.160 diocese. And one of the stipulations was that they were supposed to have the Mass regularly offered,

00:19:55.980 traditionally offered. So when the bishop closed it all down, Dr. Grady's son called the bishop

00:20:01.620 and told him that, reminded him of the contract.

00:20:05.000 So the bishop's side, they would have once a month,

00:20:07.020 it would be regular to have the traditional Latin mass.

00:20:09.760 So they were having the traditional Latin mass

00:20:11.240 only once a month in the diocese at the retreat center.

00:20:14.000 And that because it was forced under pain of loss of the property.

00:20:18.120 I believe that was the conversation.

00:20:23.060 And so they do have it once a month at the retreat house

00:20:25.760 because they have to.

00:20:27.220 And so I was actually offered, I was saying it,

00:20:30.260 there once a month for quite some time and assisting with it. It was a feast of Christ

00:20:34.900 King. It all got shut down. It was announced that we were shut down. And then Christmas was the last

00:20:38.880 one. So in East Tennessee, there was no traditional Latin mass. It was gone. The closest was Nashville

00:20:45.480 with the Society of St. Pius X, which was about three hours from us. And then everywhere else

00:20:51.000 is more than four hours. So we were in a desert. And so the people were lingering. They were

00:20:55.700 starving for it. They were hurting. They were being ignored and told just to be obedient.

00:21:02.200 And they were suffering. And so the souls were languishing. And it's my job as a priest to make

00:21:09.720 sure they're fed and taken care of and had the availability to do it. And so I began by having

00:21:14.900 it at my chapel, which could only fit at most 20 people. And we outgrew that the first mass.

00:21:20.600 so we had to go to a dead studio put out folding chairs so you know they shut down it's uh but we

00:21:28.720 did just uh the um the uh foundation that is now it has the latin mass community uh affiliated with

00:21:35.420 this site as well just purchased five acres and a uh a pool barn that will serve as half it will

00:21:42.360 be the chapel half will be the social hall and then we'll be building a friary attached to it

00:21:47.460 Where are you at now in terms of your, are you at peace now?

00:21:52.540 Are you still flustered about all this or where are you at?

00:21:55.500 I have been like standing in the eye of the storm, whether you're with this calm in the eye,

00:22:00.760 just watching the storm go around me.

00:22:02.940 You know, there goes Dorothy's farmhouse.

00:22:05.920 There goes the Wicked Witch of the West.

00:22:07.160 Just watching this storm go by in the calm of it.

00:22:10.900 It's just completely peaceful interiorly because I have total peace about what I'm doing.

00:22:15.360 The Society provided me with a magnificent canon lawyer who has had my back, who's been responding to both bishops, and just really assisting me at every step of the way.

00:22:25.100 The Society has been magnificent.

00:22:28.160 Fr. Fullerton, Bishop Follet, Fr. Robinson, Fr. Cheveria, they've all been there and supporting me and giving me assistance, and it's just been magnificent.

00:22:40.380 People tell me, oh, the Society, they're all stuck up and conceited.

00:22:43.200 I have not found that whatsoever.

00:22:45.360 they've been magnificent. It's so helpful. And yeah, and just a way to stay strong in the midst

00:22:51.720 of it, you know, and the storm has been quite interesting because it almost went into a frenzy.

00:22:58.720 I'm very, very close friends with the judicial vicar. I've had been since he was a seminarian

00:23:02.540 and, you know, and I wrote him a personal letter, you know, I told him that I pray for him every

00:23:06.840 day. He's still my friend, do what he has to do, from what his opinion is of where I stand in

00:23:10.980 canon law, but, you know, he'll always be my friend. I pray for him, you know, and he wrote

00:23:15.040 me back a nice note, but he did what he had to do. And everyone's seen that letter that came out

00:23:20.280 from the diocese and made me sound like the most evil thing there was. Some people were told by

00:23:27.300 their pastor that not even to give me food, because I'm a friar, I'm a beggar, I live without

00:23:32.000 money, I live without, you know, I live on the generosity of others. So they were told not to

00:23:38.180 bring me food, not to assist me, not to help, not to visit, or they could be guilty of schism as

00:23:42.320 well. I have to go to confession to the bishop by the priest to tell him this. And then the

00:23:48.840 diocese is going to the point of trying to strong arm us off of our property and have us thrown off

00:23:53.060 of our property. I can't get into the background details of that, but they're using I call mafia

00:23:59.040 tactics to have us ousted from our property. So where we've been living at the generosity

00:24:05.640 of a friend whose wife I just buried, you know?

