April 21, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time time, time, Luck and load. The
Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The Democrats were heading to El Salvador to try to
bring back an MS thirteen gang member. That tells you
everything you need to know about where they are as
a party. Of course, Kamala Harris was their nominee and
Joe Biden before it. We're going to discuss that and
(00:45):
a number of other things today, but we start with
major international news. Pope Francis has passed at eighty eight
years old. The Catholic Church, you are Catholic or not,
is worthy of discussion because it is a very powerful
(01:06):
influence across the globe in many many ways. And the
passing of this Pope is momentous because he was a
very very political pope, or perhaps other popes have been political,
but not against my values. I am not Catholic. I'm
(01:30):
Southern Baptist, and I make jokes about Catholics, and seemingly
every one of my friends is a Catholic, and it's
an acquired taste to get the humor behind my Catholic jokes.
And so I don't tell as many on the error
as I would like to, but I get as well
as I give. My friends also make Southern Baptist jokes,
(01:51):
which I find to be hilarious. But then again, I
have what's known as a sense of humor. I have
a sense of hearing, a sense of taste, a sense
of smell, a sense of sight, and yes, I have
a sense of humor. A lot of people don't. Humorlessness
is one of the worst traits people who take themselves
(02:12):
too seriously. I went through this morning the rituals behind
a passing of the Pope, the whispering three times into
his ear.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
When he does not respond and he is pronounced.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Dead, the fisherman's ring, which is the official signet ring
with which he stamps documents, is destroyed to represent that
the Pope and his authority have passed the taking over
of the power by what is effectively a charged to affairs.
The State Department will have that when an ambassador steps down,
(02:49):
and State Department's Charge to Affairs will take over the
ministerial duties. But in the meantime nothing of note is
supposed to happen until the conclave.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Between I think eleven and twenty days.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The rituals are interesting enough, and particularly I suppose if
you're Catholic, and the smoke and all of that, and
there will be time for that. But this is a
unique moment that I think is worthy of a conversation
about the direction of the Catholic Church politically, morally, culturally,
(03:28):
and I would like to have that conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Now. Let's begin with.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
A piece that I saw written by Francis Rocca in
the Free Press today. The headline, which he may not
have written. Often the author the journalist doesn't write their
own headlines, but I don't know, was entitled the Passion
of Pope Francis. There's a striking symmetry in the timing
of Francis's death. The most influential figure of the global
(03:56):
left departs just as right wing populism rises around the world.
And Francis Rocca wrote, some Catholics are doubtless mourning less
deeply than others today, yet at the most iconic Pope
Francis could be a unifying, solitary presence.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I would argue that was not true. I would argue
he was very divisive.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And I would argue that he was outside the value
system of the Catholics that I know, and I don't
just mean politically conservative Catholics. I think that his politics
were very globalist and very leftist, and I think they
were very divisive for the laity and the clergy. And
(04:44):
we'll get to that in just a moment. Our guest
is David Devil, the chairman of the theology department at
the University of Saint Thomas, a fine institution of higher
learning in Houston. Professor Devill, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Thank you for having me Michael for a moment.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
We'll come back to that in a week or so.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
With the rituals around the passing of a pope and
his replacement, and let's talk about Pope Francis and his
political views no less than the He was Argentine, obviously
from from whence he was elevated. Javier Milay, the leader
of Argentina, called him an imbecile and a communist turd.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
He was no fan.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Let's just say I think one of the only visits
to the Vatican he made was upon the canonization of
an Argentine saint. But this Pope, Pope Francis, as he
came to be known, was, I would argue, very politically divisive.
Was he more political than past popes or was it
(05:49):
just that the politics he chose were very offensive to me.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, all popes are going to be political, you know,
the modern conception of a pope as well as you
know the ancient of the medieval one was that the
pope did have a kind of an authority, maybe not
over at the government, although some popes asserted that, but
they had a political authority, and all of them are
(06:16):
going to have an agenda, John Paul, the Seconds was
largely one that was about freedom against the communist East.
