Stoking the Embers

Recently, I’ve been in a a few casual conversations and exchanges with Catholics who express a growing distrust of the Church. It isn’t isolated. This is something real in the Catholic culture. It manifests as suspicion, doubt, or an absence of trust in the Church’s guidance, teaching, or leadership. Often, it’s all three rolled into one.

But that attitude is dangerous. It disables Catholic identity, stunts growth in holiness, disfigures good Catholic attitudes (submission, docility, holiness), and ultimately amounts to an assault on the Church—whether well-intentioned or subversive—that becomes an obstacle to her missionary pilgrimage on Earth.

What’s really behind this distrust? Where did it come from—reputation, experience, something else? I think it’s rooted more in the human element than in the Church herself, and more in fiction than in fact, and often more in defiance than reasoned suspicion.

The Headlines

Every time the Church shows up in the headlines, the same reaction ripples out: See? This is why I don’t trust them. It doesn’t matter whether the story is a scandal, a policy decision, a papal remark, or a diocesan controversy (real or imagined). We’re conditioned to react rather than to receive and consider what’s happening or what’s being said

NOTE: I wrote a piece at The Forge addressing the moral and spiritual risk of being “Hooked on Headlines” Check it out some time

The most significant event thought to have caused a great deal of distrust in the Church was the clergy sex crisis that erupted in the media in 2002. Investigative reporting revealed not only cases of sexual abuse by priests, but patterns of reassignment and concealment by some bishops. Many Catholics cite this as the reason they’ve stopped attending Mass or practicing the faith in general.

Then COVID became another confirmation point. When lockdowns were imposed, the Church’s response was, in many places, limited, measured, or non-existent. There were scattered efforts at ministry in certain parishes and dioceses—sometimes even in secret. But broadly speaking, the Church accepted the restrictions, even when churches remained closed longer than other public spaces. For many Catholics—my family among them—that felt like a letdown and abandonment during one of the most vulnerable periods in living memory.

But distrust of the Church didn’t start with COVID or even the revelation of the clergy sex crisis in the early 2000s. From my perspective, it was already festering in the culture long before any of that.

Long Before the Headlines

Suspicion toward the Church was already established in the culture. You could hear it in everyday conversations, see it in movies, read it in commentary on popular history—little remarks people repeated without ever really checking them. The Church was described as absurdly wealthy, politically manipulative, historically violent, and morally suspect. Fallacious claims about the Inquisition, caricatures of the Crusades, and conspiracy theories passed around as if they were settled fact were a common part of religious discourse pertaining to the Catholic Church or the practice of the faith.

“Everybody knows the Catholic Church executed a billion Jews during the Spanish Inquisition. What’s wrong with you?!”

(Fear the “everybody-knows-isms” my friends. When “Everybody knows…” it means the people telling it to you don’t know what they’re talking about. Moving on.)

Most of the rumors and rhetoric weren’t carefully examined, and because “everybody knows…” nobody questioned or challenged them. They didn’t need to be challenged. They confirmed what many people already wanted to believe: the crazy Catholic Church just can’t be trusted or taken seriously. Even as a young teenager just getting into apologetics, I spent more time saying, “I’m sorry” for the Spanish Inquisition than, “Hold on, back up a minute!…”

In many cases, distrust of the Church didn’t begin with evidence. Evidence was gathered—or invented—to fit the preconfigured conclusion of the Church’s untrustworthiness and lack of competence as a moral voice and guide. This evidence gathering was essentially cherry-picking historical distortions, granting uncritical credibility to personal horror stories that were sometimes exaggerated in the retelling, and taking isolated failures and turning them into proof that the whole Church is corrupt.

A Necessary Clarification

At the risk of breaking cadence for a moment, let me pause and say something plainly. Some horror stories are true. Abuse, cruelty, negligence—these are real, and they matter. Most of us know at least one “bad priest” or religious. Some of us have our own stories.

But the question isn’t whether those stories exist or whether they’re valid or important. The question is what they actually prove about the Church. Individual failures—even serious ones—do not automatically define the nature, mission, or truth-claims of the Church herself. That distinction is important to point out if we’re going to think clearly instead of reactively.

From Suspicion to Agenda

Barring the aforementioned isolated incidents, distrust in the Catholic Church didn’t start with facts. It mostly started with an agenda. As the culture became progressively morally liberalized and Catholics became more secularized, it served an agenda of defiance of Church teaching, or of basic Catholic responsibilities, to disqualify the origin of that teaching—the Catholic Church.

But then real scandals broke into public view, and everything shifted. Now, being seen as an institution of perverts and enablers, the perception of the Church as lacking credibility or moral authority was confirmed. Now people had fact-based reasons to distrust the Church, even if the facts were usually distorted in the media. The clergy scandal, paired with what many experienced as institutional impotence during COVID, confirmed what had been settled in the cultural mind for decades: that the Church is weak, incompetent, corrupt, and unworthy of both our fidelity and our trust.