00:24:09.840 Why is so much of this, especially for Bishop Beckman,

00:24:14.380 about eliminating the Latin Mass?

00:24:17.000 I don't get it.

00:24:18.460 It's funny because I love the Latin Mass.

00:24:22.080 I go as often as I can to the Latin Mass,

00:24:24.600 but I was never a, you know,

00:24:27.300 I never considered myself a Latin Mass only,

00:24:30.700 like shun everything, whatever.

00:24:33.220 Why the hatred?

00:24:34.020 That's always been weird to me.

00:24:35.640 What is it? Why?

00:24:37.980 It's a different ecclesiology than the contemporary church.

00:24:41.440 The Latin Mass holds an ecclesiology.

00:24:43.600 It expresses in prayer the ecclesiology that the church has always taught for 2,000 years.

00:24:48.540 It expresses the fullness of the faith in its prayer.

00:24:53.000 And if you're going to build this new understanding of the church,

00:24:57.380 this new synodal church that's open to all people and so forth

00:25:01.820 and doesn't hold to the traditional doctrines of the church,

00:25:04.420 you have to present a liturgy that is going to somehow express that.

00:25:09.120 And then this becomes the enemy, I guess.

00:25:12.660 Bishop Beckman is a very nice man.

00:25:14.440 He's a very good person.

00:25:15.840 He's a prayerful man.

00:25:18.000 But again, I think for many men, his generation, my generation,

00:25:21.960 we were really formed in the Novus Ordo world

00:25:24.800 to believe that this is what the Church is.

00:25:26.940 This is where the Church is going, in this direction of the synodal way.

00:25:31.660 And the conservatives were always on the out

00:25:33.920 because they were trying to hold to some form of tradition, but it's just the flip side of the

00:25:38.160 same coin with conservatism. My old bishop did ask me to reconsider my decision and told me to

00:25:44.560 read Word on Fire, and there was an article there on how the Second Vatican Council is in perfect

00:25:52.480 keeping with tradition of the church, you know, the hermeneutics of continuity. And two thoughts

00:25:57.440 came to mind. One was I've read those documents over and over again these past few months, and I

00:26:01.540 cannot find that continuity, and Word on Fire was founded by Bishop Barron, and so Bishop Barron

00:26:08.420 considered to be a conservative bishop. However, I was totally scandalized by his statement to Ben

00:26:15.920 Shapiro. Ben Shapiro is a Jewish man who is very, very astute, very brilliant, very honest,

00:26:24.340 and he asked the bishop straight out, do I need to be baptized to be saved, or am I screwed, 0.65

00:26:29.040 is what he put it. And Bishop Barron said, no, no, no, no. Christianity is just the privileged

00:26:34.800 path to God. And then went on to quote the council. So that's heresy. 0.78

00:26:41.860 Bishop Barron doesn't believe in hell anyway. He's a proponent of the MTL theory.

00:26:48.760 Yeah, it's that whole theology of we have a reasonable hope that no one is damned. Well,

00:26:54.740 I'm sorry, that's unreasonable. And you don't have hope. Hope is a theological virtue.

00:26:58.760 We don't have the theological version of hope that no one's in hell.

00:27:01.900 Cardinal Fernandez, I believe, said the same thing.

00:27:03.940 But so that conservativism is the flip side of the same coin.

00:27:07.820 It's modernist theology weaved into it.

00:27:11.660 If I put a bit of poison, just a tiny bit of poison in a cookie, it's still poisoned.

00:27:18.080 Eat these cookies, just a little bit of poison, just a drop of it.