Benedicts was all the similar. But I think Francis was
no less maybe no more political in a certain way,
(06:36):
but he leaned, as you suggested, more toward a kind
of a globalist conception. He invited people like Jeffrey Sachs
to the Vatican, He praised figures who were involved in,
you know, the abortion industry at times, and so it
made it look very much as though he was taking
(06:57):
aside that most Catholics did and think was probably a
good idea, and many other people didn't think was a
good idea.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So you write on Catholicism, you teach on Catholicism, you
are Catholic. I'm curious to know your thoughts and I've
got about forty five seconds in this segment, so we'll
get to it deeper. In short, what percentage of Catholics
do you think disagreed with the pope on his very
(07:30):
what I would call leftward leaning positions public positions.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, I mean, the church is over a billion people,
so it's kind of hard to assess that. But one
way of thinking about it is, you know, under John
Paul the second and Benedict the sixteenth, the two previous popes,
thousands and thousands of people would come to the Vatican
in order to listen to him give addresses every Wednesday
(07:57):
at noon after the angelous prayer. Those numbers cratered shortly
after Francis took office.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Voting.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We hold just a moment, Hold just a Professor David Devill,
the chairman of the theology department at the University of
Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas, is our guest coming.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Up the Michael Berry Show, Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Sorry to assert supremacy here, but we have the prettiest
hymns in the Southern Baptist Church. But I'll give you
ave Maria, Professor, that's that one's solid. Professor David Devil
is the chairman of theology department at the University of
Saint Thomas, a fine institution in Houston, Texas. So let's
(08:54):
take some of the views that Pope Francis, who has
passed publicly professed that, I think, if nothing else were
different than past popes, seemingly LGBTQ issues in your understanding,
What was his view or what did he profess on that?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Well, he tried to draw a line between judging the
actions and judging the person, but unfortunately, in many of
the ways that he spoke there was a certain ambiguity,
and in many of the people that he promoted, such
as the American Jesuit James Martin, who was very pro LGBTQ,
(09:42):
it gave the impression that, well, he was kind of
drawing a doctrinal line, but in practice he was going
to let things go. So that's that's a difficulty. What
he said often could be defended, but it made you
have to really work and sometime tie up some of
his words and knots to make it work.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, and you wonder, Well, let's go to the issue
where he really drew my ire, and that is the
issue of illegal immigration. He was very, very loud and
outspoken against America's ability to preserve our borders. And this
is a man who lived behind a wall. And I've
(10:29):
found that very hypocritical, and I'm curious to know why
you think he felt the need to do that. My
guess is there's a huge growth opportunity and a major
constituency in Latin American countries and that is the primary source,
not the sole source, but the or exclusive source, but
the primary source of illegal immigration.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So it was almost pandering in that sense.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, it could have been. I think in many ways,
he had, you know, sort of decent ideas that were
often unguarded by any sort of rigorous thought. If you
read the Catholic Catechism, there is a duty to accept
refugees and people who have great need, but there's also
(11:16):
a duty of a country to judge about whether they
can handle that many immigrants. In many cases, when he
would speak about this, he would speak about the duty
and about charity and all of this kind of thing,
but not speak about the others. Now why he did that,
I don't know. I mean, many people thought it was
(11:37):
just a kind of sentimentality or a one sidedness in
his thought.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Professor David Devil is our guest. He is a writer, scholar, writer,
professor on Catholicism. He's a chairman of Theology Department of
University of Saint Thomas and Houston, professor.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Let me move to this next issue.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And that is the movement of people across borders. Whereas
our primary problem in the United States is illegal immigration,
much of it originating in Central and South America, but
plenty of it coming from other parts of the world.
In Europe they've had a problem, and again it's who
the proximity of nations with the relocation of Muslims, some
(12:30):
of them being much like m S. Thirteen or Trende
Aragua here very violent and they come in under this
asylum application and they have transformed much of Europe. So
there's a fellow by the name of Bishop Athanasius Schneider
who is from Kazakhstan, and he had the following to
say in response to the Pope.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yes, and this is very serious. Now they witnessing and invasion.
They are no refugees, No, this is invasion of mass
Islamization of Europe, which already went on for at minimum
fifty sixty years. The Islamization in Europe, but now it
(13:16):
is in mass It is very evident. And so this
is a global political agenda by the powerful of the
world to destroy Europe culturally and religiously, I mean, to
destroy Christianity ultimately in Europe is the help of the
(13:37):
Islamic massive Islamic population. And I was reading recently an
article of social sociologists who made a calculation that maybe
in thirty or forty years when it's now going on,
so the majority of the population of Europe will be Islamic.
(14:01):
Europe will be Islamic when this will go on, because
the European people have almost known no children one or two.
The Muslims that they have five, six to ten children,
and so it is you can only make mathematics and
then you can see that it will be in the majority.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Your thoughts, well, I mean, I think Bishop Schneider is right.
These are an invasion, and anybody who follows what Muslims
who are coming into Europe often say, I will know
that many of them say this that with you know,
we don't even really have to invade militarily. We're going
to take over this place. People in America follow you know,
(14:46):
memory the Middle East media research Institute. They can find
statements like this all the time. I don't think Francis
was really completely aware of it, or whether he thought
that this was a problem. I think in many ways
he held a kind of sixties view that everybody would
get along eventually and there would be a kind of
(15:07):
move toward liberalism. I think that was probably naive in
the long run and didn't really have didn't really have
the same kind of reality that he often said that
he followed.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Right there, Professor David Deevil, the chairman of the Theology
Department of the University of Saint Thomas Bake Houston, is
our guest. Who will be the next Pope? We'll discuss
coming up the Michael Berry Show, Michael Berry Show. The
left are their own enemies in this matter. They can't
help it. They eat their own. The Free Press had
(15:44):
a piece by a fellow last name Rocca in it.