The Unsettling Twist

But here’s the unsettling twist: what had been, for decades, an attitude of distrust of the Church in the secular culture (which included some Catholics) is now a malady in the culture of the Church. Catholics, even very devoted ones, are affected by what has long become a culturally acceptable distrust or suspicion toward the Church. We grade, or try to out-Church, the Magisterium. We rate the Holy Father. We bring secular political mindsets into the Catholic experience. We hold the Church to our subjective standards the way we might hold Congress’s feet to the fire. Much of this is prompted and conditioned by some in independent Catholic media who have something to gain by posturing as the Truth-bearers and saviors of the Church. And many tend to trust those outlets more than the Church.

Take it from me, brethren. Some of those outlets—and even a few high-profile clerics—are knowingly misleading you. Your trust in them is ill-placed. Just because they’re saying what you want to hear doesn’t mean they’re trustworthy. It means they’re accomplices in advancing distrust of the Church as she stands today, measured against an idealized vision of her past.

Here is what Catholics need to take from this. “The Church is a mess” would be a true statement no matter where or when it’s uttered across its 2,000-year history. There’s imperfection in her clergy, in her offices, in her people. But what needs to be focused on is this: is the Church competent in her mission? Is the Church trustworthy where it counts—in the salvation of souls, the formation of saints? Most definitely! And if reading that makes you doubt it, this malady may have affected you, too.

The Church isn’t perfect. There are things you and I might change if we could. But the Lord didn’t put that in front of us. What He puts in front of us is the mission to live in God’s law, to love in accord with the Gospel, to forgive with the attitude of Jesus, and to follow with trust, as the Hebrews were commanded in the days of Moses. That isn’t blind trust; it’s true faith

Follow me on X | Instagram | TikTok | FB | YouTube

Relevant Links

This is at StE’s sister site, The Forge (also by me)

Stoking the Embers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

A priest says Mass isn’t about worship, but "a meal" — Catholics are outraged. But is the real problem what he said… or what he LEFT OUT?

In this Moment of Truth segment, I break down exactly what he said, what he got wrong, what he might have meant, and why the theology behind the Mass actually proves the opposite.

Get FIRE BRANDED !

Get the podcast at its new home:

The Forge (New Home!) | Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | Deezer | iHeart | TuneIn | YouTube | Many Others!A viral homily from an Irish priest is stirring controversy after he claimed we don’t go to Mass to worship God, but to share a meal.Segment video.

Description continued: We examine the claim, the outrage, and the deeper Catholic teaching on sacrifice, Eucharist, and worship — including why the “meal” language only makes sense because the Mass is first and foremost an act of worship.This isn’t reaction. This is analysis. And before you decide what to think about that viral clip, you need to hear this.

Full Episode at The Forge (Video and Audio)

God’s mercy isn’t weakness—and it isn’t permission.It’s power.

In this Night Watch episode, we confront one of the most common spiritual traps: shrinking God’s mercy until it can’t actually heal us. Shame, despair, and lingering guilt after forgiven sin aren’t signs of humility—they’re often the enemy’s favorite tactic.

Drawing from Scripture and Ignatian spiritual insight, this episode clarifies what mercy really is, where justice fits, and why the Cross is the center of both. God doesn’t lower the truth to save us. He restores us without rewriting it—and He asks us to accept that mercy, not resist it.

A slower, reflective Night Watch for anyone struggling to believe that forgiveness truly takes effect.

Stoking the Embers - Subscribe for Free

Catholic Firebrand (TJ's Newsletter. Subscribe to be part of the crew)

A Catholic parish in Germany announced an ecumenical “Harry Potter” church service. It is not entirely clear what the service will involve beyond the fact that it’s ecumenical, which is promoted as outreach to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Church officials defended it as evangelization; critics said it crossed a clear line. Yet, this is not an isolated incident.

It fits a pattern the Church has been confronting for years.

HEADS UP: THere’ a 20 minute bonus podcast at the end of this article

We’ve been seeing these flirtations with the occult or paganism in local churches for years, causing Bishops and even the Vatican to intervene when these practices were promoted in sacred settings.

“Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of darkness.”-Fr. Gabriele Amorth

These types of events import non-Christian spiritual frameworks or distort peoples’ understanding of the nature of prayer, and true worship.

In the United States, the bishops formally warned Catholic institutions against Reiki, concluding that it rests on spiritual assumptions incompatible with Christian belief.

In Spain, bishops publicly cautioned that Zen meditation and modern mindfulness movements are not forms of Christian prayer, warning that they replace a God-centered spirituality with techniques focused inward, rather than on God.

“It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those [books] are subtle seductions which act unnoticed and…deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.”-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) 2003

Other bishops have issued similar warnings.

