September 7, 2025 • 35 mins
In this special live edition of Prayerful Posse, Raymond Arroyo, Father Gerald Murray, and Robert Royal gather with the posse in Scottsdale to unpack a dramatic week at the Vatican. From the canonization of two millennial saints to an unprecedented LGBT Jubilee in Rome, the team explores the Church at a spiritual crossroads.
The discussion dives into Pope Francis’ meeting with Father James Martin, the growing controversy over LGBT outreach, and what it means for Catholic teaching worldwide. They also examine the surge in church attacks across the U.S., the revival of the traditional Latin Mass among young Catholics, and the lasting inspiration of new saints Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati. Plus: why seminarians dancing to a synodal theme song might miss the mark.
It’s a live, spirited debate filled with faith, clarity, and insight you won’t hear anywhere else.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A new pair of young saints are about to be
canonized in Rome, just as the LGBT Jubilee arrives The
Prayerful Posse. We'll get into all of it on this
edition of The Prayerful Passe. Welcome to this very special,
(00:24):
live Prayerful Posse. We're in what I call the Scottsdale
Posse Saloon. I love this place, and some of our
friends here have gathered to be with us, and of
course I'm joined by the Prayerful Posse. Father Gerald Murray,
a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, canon lawyer
and Robert Royal, editor in chief of the Catholic Thing
dot Org. Welcome them, please, okay Jans. Before we get
(00:50):
to Father James Martin's papal visit, which I'm going to
get to in a moment, I've got to talk about
that heartbreaking attack in Minneapolis. We saw where that shooter
shot through a church killed those poor children, Pope Leo
said the following this week. He said, our prayers for
the victims of the tragic shooting during a school mass
(01:10):
in the American state of Minnesota. Go up to the Lord.
Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms
large and small, which infects our world. Father, then Bob,
your thoughts, I mean, naturally the pope is going to
offer prayers for the victims. Your thoughts on that shout
out to the pandemic of arms. What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, I guess it's making an analogy between COVID and
I were saying that descends upon his society, and then you know,
uproots everything. I think there's a pandemic of mentally ill
people not being taken care of in the United States,
and this man, given his history, I should have had
some markers against him not to be able to buy weapons.
So you know, that's there's more to the story than
(01:53):
simple you can buy a weapon. The question is who's
buying them, why they're being allowed to?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, if you want to, Yeah, I mean I think
I don't know if he was directly addressing what we
call gun control, because that obviously is a policy question.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
It's not a moral question.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
But to call for gun control in a country like
the United States, where the estimate is there's probably five
hundred million guns and all sorts of ways for people
to acquire them. In I know in Arizona, you probably
don't need any instruction about that. It raises the question
of what do you do about these things? And there
are two things you can do. You can decide that
(02:30):
you're going to live in a society without guns, but
you can also live in a society that tries to
protect people. I've actually said to my own pastor that
after we had a little incident one time at mass,
that we have a lot of ex military retired policemen
in the Washington, DC area, and unfortunately, I think at
least for churches, that's something that now is going to
(02:51):
have to be part of everyone's active sense of what
safety is going to be like, even in church.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
But look, it's not bad to say.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
We don't want a tidal wave of weapons being used
against one another. But I think we also want to
have a certain a certain prudence about how we think
about issues in an event like this particular.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Well, and talking about prudence, a week after this transhooter
shot these children, the Pope meets with Father James Martin,
and later this week there is a jubilee and LGBT jubilee,
but he met with Father Martin and this is for
a half hour. It was announced in the official Vatican Bulletin.
Here's what Martin said after the meeting. He said, I
(03:35):
was honored and grateful to meet with the Holy Father
this morning in an audience in the Apostolic Palace and
heard the same message I heard from Pope Francis on
LGBT people, which is one of openness and welcome, Totos,
totos todos. I found the Pope serene, joyful and encouraging. Father.
As I mentioned. This was officially in the Bulletino of
(03:58):
the Vatican the official Daily Press release. Photos were released
and James Martin says that the Pope told him to
continue his work as advocacy for transgender people.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Your thoughts on this, well, this reveals part of the
problem with Father Martin's approach. By using the abbreviations, he's
affirming that God created bisexual people, transsexual people, and the
other whatever the other letters stand for. In other words,
he's creating categories of humanity given God given characteristics that
they're supposed to fulfill. The Caature doesn't believe there's any
(04:31):
such thing as a transgender transsexual person. You can't go
from being a male to a female. Pope Leo did
not endorse that neither did Pope Francis, by the way
he criticized transgender and even though sometimes he made comments
that were a little bit strange. But as regards this meeting,
Pope Leo, by granting the audience and then not commenting
(04:53):
afterwards about about Father Martin's remarks, leaves the impression that
with Father Martin says, Pope Leo has no objection.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
To bob Let's talk about that. I mean, when I
first read these comments, I thought Martin's playing a very
savvy political game here, because he's getting in front of
the narrative and kind of boxing Pope Leo in trying
to get him to speak without speaking. But just to
give you an idea. And look, I heard many people
this week say don't rush to conclusions. I had a
(05:23):
bishop tell me, don't rush to conclusions. The Vatican will
correct the record. Well, the Pope met with the Israeli
President Isa Hertzog this week. He claimed that the Pope
had invited him to a papal audience. Well, it turns
out within moments the Vatican Press released this statement that
the Holy See's practice is to accede to request for
(05:45):
an audience with the Pope, made from governments and heads
of state. It is not the practice to extend invitations
to them, so they can respond pretty quickly. My question is,
why hasn't the Holy See said anything about the James Martin.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
This might take us into some dark places.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well you have another thing.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, Look, there have been some efforts to say that
this isn't quite a full throated endorsement of Father James
Martin by Pope Leo. For example, one of the things
that was very odd about when Father Martin came out
was he said that, oh, the Pope also has a
lot of things on his plate. He's got Gaza, he's
(06:28):
got Ukraine, he's got myanamar and so he's not going
to be able to meet with the LGBT group on Saturday.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
I think it is on the sixth week. Well, you know,
a pope is a pope.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
He can do what he wants, and if he really
thought that it was important to meet.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
With his group, think could make a few minutes to
do this.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
So to me, there's a little bit more distance in
there than Father Martin was willing to admit. But that said,
I agree entirely. It would be very easy to set
a lot of our minds at ease. If somebody would
just come out and say, yeah, we meet with everyone
as Catholics, we welcome everyone into the church. And that's
(07:06):
what we mean by toto's totos totos. But it's under
the aegis of what the Catholic Church teaches, because what
the Catholic Church teaches, it believes it is received from
Jesus and from God himself. So if that were the
framing of Father Martin being encouraged to so called outreach
and listen to kays, I guess we could actually live
(07:29):
with that.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
But we didn't get that.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You're que well again, the silence tells its own tale.
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
By the way, if the president of Israel asked for
an invitation and was extended invitation, then he has been invited.
He didn't just show up and force his way in
this kind of you know, dancing around obviously has some
purpose to kind of separate the Pope from these Israeli
president as if he's not the object of you know,
(07:55):
he is an object of an invitation. I'm unsatisfied by that.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Excellent make I mean, there are some saying, look, this
is a confirmation of where Pope Francis was headed. You
saw all the headlines. I mean, James Martin is brilliant
at kind of getting the press. He went to the AP,
he walked out to Reuter's. If you look at the
photo in the AP story beneath it, it says AP photographer.