It's a good read talking about the fact that the
death of Pope Francis, which was announced earlier today, the
day after Easter. Interesting that the death of Pope Francis
occurs coincident with the rise of what they called right
(16:08):
wing nationalism, which I think is fair. You're seeing that
in Argentina and Brazil, and you're seeing a degree of
nationalism by the Italian Prime Minister who just visited a
very very bold statement to break with the EU and
come and cut a deal with President Trump. You're seeing that,
of course in this country with the rise of MAGA,
(16:29):
not just Donald Trump, but led by Donald Trump. And
you're seeing these elements rising Pierre Pove and pulluv pull
have I guess it is in h in Canada. You're
seeing elements rising in Germany, France and the United Kingdom,
not enough in those places to win elections, but growing
increasingly vocal with with Lapin in uh in France, but
(16:54):
with the passing of the Pope, the Catholic churches is
at an inflection point or crossroads. And Professor David Devil,
the chairman of the Theology Department of the University of
Saint Thomas and Houston, is our guest.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Do you have.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Any thoughts on who some front runners might be, who
you would like to see and whether you think the
direction of the pope will change from where Pope Princess
was to the problems he may have caused within the
church with his positions.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
The one thing to notice that because Francis did live
for quite a long time. You know, he died at
eighty eight. He spent over about twelve years in the office.
He was able to appoint the electors, the cardinals honorary
members of the Clergy of Rome, about three quarters of them,
so he sort of stacked the deck.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
In a way.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
But on the other hand, if you look at all
of them, some of them are kind of progressive in
his mold, but not all of them. And that's because
in the Catholic Church sort of the progressive movement has
not has not borne a lot of fruit, and there
aren't a lot of people there. So I don't think
we're going to get a Francis too in a way.
(18:07):
But I think what might be the case is that
we get somebody who's a little bit more moderate. And
there are a number of figures who are in that camp.
The Latin Rite cardinal in Jerusalem, he has a name
Pizza Bola. I'm not sure that he pronounces it exactly
that way. It sounds like Pizza Baal is one who's
(18:29):
been kind of for his yeah, dealing with things. There's
a canon lawyer and bishop one who knows the law
of the church named Peter Erdo and Hungary. There are
a number of good ones who are out there. So
I think it's quite possible that the electors will say,
you know what, maybe we need to dial this back
(18:50):
a little bit because the future is not with a
sort of sixties era Catholic liberalism, and that's what Francis
kind of delivered church back into after John Paul and
Benedict changed the direction.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
It's such an interesting moment in time. I want to
go back to you saying that the pope, and I'm
not well versed in how this works, but you say
that the Pope sort of stacked the deck on the
clergy that would have votes. I understand that within a
(19:26):
certain group of people, those under eighty have a vote.
Can you kind of talk through a little bit about
how that works and we'll have plenty of conversation about
that in the coming days, but just a sense of
who's going to be casting that vote, because who we're
going to elect as president. If they're voted on only
in Texas versus only in Vermont or California, that's going
(19:47):
to make all the difference, right, So talk a little
bit about that, if you would.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yes, So, cardinals are it's not a permanent feature of
the Catholic Church, but they are honorary members of the
clergy of real and most of them are going to
be bishops or archbishops, although some are named because they
do particular jobs for the Pope, and he rightly said
that they have voting privileges in a conclave where he
(20:12):
will elect the pope until they turned eighty. Now among
them is one a Guyana, a cardinal named Robert Sarah,
who's a very strong conservative, and a lot of people
have said it's very providential that he is going to
be able to participate in this conclave, not only vote,
but have a voice in it because he doesn't turn
(20:35):
eighty until June fifteen. And I think that he's a
figure who's going to be able to help garner support
for somebody who would be who would be a good candidate.
Some would like him to be the next pope. I
don't think they're going to vote for a guy who's
seventy nine at this point, but who knows. So this
(20:57):
is one of the important things is that Sarah has
been around, He's done jobs in the Vatican, and there
are a number of other figures who are like that.
The cardinals don't know each other that well because many
of them have been recently appointed, and because there were
few meetings during the sort of the Covid era. So
it's going to be important for people to get to
(21:19):
know each other during this process a little bit and
look to a leader. I'm hoping that they'll look to
somebody like Cardinal Sarah, who was often accused of being
unfaithful to Pope Francis or something like that, but he
never sees to say he supported the Pope, even if
he thought that certain decisions that were made were not
necessarily the best for the certain ways in which Francis spoke,
(21:41):
We're not wise. So I'm very hopeful that he will
have a lead in this and not some of the
figures who are in the in the Vatican right now,
Cardinal Perilyn Is, I'm.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Going to play something and come back and talk about it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
This is Archbishop Carlo Maria, the Archbishop calling Pope Francis
basically a tool of.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
The World Economic Forum. Listen to this and we'll discuss
the next segment.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Before revolution terrorized by clau Schwamp and the Family of
International Finance find in Bergolio, not a neutral spectator, which
would itself already be an a heard of thing, but
(22:27):
actually as Zelus co operator who abuses his own moral
authority in order to support Adessa outside the church the
project of the dissolution of traditional society.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
While I did within the church.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
He pursues the project of the demolition of the Church
in order to replace her with a pinlanthropic organization Masonic inspiration.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
And it is kindous this.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Applied to both to civil an ecclesiastical world, confirming the
part of Senery the criminal conspiracy between.