00:27:21.300 You're not going to eat it if I tell you there's a couple of drops of poison.

00:27:24.260 And that modernism you can find in the conservative movement.

00:27:26.940 So if you want to build the new church, the new synodal church, the Judicial Latin Mass, which is expression of the true teaching of the faith of the millennium as deposited by Christ with the church, is at odds with the modernism.

00:27:42.280 And so they're opposed, so they need to be attacked.

00:27:44.820 When you look at the French Revolution and Freemasonry, right?

00:27:48.620 So Freemasonry has as many heads to it.

00:27:52.260 One of the several heads of Freemasonry is modernism.

00:27:55.400 you look at the principles of modernism, it has its roots in Freemasonry. And if you look at

00:28:00.860 Freemasonry and modernism, one of the things they go after right away is contemplative cloistered

00:28:05.560 lives, because the devil is a good tactician. A good war tactician is going to blow up the power

00:28:10.560 plants so that the enemy doesn't have any power. So the power plants of our Catholic faith is our

00:28:16.240 contemplative life, right? They're the ones, you know, or sacrifice by the grace.

00:28:21.020 Then you want to go after communications.

00:28:23.420 So the devil is going to go after the communications of the enemy.

00:28:26.700 And what's the communications?

00:28:27.740 The teaching orders. 0.94

00:28:29.180 So you're teaching sisters, you're teaching Christian brothers, 0.98

00:28:32.500 and you either fill them with modernism or get them out of the way. 0.98

00:28:35.320 And then thirdly, as a good tactician, the devil wants to blow up the bridges

00:28:38.660 because the bridges are the supply lines, right?

00:28:41.380 So the priests are your supply lines of grace.

00:28:43.980 And so as a good tactician, he wants to blow up the priesthood

00:28:46.760 so that there's either a deficiency in grace

00:28:49.340 and so people can't be sustained

00:28:52.020 and so they get starved out

00:28:53.580 as we see happening in the church

00:28:54.900 or there's no bridges.

00:28:57.480 And so that's part of the tactics of the evil one

00:29:00.500 to attack the church

00:29:01.460 is to blow up the power plants, 0.96

00:29:03.840 blow up the communication lines

00:29:05.980 and then to blow up the bridges.

00:29:08.120 And that will affect the faith of the people

00:29:09.980 and he thinks he'll win the war that way.

00:29:12.380 But I read the end of the book, we win.

00:29:13.840 this is the good part um yeah i've often told people that i i don't mind seeing all of what's

00:29:21.180 going on because i know it's stepping stones to the triumph of her immaculate heart which uh 0.63

00:29:25.820 god bring it on sooner but i'm also stunned by this the hatred of the latin mass i'm saying it's

00:29:33.320 sort of wrong because it's really a hatred of the traditional latin mass because it doesn't extend to

00:29:39.740 the Novus Ordo offered in Latin. That's really stunning because you'd think that they would

00:29:49.600 just hate that as well, but they don't. So to your point about how the TLM versus just a Latin

00:29:57.900 Mass, this Novus Ordo Latin, which for most of the people will seem very much like a traditional

00:30:03.600 Latin Mass, if it's said Ariantem, they'll have no clue other than there might be communion on

00:30:09.180 a hand allowed. And there might be extraordinary ministers or there might be women lectors or

00:30:15.000 whatever. But, you know, in terms of a simple mass, a low mass, let's say, people would hardly

00:30:20.960 know the difference. But yet, even Bishop Beckman also, they're open to that, but not the traditional

00:30:27.560 Latin man. That's always stunning to me too, because that, wait a minute, what? It really

00:30:33.340 must be, in addition to a philosophical thing, because as you were saying, I wonder if there's

00:30:40.500 a real spiritual component as well, and maybe unacknowledged, but it's got to be something,

00:30:45.940 because this is just weird. Bishop Beckman, when he first arrived, Bishop Sticca, the former bishop,

00:30:52.340 as craziest things were back then, Bishop Sticca, he ordered that the prayer of St. Michael be

00:30:58.880 prayed after every Mass. When Bishop Beckman arrived, one of the first things he told to us

