On 15 November 2025, I tweeted:
There seems to be two types of trads now alive in 2025:
1) Those who believe the Catholic Church is the unique mode of salvation established by Jesus Christ. These want 8 billion people alive today to come to God with as minimal dogmatic scandals as possible from the hierarchy.
2) Those who do not say explicitly, but imply nonetheless, the following: “The whole world can go to hell with Rome, as long as I get my local Latin Mass.”
I’m sorry, but I can’t see how a fraction of Christian charity exists in the latter group.
All I meant by that tweet is that traditional Catholics should not have to choose between defending traditional doctrine and traditional liturgy. But that tweet surprisingly went viral and brought out untold levels of rage from rad-trads who accidentally placed themselves in the second category. The amazing thing is that my tweet apparently effected exactly what it predicted: That those who defend the Mass but not the Faith truly have no charity in their hearts to others (including priests like me.) It’s amazing that they “out-ted” themselves into category #2—the very category with no charity.
The more feisty side of me wishes I could say, “They stepped into my trap…” but I set no trap with that tweet. I never expected it to have 87,000 views. That’s because I didn’t think it was that controversial. At least, not at first. (And keep in mind as you read this, I have not done the Novus Ordo Mass in about 10 years. Above is me offering the TLM in Brazil last year.)
Chris Jackson ended up writing a whole article about my tweet (and a few other things in the Vatican) right here. Jackson very much understood my initial assertion that we must love Jesus Christ and the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM.) It’s really not that complex that we need not divide those two. One of the comments I put under his article reads: “Yes it all comes down to courage. If the spirit you follow tells you that you must choose between dogma and liturgy, that spirit is one from hell.”
Last night I was talking to a friend of mine who is a crusty old cattle rancher and traditional Catholic. We talked about this false-divide in the minds of some traditional Catholics who think they are noble in fighting for their local TLM while ignoring dogmatic scandals coming out of their Chanceries or even the Vatican.
The rancher then said something I didn’t expect. He said: “They forget the TLM is the Mass of the persecuted, the Mass of the humiliated.” He did not mean that in a way of licking his wounds. (Grizzled cattlemen rarely lick their emotional wounds.) He meant that the Mass is a sacrifice, and that those who attend it better expect to live the exact same sacrifice that they attend.
One of the main points against antiquarianism (the silly notion that the NOM is older than the TLM) is that the Mass in the Roman catacombs had two parts: 1) The Mass of the Catechumens (now called the “Liturgy of the Word” by modernists) and 2) The Mass of the Faithful (now called “the Liturgy of the Eucharist” by the modernists.) But we in the TLM keep the same two terms as the early Church.
You see, in the early Church, when the Pope and his clergy had to avoid Roman spies, those inquiring about baptism had to be vetted. Only after passing that test could they attend the first part of Holy Mass. Then, after receiving baptism, the neophytes attended the Mass, including the sacrifice following the triple Sanctus. This is the “Mass of the Faithful” because only those willing to be tortured for Christ could attend it. It is still called that.
One reason this vetting process was so exacting is because baptism and attendance at Mass had to prepare the catechumen and neophyte for a red martyrdom. So also today, as we have the true Catholic Church and the counter-church occupying the same buildings, we need to remember exactly what my rancher friend said: “The TLM is the Mass of the persecuted, the Mass of the humiliated.” In attending the TLM, are you ready for a white martyrdom?
In other words, insisting that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father and that false-religions lead to hell (pace the modernist Vatican) may get you to lose your public Mass. You may have to go underground to basement Masses or hotel Masses. You may get persecuted for publicly criticizing the heresy of religious indifferentism as promoted by your local chancery. But that’s how it’s supposed to be. I am ready to be “suspended” for teaching Jesus is the only way to the Father and that all false religions lead to hell. (One hundred years ago this would not have been considered controversial in any diocese in the world—much less a priest standing against an apostate Vatican with basic Gospel truths.)
Because the TLM is now the Mass of the Persecuted, we should never compromise with heretics (even those who claim to have authority over us) in order to barely squeeze the TLM out of them. Why not? Because a non-Biblical conclusion means you somehow started with a false premise in validity. God would never make His people of the Old Covenant (or New Covenant) compromise with evil simply in order to maintain true worship. Just read Maccabees even once. (Or really any book of the Bible.)