Speaker 6 (23:21):
The deep State and the deep Church.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
It seems to me that in this conspiracy the role
of the Jesuit has been the sizes. It is no
coincidence that for the first time in history a religious
of the Society of Jesus is seated on the.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Throne of Peter.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
That's Martin Luther level important. We'll speak to Professor Deevil
about that coming up.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You've got them, Michael berrisshow.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Professor David Devil is the chairman of the Theology Department
at the University of Saint Thomas, an esteemed university in historic, beautiful,
beautiful campus at the corner of Montrose and West Alabama
in Houston, and he writes on Catholicism and is himself
a practicing Catholic. My kind of Catholic, conservative, values based Catholic.
(24:24):
You know, I have known over the years some very
intellectual Catholic scholars and their writings are just wonderful. And
it felt like he was a pope that did not
represent the Catholicism that I see practiced. I'm not Catholic,
I'm Southern Baptist. But let's talk about the I guess
the College of Cardinals, Professor Devil, the group of let's
(24:49):
say the equivalent of the Senate in the House and
Supreme Court to President Trump, the group.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Of folks within levels of leadership.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And to the extent to which they pushed back on
the Pope's positions that were, in my opinion, quite contradictory
to where they had been in the past.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
And I know it would have caused problems.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Because I know a lot of American Catholics that were
very angry at the pope, and I have to think
that that hurt the church in some ways. Has there
been a level of division within the senior leadership saying hey,
can you dial it back a little.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I think there has been, but many of the figures
that asked questions publicly were not answered, some of them
were punished in a way. Cardinal or Archbishop Charles shap Hugh,
very well known Catholic bishop who retired from Philadelphia a
couple of years ago. He was widely thought to be
(25:48):
one of the cardinals, but Francis very pointedly did not
make him a cardinal because he was very outspoken on
certain issues, not necessarily even in a direct way of
challenge and just saying things in a different way. But
I do think that in the last couple of years
Francis did start to see some segment of the cardinals
(26:11):
and the bishops in general who started to, you know,
softly but firmly say no, particularly in a document that
seemed to indicate that it would be okay to kind
of have a have blessings for gay couples that were
that made it look as if it was going to
(26:32):
be a kind of a change in doctrine, And it
was a widespread rejection of that by a number of
bishop's conferences around the world that said, you know what,
this just we're going to sort of, you know, we
accept that you've sent this out, but we're not going
to do this, and I think it would it had
to be a kind of a quiet, a quiet and
(26:53):
political way of pushing back, because Francis was very notably
prone to sort of taking disciplinary action on bishops. The Tyler,
Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland was somewhat outspoken about things, maybe
unwisely so, and he was removed. He was removed from
(27:16):
his seat as the bishop. So I think, you know,
bishops and cardinals had to be somewhat careful about this,
but I think more of them realized that there has
to be some sort of a statement that the pope
is not infallible, meaning that he could never make a
mistake in anything that he does. That's a hard enough
(27:36):
teaching that occasionally a pope can say something that is definitive,
but certainly not in his administration and not in sort
of his general way of being. And it's not a
healthy situation for the Catholic Church to operate as if
the pope is an all knowing oracle. So I think
that there has been some shift in that and more
(27:57):
people have recognized this, even among the hierarchy.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It's interesting you say that about it not being healthy
for the laity or the clergy for that matter, to
treat the pope as the all knowing oracle. I would
argue that some folks seem to give almost an a
godlike status to the pope, And I can tell you
(28:22):
that from a very decentralized Southern Baptist, I find that
off putting and I find it unbiblical. I also think
that tends to be an attitude more in third world
countries where you don't have a tradition of an empowered
citizenry in a democracy or democratic republic, and people are
(28:46):
used to sort of a benevolent dictator and the subjugation
of the individual to the sovereign. I don't think you
see that as much here. Although some people do tend
to have that approach.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It's in a modern world. You may be right about
that tendency, but the history of the Church is not
such that the pope has has received that. It's a
kind of a modern development. Many people call it Ultramontanism,
meaning ultra beyond the mountains. People would look beyond the
Alps to Rome for the answer for everything. But the
(29:21):
history of the Catholic Church has been that, Uh, you know,
popes do have an authority, but particularly when they're exercising
administrative authority or practical authority, there's been there's been a
sort of a give and take and a pushback, you know,
on certain issues where if a pope is commanding something
that's kind of out of his his line of authority,
(29:45):
there can there can be a sort of a gentle
or sometimes a rougher pushback. Many people don't know that though,
because for the last couple of centuries there's been this
Ultramontanism that's kind of had the mindset that, yeah, the pope,
you know, the pope not only as the final say,
but he has the first say in the middle say,
and nobody else has anything, and bishops are kind of
(30:06):
like middle managers that get pushed around by the guy
at the front office. But that's not, as you note,
a Biblical and then it's not really a Catholic view.