So this is all coordinated. This didn't just happen, And
(08:19):
of course then that goes to every paper in the
country and news outlet. But the narrative is Pope Francis's
legacy continues, and you know, we saw the blessing of
gay couples and more on the horizon. That is what
Martin said. He wants to get the church in a
position of advocacy. And I just wondered the week of
this slaying, it's in Minneapolis. It's an odd note to strike.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yeah, the advocacy that he was talking about was about
places where homosexuality will get you the death penalty, and
that's sort of the first level of what he's had.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
But it's clear that what Father Martin.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Has been doing, he's got these great phrases, he knows
how to how to talk to the media, and the
media of course want to hear what he has to say.
He's been saying for a long time that he never
advocates anything against the teachings of the Church, which I'm
going to just say openly is a lie, not true,
because he's the phrase that he's used over and over again.
(09:21):
You go to the Catechism, the Catechism says that same
sex attraction is intrinsically disordered.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
No, no, no sex acts X the attraction the acts.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, all right, yeah, we could talk about that a
little bit later. But Father Martin has come along and said, no, no, no,
this is it's hurtful. It's hurtful that the Catechism has
this phrase. What was really the case is that people
of various permutations of their sexuality are differently ordered.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Are they differently ordered than what?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
They're differently ordered than what God ordered us to be?
Male and female. One of the interesting dramas I think
is going to play out is we know that Leo
said several years ago that the Church has to stop
talking about genders that don't exist, and what does that mean?
Male and femalely creative? After that, it's all.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, fantasy.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Father Martin has said this, and he's talking about here
the church teaching on sexuality, gender variations. Quote for teaching
to be truly authoritative, it must be accepted by the
people of God, by the faithful. The teaching that LGBT
people must be celibate their entire lives has not been received.
(10:40):
End quote. Now look your reaction to that. Let's start.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Okay, that's false. The teaching of a council is the
truth when it's promulgated by the council and confirmed by
the Pope. The truth does not depend on popular acceptance.
This is a Protestant principle that he is enunciating because
in Protestant I have a judgment is at the basis
of their interpretation of scripture. Each person is enlightened by
the Holy Spirit to determine the meaning of the scriptures.
(11:07):
That's why they're not that upset while there are all
these different groups with diverging opinions, because their fundamental principle
in the Catholic Church, the teaching authority receives revelation, interprets it,
and presents it in dogmatic formulations so that people can
easily know and believe what they have to believe in
order to be in union with God. So no, this
(11:29):
is the principle of Father Martin is enunciating is unless
you are happy with what you're hearing, it's not true. Well,
I mean that's that is relativism. One oh one.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, imagine a husband walking in and say, honey, I
never received this monogamy thing. My girlfriends will be helping
you with cooking. I mean, this would work. No one
would buy this. But it is odd that he's trying
that the receiver suddenly is the creator of the dogma
and not the other way around.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, that's the church. That's a democratic principle. I just
state Abrahm Lincoln said the country runs in public opinion
because public opinion is heard at every election. There are
no elections in the Catholic Church that DESI what we
believe in.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yeah, we don't hear that phrase.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
That same phrase used when it comes with the traditional
Latin Mass, because the are large spots of people who
haven't received the teaching of the reason two popes that
that traditional Latin Mass, which is attracting all sorts of people, people,
young people in particular. I was just telling a posse
as we were driving over here that I read just
(12:31):
today that King Charles went to Birmingham for a Cardinal
Newman sat John Henry Newman event, and he was surprised,
he said, at how diverse the traditional Latin Mass that
was celebrated was That was the thing that most struck him.
Not the holiness, not the fidelity, not the beauty, not
(12:52):
the enthusiasm, but the diversity.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
So we use we're using, you know, we're using.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Political terms to decide whether some one thing is good
in the religious realm, and that, frankly, is a disaster.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Well, look at this point, I think some of these
poor people in Charlotte, in Detroit, they would take the
they would take the diversity argument if that would keep
the mask going. It's and we're going to get to
that purge in a little bit. I want to talk
about another official meeting. It wasn't mentioned in the Vatican
press release, It wasn't mentioned to the press, but the
(13:25):
meeting took place.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
We have the picture.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
It was Poblio meeting with a notoriously pro abortion, progay
marriage sister Lucia Karum at the Vatican this week. Now, now,
Karen was a close friend to Pope Francis. It's not
known why her audience was left out of the bulletino,
but nonetheless they met. Why do you think that omission took.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Place, well, perhaps to avoid criticism, you know, from people
who know what she stands for. I mean, imagine this
a woman who believes that homoseexu should marry, you know,
basically saying marriage equals to people of same sex getting
the other and engaging in sexual activity. For her, that's
something holy. She believes in the ordination of women, which
the Catholic Church says is impossible. Why is a person
(14:09):
like that being given the privilege of meeting with the pope? Well,
because she was a friend of Pope Francis and I'm
sure like to you know, Israeli president, she said, can
I come in and see you? So they squeezed her in.
But at a certain point this is sort of like
it's like tea leaves. I mean, is the pontificate being
run by knowing what the guest list is that the
I mean, the principle of job of the Pope is
(14:32):
to confirm the brethren in the truths of the faith,
and that is not accomplished when heretics and people who
reject the moral teaching given an entree. And then, as
Bob says, why aren't the Latin mass people being invited
in so that they can express in their great diversity
by the way of all races and nations. Why the
(14:53):
Latin mass is so value with it? That's not happening.
This is a mistake that you've got to break out of.
Pope Francis largely ran His pontificate is a press conference.
The press conference way of talking to people. This should
not continue.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well, what's happening, and maybe Pablio will become wise to
it as he watches it play out. The mere meeting,
the advertised meetings become a version of teaching. He's savvy enough, though,
he's going to catch wise. If he's being done wrong,
he'll catch wise. If this continues, well, then we're in
a different pontificate, moving in a different way. I want
(15:27):
to talk about this. Bishop Francesco Salvino, who's the vice
president of the Italian Bishop's Conference. He will be celebrating
a Mass on Saturday on September sixth at the Jazu
in Rome for an LGBT Jubilee pilgrimage. He has said
that every person, everyone, every homosexual person too, has a
(15:49):
right to the euchers and in the heart of the Gospel,
no one has excluded, Bob, what of this jubilee for
LGBT people, And do you worry about identifying a group
of Atholics as LGBT.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yes, absolutely, And we know that inside this you know,
there's in university circles, there's this thing that is called intersectionality,
in which it's assumed that lesbians and gays, and trands,
and even Native Americans and other marginal groups, they're all
(16:24):
somehow on the same team. I often like to say
that if we went back to the Native Americans of
your they would be on the team of the NFL,
rather than on a team of the Trands. So there's
an attempt to put these these groups together for political reasons,
and so I think you're right to raise the question
why identify that as a specific group, and particularly why
(16:45):
identify it when when when the activity that those people
carry out is sinful. We don't have a group for robbers,
we don't have a group for housebreakers, we don't have
a group for adulterers. What this is is this is
a concer session to a political organization. I like to
say quite often that I think the biggest mistake that
(17:06):
Francis had made during his papacy was to.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Confuse his proper.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Feelings to be welcoming toward individuals, and not to be
sufficiently attentive to the ways that activists in these groups
are just relentless.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
You know, you can meet.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
With someone who's troubled. The famous phrase that when he
said who am I to judge? He was talking about
a person that he John Rica Batisa Batistatista Rica. He
was talking about a person who we thought was trying
to work toward God. He wasn't making a general statement,
but of course that's how the world took it, and
(17:44):
that's why popes need to be very careful about what
they say. But look, it's very important to say persons,
we welcome persons. Once you start to let activists get
their nose under the tent, you're dealing with a very
different end.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
We've talked about Father James and Martin.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I'm sure all of you remember that when those same
sex blessings were permitted, they were not supposed to be public,
they were not supposed to be organized. But in the
New York Times of basically a day or two later,
Father James and Martin was blessing a couple of young men.