In Ireland and the UK, bishops and pastors have discouraged or prohibited yoga and mindfulness programs in Catholic schools and church facilities, warning that practices rooted in pagan or occult spirituality risk being treated as compatible with Christian prayer and spirituality.

These aren’t fringe concerns.They are recurring pastoral interventions responding to recurring problems.

At a higher level, the Vatican has addressed this issue directly.

Official Vatican documents—Orationis Formas (1989) and Jesus Christus, Aquae Vivae Lator (2003) —and have warned against mixing Christian prayer with Eastern or New Age spiritual practices, cautioning that this kind of borrowing from alternative traditions blurs or distorts what Christian prayer actually is and who it is directed toward.

None of this requires panic. I can hear it already, “Vatican II, Vatican II, Oh my!!!). God’s faithful have been drifting out of the lanes since Exodus. The thing to focus on is this.

* This is a concern the Church has, and addresses—The Church doesn’ overlook or ignore it.

* Occult or pagan spirituality is completely incompatible with Christian spirituality and Worship.

* Sacred spaces are to be properly respected (Canon 1210 CIC: in a sacred place “only those things are to be permitted which serve to exercise or promote worship, piety, and religion,”)

The Church doesn’t lack imagination, symbolism, or depth. Healthy Catholic spirituality and culture is enough; in fact it’s superior! Let’s not seek anything “more” than that.

Don’t flirt with paganism, or the occult, and discourage or forbid members of your family from doing it. God sees. God notices. And so does the enemy, who is courted through those practices.

Follow me on X | Instagram | TikTok | FB | YouTubeMy personal Newsletter - CatholicFirebrand.com

PODCAST

A X Spaces session talking about my research process, some things that concerned me about the reporting on this issue, and what Catholics should, and shouldn’t pay attention to.

Stoking the Embers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

FOLLOW THIS PODCAST

Catholic Firebrand Website | Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | Deezer | iHeart | TuneIn | YouTubeMany Others!

Description

In this episode of Fire Branded, I take on a truth many Catholics would rather avoid.Pope Leo warns of a generational rupture in how the faith is handed on — and he’s right. But the problem runs deeper than poor catechesis or weak evangelization. We are losing the capacity to recognize truth itself.

Follow me on X | Instagram | TikTok | FB | YouTube

From immigration and ICE enforcement to misplaced cries for “justice,” from selective Scripture reading to ideological Catholicism, we’re watching mercy detached from truth — and truth applied without mercy — tear the Church apart from within.

🔑 Key Highlights

• Justice and mercy aren’t oppositesWhy separating them creates cruelty on one side and chaos on the other.• Why Catholic discussions sound political (even when they aren’t)How partial truths from Left and Right distort the Church’s full teaching.• Immigration through a Catholic lens — without slogansBorders, law, mercy, and why neither outrage nor indifference is faithful.• The danger of shouting “justice” without wisdomWhat happens when moral certainty outruns moral responsibility.• Pope Leo on the generational rupture in the faithWhy the problem isn’t just catechesis — it’s transmission.• Why evangelization is often hard, not “joyful”The cost modern Catholics underestimate when passing on the faith.• St. Augustine on belief, understanding, and obedienceWhy belief must come before understanding — not the other way around.• When preference replaces truthHow curated belief blocks holiness and distorts conscience.• Why discernment of truth is a survival skillWhat future Catholics will face if this isn’t recovered now.

Chapters and Highlights

00:00 Introduction and Show Opening

02:30 Why Follow me on X and other Socials

03:58 Catholic Church's Stance on Immigration

15:29 Video of ICE Arrest: Justice?

25:13 Rediscovering the Joy of Evangelizing

26:59 Challenges of Modern Evangelization

33:32 The Fathers Know Best: A New Segment

35:54 Truth Matters: Preference Doesn't

Follow me on X | Instagram | TikTok | FB | YouTube

My personal Newsletter - CatholicFirebrand.com

Catholics are not be as prepared to "face" the Antichrist as they believe and this is why he'll fool so many of them (even You!).In this episode of Fire Branded, TJ issues a blunt warning: the greatest danger facing modern Christians isn’t persecution or atheism—it’s the collapse of intellectual discipline, disabling you from identifying Lies and Deception posing as the Truth.

Follow me on X | Instagram | TikTok | FB | YouTubeMy personal Newsletter - CatholicFirebrand.com

Using 2 Timothy 3, TJ explains why Scripture’s warning about the “last days” sounds less like prophecy and more like a description of right now.  People are consuming more information than ever.And understanding less truth than ever.

In this episode, TJ Haines breaks down a viral Catholic media claim (LifeSite News) that accused Pope Leo of appointing a “pro-LGBT archbishop” who supposedly “refused to condemn homosexual marriage.” The headline was provocative. The imagery was suggestive. And the claim did not line up with the actual facts.