It's a kind of a distortion of traditional Catholic understanding.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, I mean, look, we have people who want to
make gods out of sports figures because they scored the
touchdown for their team. Professor David Devil, the chairman of
the theology department at the University of Saint Thomas and
Houston mentioned Cardinal Sarah, who is from Guinea in West Africa.
(30:41):
I tried to find a translated version and I can't
find it. But there is a video and it is translated,
but not vocally where he says, I'm afraid the West
is dying. He's speaking to an English reporter. I'm afraid
the West is dying. You're being invaded by other cultures,
other peoples which will progressively dominate you by their numbers
(31:04):
and completely change your culture, your convictions, and your values.
It strikes me that there is a role for the
Catholic Church in the preservation of the church, and that
is that cultures who wish to subjugate that church and
the Christian faith and their mass migrations would be called
(31:25):
out by the clarion call of Hey, what's happening here?
We are up against a break, Professor David Devil, you
are wonderful. Thank you for making time for us. Is
your newsletter is that open to subscription? How does someone
get hold of it? I get it by email?
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, it's yeah, I just send it out by email.
I'm hoping to maybe make it a substack, So.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Okay, well, if anyone is interested in the writings of
Professor David Devil, you could, you know, very humbly call
it David Devil's dribble, you know, just kind of self deprecating,
and that would be cool. You seem like you're good
with self deprecating. Thank you for being our guest, Professor,
It's that time, time time, time, Luck and load. The
Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The Democrats were heading to El Salvador to try to
bring back an MS thirteen gang member. That tells you
everything you need to know about where they are as
a party. Of course, Kamala Harris was their nominee and
Joe Biden before it. We're going to discuss that and
(00:45):
a number of other things today, but we start with
major international news. Pope Francis has passed at eighty eight
years old. The Catholic Church, you are Catholic or not,
is worthy of discussion because it is a very powerful
(01:06):
influence across the globe in many many ways. And the
passing of this Pope is momentous because he was a
very very political pope, or perhaps other popes have been political,
but not against my values. I am not Catholic. I'm
(01:30):
Southern Baptist, and I make jokes about Catholics, and seemingly
every one of my friends is a Catholic, and it's
an acquired taste to get the humor behind my Catholic jokes.
And so I don't tell as many on the error
as I would like to, but I get as well
as I give. My friends also make Southern Baptist jokes,
(01:51):
which I find to be hilarious. But then again, I
have what's known as a sense of humor. I have
a sense of hearing, a sense of taste, a sense
of smell, a sense of sight, and yes, I have
a sense of humor. A lot of people don't. Humorlessness
is one of the worst traits people who take themselves
(02:12):
too seriously. I went through this morning the rituals behind
a passing of the Pope, the whispering three times into
his ear.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
When he does not respond and he is pronounced.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Dead, the fisherman's ring, which is the official signet ring
with which he stamps documents, is destroyed to represent that
the Pope and his authority have passed the taking over
of the power by what is effectively a charged to affairs.
The State Department will have that when an ambassador steps down,
(02:49):
and State Department's Charge to Affairs will take over the
ministerial duties. But in the meantime nothing of note is
supposed to happen until the conclave.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Between I think eleven and twenty days.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The rituals are interesting enough, and particularly I suppose if
you're Catholic, and the smoke and all of that, and
there will be time for that. But this is a
unique moment that I think is worthy of a conversation
about the direction of the Catholic Church politically, morally, culturally,
(03:28):
and I would like to have that conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Now. Let's begin with.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
A piece that I saw written by Francis Rocca in
the Free Press today. The headline, which he may not
have written. Often the author the journalist doesn't write their
own headlines, but I don't know, was entitled the Passion
of Pope Francis. There's a striking symmetry in the timing
of Francis's death. The most influential figure of the global
(03:56):
left departs just as right wing populism rises around the world.
And Francis Rocca wrote, some Catholics are doubtless mourning less
deeply than others today, yet at the most iconic Pope
Francis could be a unifying, solitary presence.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I would argue that was not true. I would argue
he was very divisive.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And I would argue that he was outside the value
system of the Catholics that I know, and I don't
just mean politically conservative Catholics. I think that his politics
were very globalist and very leftist, and I think they
were very divisive for the laity and the clergy. And
(04:44):
we'll get to that in just a moment. Our guest
is David Devil, the chairman of the theology department at
the University of Saint Thomas, a fine institution of higher
learning in Houston. Professor Devill, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Thank you for having me Michael for a moment.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
We'll come back to that in a week or so.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
With the rituals around the passing of a pope and
his replacement, and let's talk about Pope Francis and his
political views no less than the He was Argentine, obviously
from from whence he was elevated. Javier Milay, the leader
of Argentina, called him an imbecile and a communist turd.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
He was no fan.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Let's just say I think one of the only visits
to the Vatican he made was upon the canonization of
an Argentine saint. But this Pope, Pope Francis, as he
came to be known, was, I would argue, very politically divisive.
Was he more political than past popes or was it
(05:49):
just that the politics he chose were very offensive to me.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, all popes are going to be political, you know,
the modern conception of a pope as well as you
know the ancient of the medieval one was that the
pope did have a kind of an authority, maybe not
over at the government, although some popes asserted that, but
they had a political authority, and all of them are
(06:16):
going to have an agenda, John Paul, the Seconds was
largely one that was about freedom against the communist East.
