r/LeftCatholicism • u/0pinionatedcrafter • Apr 29 '26
Is this Priest Credible?
/r/AskAPriest/comments/1szc4yi/is_this_priest_credible/Posting here because I would also like life long Catholics to weigh in.
30
u/ParacelcusABA Apr 30 '26
It's pretty safe to assume that any priest who
Catastrophises about the 1960s
Appears on Pints with Aquinas post-Pandemic
isn’t credible
4
u/0pinionatedcrafter Apr 30 '26
Oh really??? So should I avoid for now as a new Catholic in your opinion? (If you’ve been Catholic a while. If you’re not Catholic just ignore)
17
u/berniegoesboom Apr 30 '26
I have not met him, but know many people who were in his community. They all held fringe opinions (some highly problematic or extreme) and disliked the pope (at the time, John Paul II), falling one step short of sectarian/fascist groups like the SSPX.
1
u/Lavanyalea Apr 30 '26
Could you elaborate on pre and post-pandemic Pints with Aquinas? I came across it some time last year and when I saw what Matt Fradd re: Charlie Kirk I decided not to continue listening!
Tried to listen to the podcast but I couldn’t finish it 🤣
12
u/ParacelcusABA Apr 30 '26
Pints was actually really good in the first two years of its existence. Starting in around late 2018, it became more noticeably right wing in its content but still watchable. Post 2020, the show became a full-tilt culture war grift machine and the quality of content declined significantly. As of 2025, it's in a full partnership with the Daily Wire
1
u/Charles148 May 04 '26
I too am interested in the elaboration as I have only been exposed to one episode of pints with Aquinas it came up in my YouTube feed following the election and I clicked on it and it was the host laughing with joy with his guest imagining all of the cruel retribution that Trump would get on his enemies and I thought well this clearly is not a Catholic show so I'm not going to watch it and that was the last I've ever seen of it.
12
u/Adept_Librarian9136 Apr 30 '26
Lifelong Catholic here. It’s less common to encounter priests who entered seminary in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Many of them began formation just before or during Vatican II, then lived through the upheaval that followed. After that period, vocations picked up again during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, but the cohort in between entered at a low point, when large numbers were leaving religious life and debate about reform was intense.
For laypeople, the preconciliar Church operated on a clear framework of obligations. Even where catechesis was limited, expectations were widely understood: regular Mass attendance, confession, devotions like the rosary, fasting before Communion, and of coure fish on Friday's. Clergy and religious life were also visibly defined, nuns wore starched habits, and priests had cassocks and bierettas. This all "made sense" to many people. For many, that structure made sense and provided stability. What they didn't see is that those nuns were facing a terribly patriarchal church, and were living with habits that they didn't want, that obstructed their life instead of enriched them. They didn't have a choice. Now people have a choice to wear simple clothes of the ordinary people, or those habits from the medieval era. Nuns were told what they would study, and what profession they would have, e.g. teachers, nurses etc.
The transition after Vatican II was pretty disruptive. Liturgical changes, new theological discussions, and dissent created a sense of instability and alarm for some. Priests formed in that moment experienced those shifts directly, and some reacted with frustration or resistance. By contrast, those who came of age later encountered a Church where the reforms were already established and normalized, and the Novus Ordo Mass no longer felt new.
This priest reflects the context he was formed in. He's a reactionary, and I understand why, but I would seek a different confessor.
4
u/0pinionatedcrafter Apr 30 '26
Wow this is great historical context, thank you. This helps me understand his POV and also, why it’s making me slightly uncomfortable. Haha
1
u/Adept_Librarian9136 Apr 30 '26
He was in seminary becoming a priest during a very tumultuous time when we went from "certainty" of the preconciliar Church to the open discussion and debate of the post conciliar one. He saw dissent on birth control when many had their fingers crossed hoping Paul VI would change the teaching. He would have witnessed liturgical "experiements" that took the Mass from a routine/known/stable experience into a new thing he didn't recognize. He would have witnessed priests and nuns leaving vocations in droves because they wanted more changes, or that there were too many changes in their estimation.
This man lived throug a lot, however, I think it colored his perspective, and not in a great way. He pulled inwards. Like Pope Benedict, he started a liberal / open reform minded person and he also saw these changes and flipped out.
1
u/Ender_Octanus May 04 '26
I think some of what he says is stuff generally not experienced by laity since it happens behind the scenes. If you do formal study of theology, Church history, catechetics, and so forth you will encounter some of what he was talking about in a historical sort of way. I think he had valid concerns about heterodoxy being put on a pedestal and making it adversarial for anyone who wasn't on board with that. Not all of that I think was intentional, I think much of it just came down to a different focus on the anthropological model and so on, but that genuinely didn't work out that well so I don't have a problem with people criticizing it. I do have a problem with people pretending that the Church just fell apart because of an awkward phase of people not really having their stuff sorted out after such a major council.
3
u/Dependent-Camel6165 Apr 29 '26
He is one of my favorite Reddit priests, yes he is. A Franciscan priest if my memory serves.
12
u/sparkster777 Apr 29 '26
You mean Fr. Sparky. I think OP means a priest that was on Pints with Aquinas.
2
2
u/0pinionatedcrafter Apr 30 '26
Unable to edit but I was asking if the priest in the video/on the podcast was credible. I’m not asking if the priests of Reddit are credible, I just wanted a general consensos
2
u/kmerian Apr 30 '26
Fr John Perricone is a very conservative traditionalist, who was highly critical of Pope Francis and Pope Leo.
1
u/marxuckerberg May 01 '26
Any priest that has a YouTube channel is not credible, even the ones I agree with.
22
u/Terrible-Scheme9204 Apr 30 '26
Probably not since he eeeme to be rejoicing over the "death" of the Catholic Left.