I don't think either of them was even Catholic. And
(18:22):
so this is what happened once political activism starts to
tint what the churches.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Do and father talk about. I mean the reality is, look,
I lived in New York, I live in New Orleans.
Gay people are welcome in the Catholic Church. Any sinners
that welcome in the Catholic Church as well. Why underline
it in this way? And I would argue separate somehow,
separate people by their sin. So I mean, as Bob said,
(18:50):
is there going to be an adulter's jubilee? I mean
this is I don't like the carving up of Catholics
in any way.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Well, because these people don't believe it's a sin. They
don't think sod I mean, is sinful. They think it's
what these people are meant to do. And that is
not welcoming them, if anything, is welcoming them on the
road to hell, because mortal sin, the penalty for that
is eternal death. If you don't accept that, you're not
a Catholic. So for Father Martin and others to say,
as this Bishop Savino that everyone's welcome received eucrative. If
(19:20):
you're engaged in sodomy with someone, you're not allowed to
receive community. You make a good confession and renounce that behavior.
So I'm always the welcoming thing. What does the Catholic
Church exist for? Is it a social society to confirm
people that God wants them to be happy? No, it's
a pilgrim people on journey toward Heaven, tempted by the
(19:43):
devil in their own weakness, and they need strength in
order to avoid sin. When the shepherd gives these uncertain
signals like this bishop and says everybody's welcome to the euchers,
he's telling people that have been told their whole life
you can't receive community. Now you can. That's a big difference.
He shouldn't do that, The Vaticans shouldn't allow him to
do that. This is why I'm concerned about the Pontificate
(20:06):
where it's going, because Catholic doctrine about homosexuality needs to
be defended when there's a wave of pro homosexual activity
going on. But it's not. We're getting that from people
like Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Sarah. We need it from
Pope Leo. Bob said back in twenty twelve, he said
there's a pressure group to promote this kind of lifestyle.
(20:27):
We need more teaching on this.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I want to talk about. We've seen a rash of
church attacks, hundreds of them in the United States in churches.
Here this week in Orange County, California, sat Michael's Abbey.
We know it, We've been there. This guy drives up.
He drove from Birmingham, Alabama. His name is Michael Richard
(20:49):
Joshua Michael Richardson drives from Birmingham, Alabama. High capacity magazines,
body armor, various weapons, knives. Thank god, the members of
the abbey saw him, called the cops and they stopped him.
Why are we seeing these crazed people. This guy said
he was the angel of death. He was there to
(21:10):
carry out God's will. Why are we seeing these crazed
people focus on and target Catholic churches in particular.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Well, my short answer for this is that it's because
the church is really the only institution in our postmodern
society that has the heft and the presence to stand.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Up to everything that's going wrong. In other words, to
stand up to the devil.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
The devil is the one who tempts us to all
these evils that were experiencing.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I just wrote a book.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I've actually written two books about modern martyrdom, one about
the twentieth century martyrs and another about the twenty first
century martyrs. We were supposed to give a copy to
Pope Francis, but he died before we were able to
get into him.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And I was.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Shocked because in Europe as well as here in the
United States, there has been an enormous bump up of
anti Christian, mostly anti Catholic attacks. Arson's vandalism, just desecrating altars,
all sorts of things like this. I was just telling
that the guy's coming over here. In Viterbo in Italy,
(22:14):
the police just stopped two Muslims. Now there's this, there's
this anti Christian I would say post Christian demonism that
we're dealing with in the West, but there's also a
Muslim element that we need to be careful above. France
loses two religious buildings a month, usually to Arson. This
(22:34):
case up in Viterable in Italy, two Muslim terrorists had
stationed themselves with high powered weapons and they were about
to attack a group of forty thousand Catholks who had
assembled for the Feast.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Of Saint Rose in that city.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Fortunately, the police got a tip off and we're able
to stop it. But this is coming in our societies
and we need to be vigilant.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
It creeps in.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
You see this in England and France and in Germany.
It creeps in with you know, kind of just incremental
criticism of Catholicism in the church is preaching hate and
all these different things. But then it begins to take
hold in a much more serious way. And so one
of the things I always I have old chapter about
this in my newer book. One of the things I
(23:19):
emphasized there about our current situation is that's a reality
that's likely to grow unless we respond to it forcefully.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah, and it needs forceful response. I'm so depressed by
all this news. I need some happy news, so I'm
going to bring you some this weekend. Pope Leo is
about to canonize the first millennial saint, Carlo Acutis, and
then another young man, Georgio Rosati. My question is, Father,
(23:49):
first of all, why do we still need saints? I
get a lot of non Catholics ask, but why why
are you always making these new saints? Why do we
need new saints? And then Bob and the importance of
these two young men as saints.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Well, the Holy Spirit makes the saints will say that,
and when we cooperate with the grace of God, then
it becomes evident. In fact, saints are like poster children
for what it means to be a son or daughter
of God. And they you know, Pierre Giorgio Forsati Forens
came from a wealthy family, but he was so dedicated
to charity, you know, hidden he would give visits to
the sick and the poor. He also defended Catholicism against
(24:26):
anti clerical forces. He died young. At his funeral, all
these people showed up, poor people, people from all over
in Milan. He was a great model and example. And
Carlo Kudis, of course, was put together a website about
eucharistic miracles. And you know the reason we need saints
is because we're sinners, you know, we need to be inspired.
(24:48):
I you know, I look how you mentioned Cardinal Newman.
You know, John Henry Newman was you know canonized what
it was it ten years ago and you know he's
in this is one of the most intellectually astute people
ever to live in England. He has worldwide influence because
of his writings, but also because of his fidelity to God.
He realized the Catholic Church of the true Church, and
(25:09):
he left the church where he was the leading intellect.
So this is why we need things. They point us
in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
And I like that Fissante fought the communists and the fascists,
which nobody talks about, but he did that in turn.