Benedicts was all the similar. But I think Francis was
no less maybe no more political in a certain way,
(06:36):
but he leaned, as you suggested, more toward a kind
of a globalist conception. He invited people like Jeffrey Sachs
to the Vatican, He praised figures who were involved in,
you know, the abortion industry at times, and so it
made it look very much as though he was taking
(06:57):
aside that most Catholics did and think was probably a
good idea, and many other people didn't think was a
good idea.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So you write on Catholicism, you teach on Catholicism, you
are Catholic. I'm curious to know your thoughts and I've
got about forty five seconds in this segment, so we'll
get to it deeper. In short, what percentage of Catholics
do you think disagreed with the pope on his very
(07:30):
what I would call leftward leaning positions public positions.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, I mean, the church is over a billion people,
so it's kind of hard to assess that. But one
way of thinking about it is, you know, under John
Paul the second and Benedict the sixteenth, the two previous popes,
thousands and thousands of people would come to the Vatican
in order to listen to him give addresses every Wednesday
(07:57):
at noon after the angelous prayer. Those numbers cratered shortly
after Francis took office.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Voting.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We hold just a moment, Hold just a Professor David Devill,
the chairman of the theology department at the University of
Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas, is our guest coming.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Up the Michael Berry Show, Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Sorry to assert supremacy here, but we have the prettiest
hymns in the Southern Baptist Church. But I'll give you
ave Maria, Professor, that's that one's solid. Professor David Devil
is the chairman of theology department at the University of
Saint Thomas, a fine institution in Houston, Texas. So let's
(08:54):
take some of the views that Pope Francis, who has
passed publicly professed that, I think, if nothing else were
different than past popes, seemingly LGBTQ issues in your understanding,
What was his view or what did he profess on that?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Well, he tried to draw a line between judging the
actions and judging the person, but unfortunately, in many of
the ways that he spoke there was a certain ambiguity,
and in many of the people that he promoted, such
as the American Jesuit James Martin, who was very pro LGBTQ,
(09:42):
it gave the impression that, well, he was kind of
drawing a doctrinal line, but in practice he was going
to let things go. So that's that's a difficulty. What
he said often could be defended, but it made you
have to really work and sometime tie up some of
his words and knots to make it work.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, and you wonder, Well, let's go to the issue
where he really drew my ire, and that is the
issue of illegal immigration. He was very, very loud and
outspoken against America's ability to preserve our borders. And this
is a man who lived behind a wall. And I've
(10:29):
found that very hypocritical, and I'm curious to know why
you think he felt the need to do that. My
guess is there's a huge growth opportunity and a major
constituency in Latin American countries and that is the primary source,
not the sole source, but the or exclusive source, but
the primary source of illegal immigration.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So it was almost pandering in that sense.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, it could have been. I think in many ways,
he had, you know, sort of decent ideas that were
often unguarded by any sort of rigorous thought. If you
read the Catholic Catechism, there is a duty to accept
refugees and people who have great need, but there's also
(11:16):
a duty of a country to judge about whether they
can handle that many immigrants. In many cases, when he
would speak about this, he would speak about the duty
and about charity and all of this kind of thing,
but not speak about the others. Now why he did that,
I don't know. I mean, many people thought it was
(11:37):
just a kind of sentimentality or a one sidedness in
his thought.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Professor David Devil is our guest. He is a writer, scholar, writer,
professor on Catholicism. He's a chairman of Theology Department of
University of Saint Thomas and Houston, professor.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Let me move to this next issue.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And that is the movement of people across borders. Whereas
our primary problem in the United States is illegal immigration,
much of it originating in Central and South America, but
plenty of it coming from other parts of the world.
In Europe they've had a problem, and again it's who
the proximity of nations with the relocation of Muslims, some
(12:30):
of them being much like m S. Thirteen or Trende
Aragua here very violent and they come in under this
asylum application and they have transformed much of Europe. So
there's a fellow by the name of Bishop Athanasius Schneider
who is from Kazakhstan, and he had the following to
say in response to the Pope.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yes, and this is very serious. Now they witnessing and invasion.
They are no refugees, No, this is invasion of mass
Islamization of Europe, which already went on for at minimum
fifty sixty years. The Islamization in Europe, but now it
(13:16):
is in mass It is very evident. And so this
is a global political agenda by the powerful of the
world to destroy Europe culturally and religiously, I mean, to
destroy Christianity ultimately in Europe is the help of the
(13:37):
Islamic massive Islamic population. And I was reading recently an
article of social sociologists who made a calculation that maybe
in thirty or forty years when it's now going on,
so the majority of the population of Europe will be Islamic.
(14:01):
Europe will be Islamic when this will go on, because
the European people have almost known no children one or two.
The Muslims that they have five, six to ten children,
and so it is you can only make mathematics and
then you can see that it will be in the majority.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Your thoughts, well, I mean, I think Bishop Schneider is right.