00:31:04.020 priests was that it was now optional to pray the prayer to St. Michael, and if we had any questions,

00:31:08.700 he would send us an article. And then the week that I announced that I was going to, you know,

00:31:17.220 I was at the chapel, I was with the society, it was told to all the priests that it was now

00:31:21.340 forbidden to pray the prayer of St. Michael after Mass. So they're no longer allowed to pray the

00:31:25.900 prayer to St. Michael at the end of Mass. So there has to be a very much spiritual component when

00:31:30.780 the prayer to St. Michael is being banned, and it is such an important prayer. It was written,

00:31:37.280 gave us to it by Publio XIII, I believe, as a result of what he saw or heard of the devil's

00:31:44.260 attack on the Church. So there's definitely a spiritual component to it. And the Novus Ordo

00:31:50.300 in Latin can appear like the New Mass, but it's also a way to appease those who, on the

00:31:59.940 bishop's part, bishops think that, well, it's all about the liturgy, it's all about the

00:32:03.720 language, and so to appease those who like the Church Latin Mass, they'll give you the

00:32:08.900 Novus Ordo, but they'll give it to you in Latin, not Orientum, to appease you, because

00:32:12.820 they think it's just about the liturgy, they think it's just about the language, and it's

00:32:16.720 not. I know from celebrating the Novus Ordo for so many years, as a priest, although you know it's

00:32:23.520 to sacrifice the Mass, your focus is on the Last Supper, and your focus is on people receiving

00:32:29.440 communion, and the Bible study that happens at the first part of Mass, where it's two readings,

00:32:34.880 the Gospel, the preaching, it takes up half the Mass and the New Mass, as opposed to the

00:32:39.340 traditional out of Mass. It's one reading, you know, then the Gospel, and then you move on with

00:32:43.540 the sacrifice of the mass, you know? It's a way to appease this group, and I believe it's just

00:32:47.800 going to be a matter of time before they slowly wean them off of it altogether. And it's just a

00:32:54.460 matter of time. And that's why I think it's, you know, some of the Ecclesia Day communities,

00:32:57.820 former, there doesn't exist anymore, Ecclesia Day, but they're being slowly, I think they're

00:33:02.800 going to be slowly being forced into a Novus Ordo, Latin, and it's going to happen. And I know

00:33:08.520 they'll be asked to leave certain dioceses, and they're being forbidden to do catechism in one

00:33:12.660 diocese so it's it's going to be a slow move because right now they're going to be there to

00:33:16.940 try to catch they what they think will be the mass exodus of the sspx to catch those people

00:33:22.100 and wean them off and reintroduce them into the novus ordo um liturgy and stuff so and then to

00:33:28.460 that modernism our lord told us to be as wise as serpents you know and gentle as doves and so when

00:33:33.580 you watch this uh with wisdom you watch the work of the of the serpent and how he's maneuvering

00:33:39.520 things in the church. And again, I love the church. I love, I love, I love the church. I'll

00:33:44.740 give my life for her. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing, because I see what's happening

00:33:49.380 to her, her purity, what's being taught from what is just insane. You watch everything going on in

00:33:56.420 the synod. I've watched your shows. The synod is going nuts. What's happening over there?

00:34:02.380 So, Father, here's something really confusing. You mentioned that Bishop Beckman seems like a Catholic bishop. He's devout in his own way, I'm sure. And I'm going to say something stark because it's already out there. So is Father James Martin.

00:34:27.240 We just watched James Martin S.J. do the Eucharistic procession for Napa through New York City.

00:34:36.380 That is stunning, because he is.

00:34:40.500 He has a devoutness about him.

00:34:42.940 He praised the Hail Mary.

00:34:44.280 He led the Eucharistic procession.

00:34:46.300 He carried our Lord in the Eucharist throughout the streets of Manhattan. 0.85

00:34:49.360 This is the same guy who promotes homosexual partnerships, hopes one day that husbands will be able to, husbands, like two men, will be able to kiss during the sign of peace at Mass. 0.80

00:35:03.860 He's the one who tells us to go out and celebrate pride parades, etc. 0.67

00:35:08.460 This is mainstream church.