He died at twenty four. Yes, yeah, amazing, what an
amazing life. And I do think these models of holiness
that look different from different areas of the world, that
is compelling, and that's another reason we need.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
You know, the second Martyrs book that I just mentioned
that I wrote for the Jubilee year that we were
going to give to pou francis one of the things
that I was struck by writing the first book about
martyrs is a woman got up at one of my
lectures and said, weren't you depressed reading about all those
people being you know, hacked to death, shot, hung burned,
(25:55):
you know. And I looked at her and I said,
you know, it never crossed my mind. I'd never spent
so much concentrated time with such heroic and holy people.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
And if you're looking.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
For why it is that all of us placed in
the right circumstances can stand up to whatever challenges as Christians,
as Catholics are facing us.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
You look at the martyrs.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
This has always been the case since the very beginning
of the church. People who are willing to give up
their lives for the faith. That's a weakness that transcends
all the negativity that we find in the world. And
so I think of at least of the martyr parts
of this, and then even the non martyrs. You need
torches in the night, and we're in the night a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
In our societies. All of us struggle with sins in
our own lives.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
But you look to some of these figures and you
say to yourself, man, it can be done, and maybe
I can do it too.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, And talking about torches in the darkness, there is this,
and we've been reporting on this week after week. There
is a rise, a quiet growth of traditional faith. You
see it in the young, You see it in young men,
particularly in all the demographics. Cardinal Raymond Burke Cardinal Robert
Sarah are promoting a revival of First Saturday devotions. Also,
(27:15):
Bishop Earl Fernandez of the Diocese of Cincinnati said the
following there was nothing ideological about the traditional Latin Mass.
We wanted to offer the Mass to meet the pastoral
need of the people. It's a beautiful part of the
church's tradition. Father, are we seeing sprouts of vibrant traditional
faith emerging or is that just on the margin.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Oh, it's very much present. You know. I look at
the different groups that I'm aware of in this country,
some of them centered around traditional Catholic college of like Christendom, Commas,
Aquinas and some other wonderful places. The Latin Mass parish is,
you know, we have them in New York. Young people
are attracted by authenticity and and what is different than
(28:01):
what the secular world offers. And you know, if you
go to the Latin Mass. I'm sure many of the
people in the audience have done that, but if you haven't,
you go to it. The spirit is God centered, you know,
Cardinal Sarah said, you want to reform the church face east,
you know, celebrate Mass toward east. There's a whole Christian
tradition that the Mass is celebrated facing east because Christ
(28:22):
will return to the world. That the second Coming in
the East. So we're looking forward to the return, the
second Coming of Christ. Now, if it's sad to say.
In the average parish, if you turn the altar around,
people say, why are you giving us your back? They
don't never say that about airline pilots, by the way,
you know, train conductors. But no, there's a revival because
(28:43):
you know, everybody wants to know what am I supposed
to do on planet Earth before I die in order
to be happy forever. And they're not satisfied with the
n answer, which says, whatever you find important, that's important. No,
whatever God finds important. And certainly the tradition Latin mask
conveyed that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, there's a tug of war. And I think ultimately
the lady you are going to have to settle this question.
I don't think it's going to be the clergy with
apologies father, We'll see yeah. In Charlotte, North Carolina, this
Bishop Michael Martin, we've talked about him in the past.
This week he rejected the pleas to hold off stopping
the Latin Mass. He put a ban in place. At
(29:24):
the top of October. There will be only one mass celebrated.
All the people of the diocese will have to travel
to this one locale, not a church. It's a former
Protestant chapel they're renovating. He also has banned in school settings,
and I guess in every parish forbidden kneeling and the
use of aultra rails that committ.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
And he has no authority to do that. I'm a
canon lawyer. You cannot forbid what the Roman liturgy permits.
There is no prohibition in the missile from receiving communion
kneeling none. Yeah, yeah, and yet absolutely not. Why this
hostility to kneeling down?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
This ques Why would you attack the most vibrant, faithful
part of your church, particularly when you've got young people,
beautiful families, young guys coming in. Why do you want
to smack them down?
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Well?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I think that there where it's sincere, and we don't
always know that it is sincere.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Sometimes it's just a kind.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Of a resentment of memories that people have about the past.
They seem to think that somehow it would be a throwback,
and people wouldn't be you know, they wouldn't be prepared
than to engage the world that they're in.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
But we already are engaging.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I mean, lay people in particular are engaging the world
day after day and try and struggling in that world
and So if you want to think about what was
what does the Latin Mass do the traditional Latin Mass, Well,
Benedict the sixteenth allowed it frequently. Just any priests who
want to do it could say it. He said, because
(30:54):
we needed mutual enrichment. And what he meant by that
was the the part of the Church showed in its
liturgy before Vatican two and part of the Church that
shows up in the liturgy after Vatican two can have
a lot to say to one. And I'm not being
flipped when I say this, but the mere fact of
(31:15):
the matter is, and young people recognize this, an awful
lot of the Church existed prior to Vatican two.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Imagine that.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Okay, I got to end on a funny note. Father,
you said, I think you sent this bit of video,
and it is. We're going to play it for people.
This is a group of dancing Filipino seminarians. God help us.
They're dancing to the official theme song of the implementation
of the Senate on Cinnadelite Father the official Sinadyl website,
(31:48):
the Vatican Snadyl Office. On their website, they say this
is spirit filled choreography. Do we need more boy bands
in seminar.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You know, if you want popping dance, go to Pop
and John on YouTube. I mean, there are a lot
of very creative dancers. You can be very entertained by
priests and seminarians. I'm not supposed to be dancing. This
is ridiculous. This is turning religion precisely into spectacle. The
goal here is to say people, we're not old fuddy duddies.
You know, and where people are. If you want to
(32:21):
see good dancing, go to a dance contest, don't go
to a seminary. Because I watched the video, they're okay,
they're not really great.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I mentioned Pop and John. This guy's a pro. That's
what's fun watching dancing. Look, you know Jackie Gleeson always
had the dancers on. It was always part of the
show and everybody liked it.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
The June Taylor dance.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, Cardinals Felman, Yeah, Cardinals Felman did not have dancing
in Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yea. And for her reason, yeah, well, Bob wanted us
to be a boy man. I told you nobody, No,
we're not doing the choreography. I'll give you the last
word on this important topic. Book of Dancing seminarians. Do
we need more.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
No, I mean if you have, if you haven't seen
this video, it really is worth it really is worth seeing.
And when you realize look, during that we were all
over for the Senate on Youth, and so little happened
in the Senate on Youth that the idea of citidelity
was proposed out of the clear blue at the end
(33:19):
of the Senate on you you just have something further
to go with. But what I remember was just how
great those kids were. Those young people were who came
over to Rome and at sort of the final event,
there was dancing, there was music being played and whatnot.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
But it didn't solve what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
There were any number of them who were interviewed that say,
we want the church to tell us what we should
be doing, to give us some guidance in our lives.
They can already do, you know, the dancing and the
karaoke on their own time.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
We call this me too wisdom. You know basically, you
like this me too, You want to do that met
me too. That's not what we are.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
There's got to be some adult in the room. We say, okay,
you want to know what it's like to live a.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Meaningful, deep life. It's also fun. You know.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
At other times the church has something to tell you
about that, and we're here to do that.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
All right, Kate, that sounds like a note to end on.