(Social Links at the bottom)

By walking through what really happened, this episode exposes how emotional framing can manufacture outrage that the truth itself would never produce. No technical lies are required—just selective emphasis, insinuation, and a willingness to let emotion do the work reason should be doing.

From there, the same pattern shows up in secular politics: vague claims that everything from foreign policy to public-health decisions somehow “helps Putin,” without specific evidence or even a coherent argument. Different ideology, same mechanism.

This isn’t a defense of Church leadership. It isn’t a political endorsement. It’s a warning about what happens when people excuse distortion because it feels useful or righteous. When truth becomes optional—even in service of “good ends”—credibility collapses.

Truth doesn’t bend. You either submit to it, or you stop caring about it.

Follow me on X | Instagram | TikTok | FB | YouTubeMy personal Newsletter - CatholicFirebrand.com

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction and Purpose00:47 Debunking the Life Site News Story09:53 Analyzing the Archbishop's Response21:18 Debunking Life Site News Claims25:09 Trump and Putin: A Misunderstood Relationship28:57 Critique of the WHO and Media Manipulation

KEEP WATCH WITH CHRIST 🔥Don’t let your guard down — not even at night. In this Night Watch edition of Fire Branded, T.J. Haines delivers five powerful and practical ways to stay vigilant in the spiritual life. From developing a rule of life to guarding your senses, rooting yourself in Scripture, and living a Eucharistic lifestyle — this is tactical Catholic spirituality for real life.

Follow me X | Insta | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Discordand my personal newsletter, CatholicFirebrand.comLivestreamed/Unedited Version: https://youtube.com/live/P9JDQLGlT4c

🔑 Key Highlights

“Don’t rely on mood — rely on structure.”How a Rule of Life keeps you spiritually steady even when motivation fails.

Custody of the senses“What you do to the intellect, you do to the will” — why input matters more than you think.

Confession as formationNaming your sins means knowing your enemy — especially when the enemy is you.

A Eucharistic lifestyleStaying close to the Sacrifice, even when you can’t get to daily Mass.

Scripture every day15 minutes can reset your imagination, strengthen your heart, and re-grip your cross.

The spiritual handoff at night — giving Jesus the watch while you sleep.

Too many Catholics are missing the point and see themselves through the illusion of a sort of "Matrix" mindset When Catholics don’t get their way, too many of them start talking about leaving the Church. And there are others who see Catholicism as a club to be proud of, but don't actually take the faith seriously.KEY POINTS / TAKEAWAYS• Catholicism is a lifestyle, not a membership• Knowing the truth without conversion can condemn rather than save• Waving the Catholic banner is easy — warranting it is hard• Appealing to science while ignoring revelation reverses the order of truth• Truth without charity is not truth• Threatening to leave the Church forms the soul toward retreat• The Church is our Mother, not our muscle

CHAPTERS00:00 – When Things Don’t Go Your Way in the ChurchWhat Catholics reveal about themselves when obedience becomes uncomfortable.07:20 – Knowing the Truth Isn’t EnoughWhy being right doesn’t save you—and how pride replaces conversion.15:05 – Waving the Banner vs Living the FaithCatholicism as a lifestyle, not a badge or online identity.24:30 – Revelation Comes Before TextbooksWhy starting with science instead of divine revelation is a losing strategy.33:45 – Why Threatening to Leave the Church Is FoolishOrthodox exit fantasies, conditional obedience, and spiritual retreat.43:30 – Stand or Lose: The Final ChallengeThe Church is not your shield—she is your formation.

Most Catholics know their doctrine, but few ever examine their attitude. In this episode, I break open why humility, obedience, unity, and a teachable spirit are essential for becoming a saint — and how a bad attitude can quietly push you toward heterodoxy, division, or even apostasy. Featuring commentary on a Colorado Springs schismatic group and what their story reveals about the dangers of spiritual pride.Follow me on  X | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | DiscordKEY HIGHLIGHTS (Bullet Points for Description or Show Notes)

Why attitude determines destiny — holiness isn’t just about doctrine; it’s about disposition.

Humility as the first requirement of sainthood — the virtue that unlocks every other virtue.

Filial vs servile obedience and why Catholics must obey the Church with trust, not fear.

How Protestants misunderstand “worship” and why biblical worship requires sacrifice, priest, and altar.

A real-world example of bad Catholic attitude: the Colorado Springs schismatic group ignoring excommunication.

Why radical traditionalism and sedevacantism differ by “half a hair.”

Why unity is not optional — the Church mirrors the eternal through its oneness.

Why orthodoxy without charity can still lead you astray.

The danger of Catholics resisting correction — the growing trend I see after 30 years in evangelization.

The mystical body of Christ and why obedience to the Church is obedience to Christ.