These are an invasion, and anybody who follows what Muslims
who are coming into Europe often say, I will know
that many of them say this that with you know,
we don't even really have to invade militarily. We're going
to take over this place. People in America follow you know,
(14:46):
memory the Middle East media research Institute. They can find
statements like this all the time. I don't think Francis
was really completely aware of it, or whether he thought
that this was a problem. I think in many ways
he held a kind of sixties view that everybody would
get along eventually and there would be a kind of
(15:07):
move toward liberalism. I think that was probably naive in
the long run and didn't really have didn't really have
the same kind of reality that he often said that
he followed.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Right there, Professor David Deevil, the chairman of the Theology
Department of the University of Saint Thomas Bake Houston, is
our guest. Who will be the next Pope? We'll discuss
coming up the Michael Berry Show, Michael Berry Show. The
left are their own enemies in this matter. They can't
help it. They eat their own. The Free Press had
(15:44):
a piece by a fellow last name Rocca in it.
It's a good read talking about the fact that the
death of Pope Francis, which was announced earlier today, the
day after Easter. Interesting that the death of Pope Francis
occurs coincident with the rise of what they called right
(16:08):
wing nationalism, which I think is fair. You're seeing that
in Argentina and Brazil, and you're seeing a degree of
nationalism by the Italian Prime Minister who just visited a
very very bold statement to break with the EU and
come and cut a deal with President Trump. You're seeing that,
of course in this country with the rise of MAGA,
(16:29):
not just Donald Trump, but led by Donald Trump. And
you're seeing these elements rising Pierre Pove and pulluv pull
have I guess it is in h in Canada. You're
seeing elements rising in Germany, France and the United Kingdom,
not enough in those places to win elections, but growing
increasingly vocal with with Lapin in uh in France, but
(16:54):
with the passing of the Pope, the Catholic churches is
at an inflection point or crossroads. And Professor David Devil,
the chairman of the Theology Department of the University of
Saint Thomas and Houston, is our guest.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Do you have.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Any thoughts on who some front runners might be, who
you would like to see and whether you think the
direction of the pope will change from where Pope Princess
was to the problems he may have caused within the
church with his positions.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
The one thing to notice that because Francis did live
for quite a long time. You know, he died at
eighty eight. He spent over about twelve years in the office.
He was able to appoint the electors, the cardinals honorary
members of the Clergy of Rome, about three quarters of them,
so he sort of stacked the deck.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
In a way.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
But on the other hand, if you look at all
of them, some of them are kind of progressive in
his mold, but not all of them. And that's because
in the Catholic Church sort of the progressive movement has
not has not borne a lot of fruit, and there
aren't a lot of people there. So I don't think
we're going to get a Francis too in a way.
(18:07):
But I think what might be the case is that
we get somebody who's a little bit more moderate. And
there are a number of figures who are in that camp.
The Latin Rite cardinal in Jerusalem, he has a name
Pizza Bola. I'm not sure that he pronounces it exactly
that way. It sounds like Pizza Baal is one who's
(18:29):
been kind of for his yeah, dealing with things. There's
a canon lawyer and bishop one who knows the law
of the church named Peter Erdo and Hungary. There are
a number of good ones who are out there. So
I think it's quite possible that the electors will say,
you know what, maybe we need to dial this back
(18:50):
a little bit because the future is not with a
sort of sixties era Catholic liberalism, and that's what Francis
kind of delivered church back into after John Paul and
Benedict changed the direction.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
It's such an interesting moment in time. I want to
go back to you saying that the pope, and I'm
not well versed in how this works, but you say
that the Pope sort of stacked the deck on the
clergy that would have votes. I understand that within a
(19:26):
certain group of people, those under eighty have a vote.
Can you kind of talk through a little bit about
how that works and we'll have plenty of conversation about
that in the coming days, but just a sense of
who's going to be casting that vote, because who we're
going to elect as president. If they're voted on only
in Texas versus only in Vermont or California, that's going
(19:47):
to make all the difference, right, So talk a little
bit about that, if you would.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yes, So, cardinals are it's not a permanent feature of
the Catholic Church, but they are honorary members of the
clergy of real and most of them are going to
be bishops or archbishops, although some are named because they
do particular jobs for the Pope, and he rightly said
that they have voting privileges in a conclave where he
(20:12):
will elect the pope until they turned eighty. Now among
them is one a Guyana, a cardinal named Robert Sarah,
who's a very strong conservative, and a lot of people
have said it's very providential that he is going to
be able to participate in this conclave, not only vote,
but have a voice in it because he doesn't turn
(20:35):
eighty until June fifteen. And I think that he's a
figure who's going to be able to help garner support
for somebody who would be who would be a good candidate.
Some would like him to be the next pope. I
don't think they're going to vote for a guy who's
seventy nine at this point, but who knows. So this
(20:57):
is one of the important things is that Sarah has
been around, He's done jobs in the Vatican, and there
are a number of other figures who are like that.