We want to thank the posse. Thank you all for
having us here in Scottsdale, and we want to thank you. Look,
if you want to subscribe to the Payful Posse, go
to a Royal Grande show, either on the podcasts or
the YouTube channel, and until next time, follow the light,
(34:33):
stay in the light, stay the course. Thank you Posse.
We'll see you next time. Fine, Thank you. A Royal
Grande is produced in partnership with Divine Providence Studios and
iHeart Podcasts. It's available on the iHeartRadio, Apple, wherever you
get your podcasts. Book a spook Ass
A new pair of young saints are about to be
canonized in Rome, just as the LGBT Jubilee arrives The
Prayerful Posse. We'll get into all of it on this
edition of The Prayerful Passe. Welcome to this very special,
(00:24):
live Prayerful Posse. We're in what I call the Scottsdale
Posse Saloon. I love this place, and some of our
friends here have gathered to be with us, and of
course I'm joined by the Prayerful Posse. Father Gerald Murray,
a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, canon lawyer
and Robert Royal, editor in chief of the Catholic Thing
dot Org. Welcome them, please, okay Jans. Before we get
(00:50):
to Father James Martin's papal visit, which I'm going to
get to in a moment, I've got to talk about
that heartbreaking attack in Minneapolis. We saw where that shooter
shot through a church killed those poor children, Pope Leo
said the following this week. He said, our prayers for
the victims of the tragic shooting during a school mass
(01:10):
in the American state of Minnesota. Go up to the Lord.
Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms
large and small, which infects our world. Father, then Bob,
your thoughts, I mean, naturally the pope is going to
offer prayers for the victims. Your thoughts on that shout
out to the pandemic of arms. What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, I guess it's making an analogy between COVID and
I were saying that descends upon his society, and then you know,
uproots everything. I think there's a pandemic of mentally ill
people not being taken care of in the United States,
and this man, given his history, I should have had
some markers against him not to be able to buy weapons.
So you know, that's there's more to the story than
(01:53):
simple you can buy a weapon. The question is who's
buying them, why they're being allowed to?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, if you want to, Yeah, I mean I think
I don't know if he was directly addressing what we
call gun control, because that obviously is a policy question.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
It's not a moral question.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
But to call for gun control in a country like
the United States, where the estimate is there's probably five
hundred million guns and all sorts of ways for people
to acquire them. In I know in Arizona, you probably
don't need any instruction about that. It raises the question
of what do you do about these things? And there
are two things you can do. You can decide that
(02:30):
you're going to live in a society without guns, but
you can also live in a society that tries to
protect people. I've actually said to my own pastor that
after we had a little incident one time at mass,
that we have a lot of ex military retired policemen
in the Washington, DC area, and unfortunately, I think at
least for churches, that's something that now is going to
(02:51):
have to be part of everyone's active sense of what
safety is going to be like, even in church.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
But look, it's not bad to say.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
We don't want a tidal wave of weapons being used
against one another. But I think we also want to
have a certain a certain prudence about how we think
about issues in an event like this particular.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Well, and talking about prudence, a week after this transhooter
shot these children, the Pope meets with Father James Martin,
and later this week there is a jubilee and LGBT jubilee,
but he met with Father Martin and this is for
a half hour. It was announced in the official Vatican Bulletin.
Here's what Martin said after the meeting. He said, I
(03:35):
was honored and grateful to meet with the Holy Father
this morning in an audience in the Apostolic Palace and
heard the same message I heard from Pope Francis on
LGBT people, which is one of openness and welcome, Totos,
totos todos. I found the Pope serene, joyful and encouraging. Father.
As I mentioned. This was officially in the Bulletino of
(03:58):
the Vatican the official Daily Press release. Photos were released
and James Martin says that the Pope told him to
continue his work as advocacy for transgender people.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Your thoughts on this, well, this reveals part of the
problem with Father Martin's approach. By using the abbreviations, he's
affirming that God created bisexual people, transsexual people, and the
other whatever the other letters stand for. In other words,
he's creating categories of humanity given God given characteristics that
they're supposed to fulfill. The Caature doesn't believe there's any
(04:31):
such thing as a transgender transsexual person. You can't go
from being a male to a female. Pope Leo did
not endorse that neither did Pope Francis, by the way
he criticized transgender and even though sometimes he made comments
that were a little bit strange. But as regards this meeting,
Pope Leo, by granting the audience and then not commenting
(04:53):
afterwards about about Father Martin's remarks, leaves the impression that
with Father Martin says, Pope Leo has no objection.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
To bob Let's talk about that. I mean, when I
first read these comments, I thought Martin's playing a very
savvy political game here, because he's getting in front of
the narrative and kind of boxing Pope Leo in trying
to get him to speak without speaking. But just to
give you an idea. And look, I heard many people
this week say don't rush to conclusions. I had a
(05:23):
bishop tell me, don't rush to conclusions. The Vatican will
correct the record. Well, the Pope met with the Israeli
President Isa Hertzog this week. He claimed that the Pope
had invited him to a papal audience. Well, it turns
out within moments the Vatican Press released this statement that
the Holy See's practice is to accede to request for
(05:45):
an audience with the Pope, made from governments and heads
of state. It is not the practice to extend invitations
to them, so they can respond pretty quickly. My question is,
why hasn't the Holy See said anything about the James Martin.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
This might take us into some dark places.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well you have another thing.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, Look, there have been some efforts to say that
this isn't quite a full throated endorsement of Father James
Martin by Pope Leo. For example, one of the things
that was very odd about when Father Martin came out
was he said that, oh, the Pope also has a
lot of things on his plate. He's got Gaza, he's
(06:28):
got Ukraine, he's got myanamar and so he's not going
to be able to meet with the LGBT group on Saturday.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
I think it is on the sixth week. Well, you know,
a pope is a pope.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
He can do what he wants, and if he really
thought that it was important to meet.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
With his group, think could make a few minutes to
do this.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
So to me, there's a little bit more distance in
there than Father Martin was willing to admit. But that said,
I agree entirely. It would be very easy to set
a lot of our minds at ease. If somebody would
just come out and say, yeah, we meet with everyone
as Catholics, we welcome everyone into the church. And that's
(07:06):
what we mean by toto's totos totos. But it's under
the aegis of what the Catholic Church teaches, because what
the Catholic Church teaches, it believes it is received from
Jesus and from God himself. So if that were the
framing of Father Martin being encouraged to so called outreach
and listen to kays, I guess we could actually live
(07:29):
with that.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
But we didn't get that.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You're que well again, the silence tells its own tale.
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
By the way, if the president of Israel asked for
an invitation and was extended invitation, then he has been invited.
He didn't just show up and force his way in
this kind of you know, dancing around obviously has some
purpose to kind of separate the Pope from these Israeli
president as if he's not the object of you know,
(07:55):
he is an object of an invitation. I'm unsatisfied by that.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Excellent make I mean, there are some saying, look, this
is a confirmation of where Pope Francis was headed. You
saw all the headlines. I mean, James Martin is brilliant
at kind of getting the press. He went to the AP,
he walked out to Reuter's. If you look at the
photo in the AP story beneath it, it says AP photographer.