00:35:10.940 This is met with Francis numerous times, met with Leo, lauded by them both.

00:35:17.080 I think it's a distinction between belief and supernatural faith.

00:35:22.920 One can have beliefs and everything the church teaches, but not have supernatural faith.

00:35:28.040 What's the difference?

00:35:30.800 Belief means, okay, I believe it, but it doesn't change my life.

00:35:36.120 I still hold to whatever makes me happy or will help make other people happy, but it's just a belief.

00:35:42.260 I use the example, you could believe that aliens are landing in New Mexico,

00:35:46.240 and that there's life on other planets.

00:35:48.540 It doesn't change your life.

00:35:49.620 You might really believe it.

00:35:50.620 You might even fight arguing that it's happening

00:35:52.720 because you've seen the evidence of it.

00:35:54.180 You believe in it, but it doesn't change your life.

00:35:56.740 If you actually had supernatural faith in it,

00:35:59.520 you'd go buy a pickup truck, a six-pack of beer,

00:36:01.920 a telescope, and wait to be abducted

00:36:03.600 out in the desert of New Mexico.

00:36:05.860 It would change everything about your life

00:36:08.040 and how you lived.

00:36:09.000 So I think there's a lot of people

00:36:10.620 who profess faith in the Catholic Church,

00:36:13.320 but profess belief in the Catholic Church,

00:36:14.940 but don't possess supernatural faith, where it actually changes their lives.

00:36:21.140 If I have supernatural faith in the Eucharist and truly believe that it is Jesus Christ,

00:36:25.700 body, blood, soul, and divinity, I'm dropping to my knees and receiving him in the most worthy

00:36:29.620 manner, because it's not a what I'm receiving, it's a who. It's the second person, the most

00:36:34.660 blessed trinity. And so if I have supernatural faith, I'm going to receive my Lord with the

00:36:41.040 most incredible reverence. And that comes with the knowledge of his love for me. So it's going

00:36:46.480 to be that disposition of St. Francis of who are you and what am I? St. Francis prayed, what am I

00:36:51.060 but a poor miserable wretch of a sinner? Who are you that you love me so much? And that's going to

00:36:55.260 express itself in the way I receive, in the way I pray, in the way I live. If I believe it's really

00:37:00.860 Jesus, I'll go up and I'll put my hands out. Maybe I'll do this. Maybe I'll do this. It's Jesus. Okay.

00:37:06.720 it doesn't change my life. It doesn't matter if we're standing and singing a clappy happy song

00:37:13.100 about, you know, we're all one body, or if we're, you know, doing the Latin songs, you know,

00:37:18.220 it doesn't matter. So I think that's the distinction I try to make, that people have

00:37:23.340 belief, but supernatural faith changes. At U.S. CCB, you know, three years ago, they recognized

00:37:28.900 the fact that the low percentage of Catholics in the U.S. who believe in the true presence,

00:37:32.820 So they decided to have three-year preparation to celebrate the year of the Eucharist,

00:37:37.480 ending with that incredible celebration in Indianapolis.

00:37:42.440 Spent $25 million of parishioners' money.

00:37:47.600 Beautiful act, wonderful idea, but you could see that there was lacking the true supernatural faith to do what needed to be done.

00:37:56.940 They took 50 priests who were pastors and other assignments,

00:38:02.060 gave them two weeks with Cardinal Cupich up in Chicago there to train them

00:38:07.340 to do parish missions for three years.

00:38:10.280 50 priests in the entirety of the United States,

00:38:12.780 the 50 states and how many dioceses were supposed to bring change

00:38:16.400 to people's faith in the Eucharist.

00:38:18.040 Then you had that big celebration where most of the money was spent

00:38:20.580 on the celebration in Indianapolis.

00:38:23.780 Beautiful procession, lots of seminarians, lots of priests were there,

00:38:26.300 wonderful. Of all the faithful who believe, 70% who believe, and then it all, nothing came of it.