At no point does God expect the hero soldiers or prophets of the Old Testament to choose between traditional dogma and traditional liturgy. He expects his warriors and prophets to defend both… and then leave the outcome to Almighty God. God wants us to have Gospel-like childlike trust, not Pharisaical craftiness in strategy and compromise in order to avoid suffering at the hands of infiltrators and imposters.
It really comes down to trust more than strategy. You see, there’s not one time in the Old Testament (or New Testament) where God honors the strategy of his people who attempt demurring on truth or subterfuge to gain advance with pagan tribes threatening them from without or even from within. For those weak Israelites, they lose not only their faith—but also their Temple!
You see, the trads who only speak about the TLM, the TLM, the TLM!… while not calling out the heresy of indifferentism (the notion that false religions can get you to heaven) are like the Jews in the Old Testament who put all their trust in the Temple instead of Adonai Himself. Superstitious Israelites cried before their Exile: “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” God says this through His prophet Jeremiah:
Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.—Jeremiah 7:4-7.
But they disobeyed, putting the Temple ahead of the poor (see my original tweet above on bringing the Gospel to 6 billion people who don’t know Christ) and they lost both their faith and the temple. The Jews then had to go into exile to Babylon to regain their faith in many years of harsh punishment. They had to learn to trust God without their liturgy.
So also today, keep this in mind: Defending heretics will make you lose your faith. Then they’ll take your liturgy while you’re busy kissing up to the bad guys while ripping on the prophets. If you attend what my friend called The Mass of the Persecuted, ask yourself if you’re willing to be a white-martyr for Jesus Christ in the Western Hemisphere as so many Christians are red-martyrs in the Eastern Hemisphere today in 2025. The Mass of the Humiliated has a lot to do with the true Church—humiliated at the end of all times.
Why are so many attendees of the TLM today afraid to admit we are only 1% of the population of global Catholics? We should embrace that stat—not out of narcissistic self-pity nor Pharisaical arrogance, but rather in the glory of sharing in the cross of Jesus Christ amidst the [probable] final-apostasy. We should exult with St. Paul: Mihi autem absit gloriari, nisi in cruce Domini nostri Iesu Christi!—Gal 6:14.
Besides the fact that most modernist priests refrain from any vesting prayers while preparing for Holy Mass, the Mass of Paul VI apparently eradicated the maniple from its required vestments. Yet, as you can see in the picture of me at the top of this article, I am wearing the maniple around my left arm for the TLM. The prayer I pray in Latin while donning it encapsulates the very title of my article above:
Merear, Domine, portare manipulum fletus et doloris; ut cum exsultatione recipiam mercedem laboris. Or, in English: May I deserve, O Lord, to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, in order that I may joyfully reap the reward of my labors.
I find it very interesting that this twist of modern Catholic Church history seems to imply that only the traditional priest will get to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow over and against the modernist priest who will not bear such a burden. This is a burden borne not only in liturgy, but also in doctrine and sociology.
But again, with St. Paul, we should thank God for any such beautiful cross, even if white martyrdom seem less glorious than red martyrdom to us in the West: But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.—Gal 6:4
Over 100 years ago, Bl. Catherine Emmerich saw the true Church and the counter-church clash in a vision towards the end of time. As you read this, ask yourself which of the “two churches” (admittedly, an impossibility) you want to belong to:
“I see that when the Second Coming of Christ approaches, a bad priest will do much harm to the Church. When the time of the reign of Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known. The nearer the time of the end, the more the darkness of Satan will spread on earth, the greater will be the number of the children of corruption, and the number of the just will correspondingly diminish… They built a large, singular, extravagant church which was to embrace all creeds with equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, and all denominations, a true communion of the unholy with one shepherd and one flock. There was to be a Pope, a salaried Pope, without possessions. All was made ready, many things finished; but, in place of an altar, were only abomination and desolation. Such was the new church to be, and it was for it that he had set fire to the old one; but God designed otherwise…. Again I saw in the midst of these disasters the twelve new Apostles laboring in different countries, unknown to one another, each receiving streams of living water from on high. They all did the same work. They know not whence they received their tasks; but as soon as one was finished, another was ready for them… The Jews shall return to Palestine, and become Christians toward the end of the world.”
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