So this is all coordinated. This didn't just happen, And
(08:19):
of course then that goes to every paper in the
country and news outlet. But the narrative is Pope Francis's
legacy continues, and you know, we saw the blessing of
gay couples and more on the horizon. That is what
Martin said. He wants to get the church in a
position of advocacy. And I just wondered the week of
this slaying, it's in Minneapolis. It's an odd note to strike.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yeah, the advocacy that he was talking about was about
places where homosexuality will get you the death penalty, and
that's sort of the first level of what he's had.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
But it's clear that what Father Martin.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Has been doing, he's got these great phrases, he knows
how to how to talk to the media, and the
media of course want to hear what he has to say.
He's been saying for a long time that he never
advocates anything against the teachings of the Church, which I'm
going to just say openly is a lie, not true,
because he's the phrase that he's used over and over again.
(09:21):
You go to the Catechism, the Catechism says that same
sex attraction is intrinsically disordered.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
No, no, no sex acts X the attraction the acts.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, all right, yeah, we could talk about that a
little bit later. But Father Martin has come along and said, no, no, no,
this is it's hurtful. It's hurtful that the Catechism has
this phrase. What was really the case is that people
of various permutations of their sexuality are differently ordered.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Are they differently ordered than what?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
They're differently ordered than what God ordered us to be?
Male and female. One of the interesting dramas I think
is going to play out is we know that Leo
said several years ago that the Church has to stop
talking about genders that don't exist, and what does that mean?
Male and femalely creative? After that, it's all.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, fantasy.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Father Martin has said this, and he's talking about here
the church teaching on sexuality, gender variations. Quote for teaching
to be truly authoritative, it must be accepted by the
people of God, by the faithful. The teaching that LGBT
people must be celibate their entire lives has not been received.
(10:40):
End quote. Now look your reaction to that. Let's start.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Okay, that's false. The teaching of a council is the
truth when it's promulgated by the council and confirmed by
the Pope. The truth does not depend on popular acceptance.
This is a Protestant principle that he is enunciating because
in Protestant I have a judgment is at the basis
of their interpretation of scripture. Each person is enlightened by
the Holy Spirit to determine the meaning of the scriptures.
(11:07):
That's why they're not that upset while there are all
these different groups with diverging opinions, because their fundamental principle
in the Catholic Church, the teaching authority receives revelation, interprets it,
and presents it in dogmatic formulations so that people can
easily know and believe what they have to believe in
order to be in union with God. So no, this
(11:29):
is the principle of Father Martin is enunciating is unless
you are happy with what you're hearing, it's not true. Well,
I mean that's that is relativism. One oh one.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, imagine a husband walking in and say, honey, I
never received this monogamy thing. My girlfriends will be helping
you with cooking. I mean, this would work. No one
would buy this. But it is odd that he's trying
that the receiver suddenly is the creator of the dogma
and not the other way around.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, that's the church. That's a democratic principle. I just
state Abrahm Lincoln said the country runs in public opinion
because public opinion is heard at every election. There are
no elections in the Catholic Church that DESI what we
believe in.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yeah, we don't hear that phrase.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
That same phrase used when it comes with the traditional
Latin Mass, because the are large spots of people who
haven't received the teaching of the reason two popes that
that traditional Latin Mass, which is attracting all sorts of people, people,
young people in particular. I was just telling a posse
as we were driving over here that I read just
(12:31):
today that King Charles went to Birmingham for a Cardinal
Newman sat John Henry Newman event, and he was surprised,
he said, at how diverse the traditional Latin Mass that
was celebrated was That was the thing that most struck him.
Not the holiness, not the fidelity, not the beauty, not
(12:52):
the enthusiasm, but the diversity.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
So we use we're using, you know, we're using.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Political terms to decide whether some one thing is good
in the religious realm, and that, frankly, is a disaster.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Well, look at this point, I think some of these
poor people in Charlotte, in Detroit, they would take the
they would take the diversity argument if that would keep
the mask going. It's and we're going to get to
that purge in a little bit. I want to talk
about another official meeting. It wasn't mentioned in the Vatican
press release, It wasn't mentioned to the press, but the
(13:25):
meeting took place.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
We have the picture.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
It was Poblio meeting with a notoriously pro abortion, progay
marriage sister Lucia Karum at the Vatican this week. Now, now,
Karen was a close friend to Pope Francis. It's not
known why her audience was left out of the bulletino,
but nonetheless they met. Why do you think that omission took.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Place, well, perhaps to avoid criticism, you know, from people
who know what she stands for. I mean, imagine this
a woman who believes that homoseexu should marry, you know,
basically saying marriage equals to people of same sex getting
the other and engaging in sexual activity. For her, that's
something holy. She believes in the ordination of women, which
the Catholic Church says is impossible. Why is a person
(14:09):
like that being given the privilege of meeting with the pope? Well,
because she was a friend of Pope Francis and I'm
sure like to you know, Israeli president, she said, can
I come in and see you? So they squeezed her in.
But at a certain point this is sort of like
it's like tea leaves. I mean, is the pontificate being
run by knowing what the guest list is that the
I mean, the principle of job of the Pope is
(14:32):
to confirm the brethren in the truths of the faith,
and that is not accomplished when heretics and people who
reject the moral teaching given an entree. And then, as
Bob says, why aren't the Latin mass people being invited
in so that they can express in their great diversity
by the way of all races and nations. Why the
(14:53):
Latin mass is so value with it? That's not happening.
This is a mistake that you've got to break out of.
Pope Francis largely ran His pontificate is a press conference.
The press conference way of talking to people. This should
not continue.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well, what's happening, and maybe Pablio will become wise to
it as he watches it play out. The mere meeting,
the advertised meetings become a version of teaching. He's savvy enough, though,
he's going to catch wise. If he's being done wrong,
he'll catch wise. If this continues, well, then we're in
a different pontificate, moving in a different way. I want
(15:27):
to talk about this. Bishop Francesco Salvino, who's the vice
president of the Italian Bishop's Conference. He will be celebrating
a Mass on Saturday on September sixth at the Jazu
in Rome for an LGBT Jubilee pilgrimage. He has said
that every person, everyone, every homosexual person too, has a
(15:49):
right to the euchers and in the heart of the Gospel,
no one has excluded, Bob, what of this jubilee for
LGBT people, And do you worry about identifying a group
of Atholics as LGBT.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yes, absolutely, And we know that inside this you know,
there's in university circles, there's this thing that is called intersectionality,
in which it's assumed that lesbians and gays, and trands,
and even Native Americans and other marginal groups, they're all
(16:24):
somehow on the same team. I often like to say
that if we went back to the Native Americans of
your they would be on the team of the NFL,
rather than on a team of the Trands. So there's
an attempt to put these these groups together for political reasons,
and so I think you're right to raise the question
why identify that as a specific group, and particularly why
(16:45):
identify it when when when the activity that those people
carry out is sinful. We don't have a group for robbers,
we don't have a group for housebreakers, we don't have
a group for adulterers. What this is is this is
a concer session to a political organization. I like to
say quite often that I think the biggest mistake that
(17:06):
Francis had made during his papacy was to.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Confuse his proper.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Feelings to be welcoming toward individuals, and not to be
sufficiently attentive to the ways that activists in these groups
are just relentless.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
You know, you can meet.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
With someone who's troubled. The famous phrase that when he
said who am I to judge? He was talking about
a person that he John Rica Batisa Batistatista Rica. He
was talking about a person who we thought was trying
to work toward God. He wasn't making a general statement,
but of course that's how the world took it, and
(17:44):
that's why popes need to be very careful about what
they say. But look, it's very important to say persons,
we welcome persons. Once you start to let activists get
their nose under the tent, you're dealing with a very
different end.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
We've talked about Father James and Martin.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I'm sure all of you remember that when those same
sex blessings were permitted, they were not supposed to be public,
they were not supposed to be organized. But in the
New York Times of basically a day or two later,
Father James and Martin was blessing a couple of young men.