00:38:33.400 We had, what was it, in Detroit, they just announced the closing of 99 parishes.

00:38:38.060 Buffalo, New York, what is it, 60% of the diocese closing down? 60 parishes or more being closed in

00:38:43.660 Baltimore, the first Dutch diocese of the U.S. So where did this 25 million go? Where was this

00:38:50.600 expression of supernatural faith? It went nowhere. If anything, things have gotten worse since then.

00:38:56.300 And so it didn't have the effect. So there was a beautiful expression of belief, but it didn't translate into supernatural faith of what needs to be done to fix the problem.

00:39:08.240 You're the CEO of McDonald's. You take down the golden arches. You're still serving burgers and fries and you make all these changes and all of a sudden you lose 80 percent of your clientele and only 17 percent of the 20 percent who still come come because it's convenient and they like it.

00:39:25.700 the rest yeah they could you know they go because they're used to it and then you can't get anybody

00:39:31.200 to work for you you're shutting down restaurants all over the country you're the ceo you're like

00:39:35.760 hey what's going on let's fix this let's go back put the golden arches back up but the uniform is

00:39:40.800 back on let's go back to what worked no rather they say i think we need to bury the arches more

00:39:47.340 it must be on cups or something get rid of it totally it must be that take ronald mcdonald 0.98

00:39:53.120 that back and shoot them. Let's just make it worse. Everything they're doing to try to fix it 0.99

00:40:01.860 is not working. No. How about let's do repentance for the golden arches and say how terrible they

00:40:08.160 were. It is the most bizarre thing. And yeah, the comparison to business is so stark because

00:40:19.180 that's when it just it becomes nauseating in a way you're running in the red but it was spiritually

00:40:24.680 speaking when it comes to parish life vocations um the people children persevering the faith

00:40:31.620 after confirmation it is about 30 or less like you're running in the red on every possible level

00:40:38.220 so either you want this to happen and so you're making it happen or you're incompetent and you

00:40:44.460 don't know how to fix it. And either of those two means if you're in a leadership position and

00:40:49.160 either you're incompetent or you want this to happen, it's got to go because it's destroying

00:40:56.040 the faith of the people. We're doing a small part in East Tennessee. We've acquired five

00:41:02.020 acres of property with a pool barn that we're going to build into our nice, half will be a

00:41:05.740 chapel, half will be our social hall. And then we're going to build a friary off of that.

00:41:10.660 You know, we're being strong-armed off our property.

00:41:13.220 And, you know, if Bishop Beckman sleeps better at night and everyone else sleeps better at night with me not being on the property, I'll move.

00:41:20.260 You know, if it makes you happy, I'm good.

00:41:21.980 I'm a Franciscan.

00:41:23.000 I'll sleep anyway, you know.

00:41:24.700 We're going to move our cabins that we have over to that property.

00:41:27.200 We'll, you know, sleep in cabins.

00:41:28.740 And I've done it before.

00:41:29.760 No big deal.

00:41:30.560 You know, I'm sorry to say, Franz, I'll be very proud of what our living conditions will be in a couple of weeks.

00:41:35.440 So he'll probably feel very at home with us, you know. 0.93

00:41:38.240 So a lady of poverty will visit and feel very comfortable. 0.57

00:41:43.040 But we're doing our small part to build our little chapel and to grow the community there and to provide that refuge and provide the traditional liturgy, the sacraments, provide the judicial faith, and support the faith.

00:41:56.500 And also, for myself personally, after all my 40 years, I feel I have a threefold mission.

00:42:02.640 One is to defend, protect, promote the traditional Catholic faith.

00:42:06.880 Secondly, the salvation of souls, which is primary for priests.

00:42:09.660 But third is the protection of our Franciscan Capuchin charism.

00:42:14.840 The Franciscan charism is on life support and is not being lived anywhere,

00:42:22.080 whether that in tradition or any needs to be sustained or protected.

00:42:26.540 St. Francis was promised that the rule will always be lived throughout all generations until the last day.