I don't think either of them was even Catholic. And
(18:22):
so this is what happened once political activism starts to
tint what the churches.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Do and father talk about. I mean the reality is, look,
I lived in New York, I live in New Orleans.
Gay people are welcome in the Catholic Church. Any sinners
that welcome in the Catholic Church as well. Why underline
it in this way? And I would argue separate somehow,
separate people by their sin. So I mean, as Bob said,
(18:50):
is there going to be an adulter's jubilee? I mean
this is I don't like the carving up of Catholics
in any way.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Well, because these people don't believe it's a sin. They
don't think sod I mean, is sinful. They think it's
what these people are meant to do. And that is
not welcoming them, if anything, is welcoming them on the
road to hell, because mortal sin, the penalty for that
is eternal death. If you don't accept that, you're not
a Catholic. So for Father Martin and others to say,
as this Bishop Savino that everyone's welcome received eucrative. If
(19:20):
you're engaged in sodomy with someone, you're not allowed to
receive community. You make a good confession and renounce that behavior.
So I'm always the welcoming thing. What does the Catholic
Church exist for? Is it a social society to confirm
people that God wants them to be happy? No, it's
a pilgrim people on journey toward Heaven, tempted by the
(19:43):
devil in their own weakness, and they need strength in
order to avoid sin. When the shepherd gives these uncertain
signals like this bishop and says everybody's welcome to the euchers,
he's telling people that have been told their whole life
you can't receive community. Now you can. That's a big difference.
He shouldn't do that, The Vaticans shouldn't allow him to
do that. This is why I'm concerned about the Pontificate
(20:06):
where it's going, because Catholic doctrine about homosexuality needs to
be defended when there's a wave of pro homosexual activity
going on. But it's not. We're getting that from people
like Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Sarah. We need it from
Pope Leo. Bob said back in twenty twelve, he said
there's a pressure group to promote this kind of lifestyle.
(20:27):
We need more teaching on this.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I want to talk about. We've seen a rash of
church attacks, hundreds of them in the United States in churches.
Here this week in Orange County, California, sat Michael's Abbey.
We know it, We've been there. This guy drives up.
He drove from Birmingham, Alabama. His name is Michael Richard
(20:49):
Joshua Michael Richardson drives from Birmingham, Alabama. High capacity magazines,
body armor, various weapons, knives. Thank god, the members of
the abbey saw him, called the cops and they stopped him.
Why are we seeing these crazed people. This guy said
he was the angel of death. He was there to
(21:10):
carry out God's will. Why are we seeing these crazed
people focus on and target Catholic churches in particular.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Well, my short answer for this is that it's because
the church is really the only institution in our postmodern
society that has the heft and the presence to stand.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Up to everything that's going wrong. In other words, to
stand up to the devil.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
The devil is the one who tempts us to all
these evils that were experiencing.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I just wrote a book.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I've actually written two books about modern martyrdom, one about
the twentieth century martyrs and another about the twenty first
century martyrs. We were supposed to give a copy to
Pope Francis, but he died before we were able to
get into him.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And I was.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Shocked because in Europe as well as here in the
United States, there has been an enormous bump up of
anti Christian, mostly anti Catholic attacks. Arson's vandalism, just desecrating altars,
all sorts of things like this. I was just telling
that the guy's coming over here. In Viterbo in Italy,
(22:14):
the police just stopped two Muslims. Now there's this, there's
this anti Christian I would say post Christian demonism that
we're dealing with in the West, but there's also a
Muslim element that we need to be careful above. France
loses two religious buildings a month, usually to Arson. This
(22:34):
case up in Viterable in Italy, two Muslim terrorists had
stationed themselves with high powered weapons and they were about
to attack a group of forty thousand Catholks who had
assembled for the Feast.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Of Saint Rose in that city.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Fortunately, the police got a tip off and we're able
to stop it. But this is coming in our societies
and we need to be vigilant.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
It creeps in.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
You see this in England and France and in Germany.
It creeps in with you know, kind of just incremental
criticism of Catholicism in the church is preaching hate and
all these different things. But then it begins to take
hold in a much more serious way. And so one
of the things I always I have old chapter about
this in my newer book. One of the things I
(23:19):
emphasized there about our current situation is that's a reality
that's likely to grow unless we respond to it forcefully.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah, and it needs forceful response. I'm so depressed by
all this news. I need some happy news, so I'm
going to bring you some this weekend. Pope Leo is
about to canonize the first millennial saint, Carlo Acutis, and
then another young man, Georgio Rosati. My question is, Father,
(23:49):
first of all, why do we still need saints? I
get a lot of non Catholics ask, but why why
are you always making these new saints? Why do we
need new saints? And then Bob and the importance of
these two young men as saints.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Well, the Holy Spirit makes the saints will say that,
and when we cooperate with the grace of God, then
it becomes evident. In fact, saints are like poster children
for what it means to be a son or daughter
of God. And they you know, Pierre Giorgio Forsati Forens
came from a wealthy family, but he was so dedicated
to charity, you know, hidden he would give visits to
the sick and the poor. He also defended Catholicism against
(24:26):
anti clerical forces. He died young. At his funeral, all
these people showed up, poor people, people from all over
in Milan. He was a great model and example. And
Carlo Kudis, of course, was put together a website about
eucharistic miracles. And you know the reason we need saints
is because we're sinners, you know, we need to be inspired.
(24:48):
I you know, I look how you mentioned Cardinal Newman.
You know, John Henry Newman was you know canonized what
it was it ten years ago and you know he's
in this is one of the most intellectually astute people
ever to live in England. He has worldwide influence because
of his writings, but also because of his fidelity to God.
He realized the Catholic Church of the true Church, and
(25:09):
he left the church where he was the leading intellect.
So this is why we need things. They point us
in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
And I like that Fissante fought the communists and the fascists,
which nobody talks about, but he did that in turn.
He died at twenty four. Yes, yeah, amazing, what an
amazing life. And I do think these models of holiness
that look different from different areas of the world, that
is compelling, and that's another reason we need.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
You know, the second Martyrs book that I just mentioned
that I wrote for the Jubilee year that we were
going to give to pou francis one of the things
that I was struck by writing the first book about
martyrs is a woman got up at one of my
lectures and said, weren't you depressed reading about all those
people being you know, hacked to death, shot, hung burned,
(25:55):
you know. And I looked at her and I said,
you know, it never crossed my mind. I'd never spent
so much concentrated time with such heroic and holy people.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
And if you're looking.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
For why it is that all of us placed in
the right circumstances can stand up to whatever challenges as Christians,
as Catholics are facing us.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
You look at the martyrs.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
This has always been the case since the very beginning
of the church. People who are willing to give up
their lives for the faith. That's a weakness that transcends
all the negativity that we find in the world. And
so I think of at least of the martyr parts
of this, and then even the non martyrs. You need
torches in the night, and we're in the night a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
In our societies. All of us struggle with sins in
our own lives.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
But you look to some of these figures and you
say to yourself, man, it can be done, and maybe
I can do it too.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, And talking about torches in the darkness, there is this,
and we've been reporting on this week after week. There
is a rise, a quiet growth of traditional faith. You
see it in the young, You see it in young men,
particularly in all the demographics. Cardinal Raymond Burke Cardinal Robert
Sarah are promoting a revival of First Saturday devotions. Also,
(27:15):
Bishop Earl Fernandez of the Diocese of Cincinnati said the
following there was nothing ideological about the traditional Latin Mass.
We wanted to offer the Mass to meet the pastoral
need of the people. It's a beautiful part of the
church's tradition. Father, are we seeing sprouts of vibrant traditional
faith emerging or is that just on the margin.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Oh, it's very much present. You know. I look at
the different groups that I'm aware of in this country,
some of them centered around traditional Catholic college of like Christendom, Commas,
Aquinas and some other wonderful places. The Latin Mass parish is,
you know, we have them in New York. Young people
are attracted by authenticity and and what is different than
(28:01):
what the secular world offers. And you know, if you
go to the Latin Mass. I'm sure many of the
people in the audience have done that, but if you haven't,
you go to it. The spirit is God centered, you know,
Cardinal Sarah said, you want to reform the church face east,
you know, celebrate Mass toward east. There's a whole Christian
tradition that the Mass is celebrated facing east because Christ
(28:22):
will return to the world. That the second Coming in
the East. So we're looking forward to the return, the
second Coming of Christ. Now, if it's sad to say.
In the average parish, if you turn the altar around,
people say, why are you giving us your back? They
don't never say that about airline pilots, by the way,
you know, train conductors. But no, there's a revival because
(28:43):
you know, everybody wants to know what am I supposed
to do on planet Earth before I die in order
to be happy forever. And they're not satisfied with the
n answer, which says, whatever you find important, that's important. No,
whatever God finds important. And certainly the tradition Latin mask
conveyed that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, there's a tug of war. And I think ultimately
the lady you are going to have to settle this question.
I don't think it's going to be the clergy with
apologies father, We'll see yeah. In Charlotte, North Carolina, this
Bishop Michael Martin, we've talked about him in the past.
This week he rejected the pleas to hold off stopping
the Latin Mass. He put a ban in place. At
(29:24):
the top of October. There will be only one mass celebrated.
All the people of the diocese will have to travel
to this one locale, not a church. It's a former
Protestant chapel they're renovating. He also has banned in school settings,
and I guess in every parish forbidden kneeling and the
use of aultra rails that committ.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
And he has no authority to do that. I'm a
canon lawyer. You cannot forbid what the Roman liturgy permits.
There is no prohibition in the missile from receiving communion
kneeling none. Yeah, yeah, and yet absolutely not. Why this
hostility to kneeling down?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
This ques Why would you attack the most vibrant, faithful
part of your church, particularly when you've got young people,
beautiful families, young guys coming in. Why do you want
to smack them down?
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Well?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I think that there where it's sincere, and we don't
always know that it is sincere.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Sometimes it's just a kind.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Of a resentment of memories that people have about the past.
They seem to think that somehow it would be a throwback,
and people wouldn't be you know, they wouldn't be prepared
than to engage the world that they're in.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
But we already are engaging.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I mean, lay people in particular are engaging the world
day after day and try and struggling in that world
and So if you want to think about what was
what does the Latin Mass do the traditional Latin Mass, Well,
Benedict the sixteenth allowed it frequently. Just any priests who
want to do it could say it. He said, because
(30:54):
we needed mutual enrichment. And what he meant by that
was the the part of the Church showed in its
liturgy before Vatican two and part of the Church that
shows up in the liturgy after Vatican two can have
a lot to say to one. And I'm not being
flipped when I say this, but the mere fact of
(31:15):
the matter is, and young people recognize this, an awful
lot of the Church existed prior to Vatican two.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Imagine that.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Okay, I got to end on a funny note. Father,
you said, I think you sent this bit of video,
and it is. We're going to play it for people.
This is a group of dancing Filipino seminarians. God help us.
They're dancing to the official theme song of the implementation
of the Senate on Cinnadelite Father the official Sinadyl website,
(31:48):
the Vatican Snadyl Office. On their website, they say this
is spirit filled choreography. Do we need more boy bands
in seminar.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You know, if you want popping dance, go to Pop
and John on YouTube. I mean, there are a lot
of very creative dancers. You can be very entertained by
priests and seminarians. I'm not supposed to be dancing. This
is ridiculous. This is turning religion precisely into spectacle. The
goal here is to say people, we're not old fuddy duddies.
You know, and where people are. If you want to
(32:21):
see good dancing, go to a dance contest, don't go
to a seminary. Because I watched the video, they're okay,
they're not really great.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I mentioned Pop and John. This guy's a pro. That's
what's fun watching dancing. Look, you know Jackie Gleeson always
had the dancers on. It was always part of the
show and everybody liked it.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
The June Taylor dance.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, Cardinals Felman, Yeah, Cardinals Felman did not have dancing
in Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yea. And for her reason, yeah, well, Bob wanted us
to be a boy man. I told you nobody, No,
we're not doing the choreography. I'll give you the last
word on this important topic. Book of Dancing seminarians. Do
we need more.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
No, I mean if you have, if you haven't seen
this video, it really is worth it really is worth seeing.
And when you realize look, during that we were all
over for the Senate on Youth, and so little happened
in the Senate on Youth that the idea of citidelity
was proposed out of the clear blue at the end
(33:19):
of the Senate on you you just have something further
to go with. But what I remember was just how
great those kids were. Those young people were who came
over to Rome and at sort of the final event,
there was dancing, there was music being played and whatnot.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
But it didn't solve what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
There were any number of them who were interviewed that say,
we want the church to tell us what we should
be doing, to give us some guidance in our lives.
They can already do, you know, the dancing and the
karaoke on their own time.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
We call this me too wisdom. You know basically, you
like this me too, You want to do that met
me too. That's not what we are.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
There's got to be some adult in the room. We say, okay,
you want to know what it's like to live a.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Meaningful, deep life. It's also fun. You know.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
At other times the church has something to tell you
about that, and we're here to do that.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
All right, Kate, that sounds like a note to end on.
We want to thank the posse. Thank you all for
having us here in Scottsdale, and we want to thank you. Look,
if you want to subscribe to the Payful Posse, go
to a Royal Grande show, either on the podcasts or
the YouTube channel, and until next time, follow the light,
(34:33):
stay in the light, stay the course. Thank you Posse.
We'll see you next time. Fine, Thank you. A Royal
Grande is produced in partnership with Divine Providence Studios and
iHeart Podcasts. It's available on the iHeartRadio, Apple, wherever you
get your podcasts. Book a spook Ass
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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