00:42:33.460 I'm humbled. It's an awesome gift to be entrusted with this. But for some reason,

00:42:43.780 God chose this idiot from New York, this donkey, to carry that and to protect it and defend it. 1.00

00:42:51.080 And so I have to. I have to defend our Franciscan charism for the sake of my father, Francis. 1.00

00:42:57.340 I've always said that the only thing I want on the day that I die and I stand before Christ in

00:43:02.240 judgment. I just want Francis to step out from behind our Lord, stand next to me, and say,

00:43:06.940 this is one of my sons. If he can say the truth about how I lived and how I prayed and how I

00:43:12.320 lived, I know I'm going to the kingdom after that. I'll hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

00:43:16.820 So I have a threefold mission, protection, promotion of the true Catholic faith,

00:43:22.580 salvation of souls, and the protection, the promotion, and the growth of our

00:43:27.360 franciscan capuchin life i have one more question for you but before i say that where can people

00:43:32.880 uh be in touch with you help you reach out to you yeah we have three different places they can go

00:43:39.040 actually um we have a for the building of our church uh we need we need about uh about almost

00:43:45.760 300 000 to finish the chapel up and so they can go give send go.com to saint francis mission chapel

00:43:51.740 give send go.com to saint francis mission chapel they can donate to our chapel building

00:43:57.200 For more about us, we can go to www.traditionalcapuchinfranciscans.com.

00:44:04.060 And if you want to help build our friary, which we need a good $250,000 for that, we don't take money.

00:44:09.500 But there's a foundation called the Franciscan Hermitage Foundation, and they collect money for us, and they'll do the building for us.

00:44:15.960 I have no control over it, but they were founded to assist help and help us and assist us.

00:44:22.060 And that's franciscanhermitagefoundation.com.

00:44:25.120 go to the donate page, and people could help there. Your faith is super strong.

00:44:31.720 If I could ask you, what was the one thing that gave your faith like this?

00:44:36.540 My parents. When I was a boy, my brother was struck by a car in front of me. He had a 1%

00:44:42.780 chance of survival. And my mother's trying to walk all the kids to the block. I was nine years 0.98

00:44:47.040 old. He was six. He flew 75 feet landed on the back of his head, had a 1% chance of survival.

00:44:51.920 And my mother's immediate reaction was to start praying.

00:44:57.100 And after a week in the house, my father prayed to my brother through two miracles.

00:45:01.720 Not only was he not a vegetable, he recovered and is doing just fine.

00:45:07.820 And so I knew the power of God since I was a child.

00:45:10.420 My parents had incredible faith.

00:45:12.600 And so just help me love God.

00:45:17.160 It was awesome.

00:45:18.480 And I just, I think about the Lord and I, you know, get emotional, obviously, because

00:45:22.720 I just, I know his love for me and I know Our Lady's love for me.

00:45:25.000 I've seen it in my life over these past, almost 60 now, I'm almost 60 years old.

00:45:29.380 And it's been a great gift.

00:45:32.000 And the faith has just been so beautiful.

00:45:34.300 And my parents are still that within me.

00:45:36.480 My father was from Brooklyn and he had that Brooklyn attitude of, and he gave that to

00:45:41.360 me to stand up for the faith and fight for it.

00:45:43.860 And my mother always told me, whatever you're going to do, do it well. 0.99

00:45:46.440 I'm going to be a garbage man. 1.00

00:45:47.460 I'll be the best garbage man you can be. 1.00

00:45:49.300 So if I'm going to be a priest or a Franciscan, 0.99

00:45:50.980 I'm going to be the best I can be at that.

00:45:52.620 And that is to be faithful in all things.

00:45:55.040 Beautiful.

00:45:56.100 Father David Mariengo, thank you so much for joining us.

00:45:58.640 God bless you.

00:45:59.760 And I hope to see you again.

00:46:01.900 God bless you and Mary keep you.

00:46:03.340 Thank you.

00:46:04.220 Thank you.

00:46:05.240 And God bless all of you.

00:46:06.380 And we'll see you next time.

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The John-Henry Westen Show - October 21, 2026

Meet the Priest Who Left the Diocese to Join the SSPX Despite the Excommunication

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