The cardinals don't know each other that well because many
of them have been recently appointed, and because there were
few meetings during the sort of the Covid era. So
it's going to be important for people to get to
(21:19):
know each other during this process a little bit and
look to a leader. I'm hoping that they'll look to
somebody like Cardinal Sarah, who was often accused of being
unfaithful to Pope Francis or something like that, but he
never sees to say he supported the Pope, even if
he thought that certain decisions that were made were not
necessarily the best for the certain ways in which Francis spoke,
(21:41):
We're not wise. So I'm very hopeful that he will
have a lead in this and not some of the
figures who are in the in the Vatican right now,
Cardinal Perilyn Is, I'm.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Going to play something and come back and talk about it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
This is Archbishop Carlo Maria, the Archbishop calling Pope Francis
basically a tool of.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
The World Economic Forum. Listen to this and we'll discuss
the next segment.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Before revolution terrorized by clau Schwamp and the Family of
International Finance find in Bergolio, not a neutral spectator, which
would itself already be an a heard of thing, but
(22:27):
actually as Zelus co operator who abuses his own moral
authority in order to support Adessa outside the church the
project of the dissolution of traditional society.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
While I did within the church.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
He pursues the project of the demolition of the Church
in order to replace her with a pinlanthropic organization Masonic inspiration.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
And it is kindous this.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Applied to both to civil an ecclesiastical world, confirming the
part of Senery the criminal conspiracy between.
Speaker 6 (23:21):
The deep State and the deep Church.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
It seems to me that in this conspiracy the role
of the Jesuit has been the sizes. It is no
coincidence that for the first time in history a religious
of the Society of Jesus is seated on the.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Throne of Peter.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
That's Martin Luther level important. We'll speak to Professor Deevil
about that coming up.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You've got them, Michael berrisshow.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Professor David Devil is the chairman of the Theology Department
at the University of Saint Thomas, an esteemed university in historic, beautiful,
beautiful campus at the corner of Montrose and West Alabama
in Houston, and he writes on Catholicism and is himself
a practicing Catholic. My kind of Catholic, conservative, values based Catholic.
(24:24):
You know, I have known over the years some very
intellectual Catholic scholars and their writings are just wonderful. And
it felt like he was a pope that did not
represent the Catholicism that I see practiced. I'm not Catholic,
I'm Southern Baptist. But let's talk about the I guess
the College of Cardinals, Professor Devil, the group of let's
(24:49):
say the equivalent of the Senate in the House and
Supreme Court to President Trump, the group.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Of folks within levels of leadership.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And to the extent to which they pushed back on
the Pope's positions that were, in my opinion, quite contradictory
to where they had been in the past.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
And I know it would have caused problems.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Because I know a lot of American Catholics that were
very angry at the pope, and I have to think
that that hurt the church in some ways. Has there
been a level of division within the senior leadership saying hey,
can you dial it back a little.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I think there has been, but many of the figures
that asked questions publicly were not answered, some of them
were punished in a way. Cardinal or Archbishop Charles shap Hugh,
very well known Catholic bishop who retired from Philadelphia a
couple of years ago. He was widely thought to be
(25:48):
one of the cardinals, but Francis very pointedly did not
make him a cardinal because he was very outspoken on
certain issues, not necessarily even in a direct way of
challenge and just saying things in a different way. But
I do think that in the last couple of years
Francis did start to see some segment of the cardinals
(26:11):
and the bishops in general who started to, you know,
softly but firmly say no, particularly in a document that
seemed to indicate that it would be okay to kind
of have a have blessings for gay couples that were
that made it look as if it was going to
(26:32):
be a kind of a change in doctrine, And it
was a widespread rejection of that by a number of
bishop's conferences around the world that said, you know what,
this just we're going to sort of, you know, we
accept that you've sent this out, but we're not going
to do this, and I think it would it had
to be a kind of a quiet, a quiet and
(26:53):
political way of pushing back, because Francis was very notably
prone to sort of taking disciplinary action on bishops. The Tyler,
Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland was somewhat outspoken about things, maybe
unwisely so, and he was removed. He was removed from
(27:16):
his seat as the bishop. So I think, you know,
bishops and cardinals had to be somewhat careful about this,
but I think more of them realized that there has
to be some sort of a statement that the pope
is not infallible, meaning that he could never make a
mistake in anything that he does. That's a hard enough
(27:36):
teaching that occasionally a pope can say something that is definitive,
but certainly not in his administration and not in sort
of his general way of being. And it's not a
healthy situation for the Catholic Church to operate as if
the pope is an all knowing oracle. So I think
that there has been some shift in that and more
(27:57):
people have recognized this, even among the hierarchy.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It's interesting you say that about it not being healthy
for the laity or the clergy for that matter, to
treat the pope as the all knowing oracle. I would
argue that some folks seem to give almost an a
godlike status to the pope, And I can tell you
(28:22):
that from a very decentralized Southern Baptist, I find that
off putting and I find it unbiblical. I also think
that tends to be an attitude more in third world
countries where you don't have a tradition of an empowered
citizenry in a democracy or democratic republic, and people are
(28:46):
used to sort of a benevolent dictator and the subjugation
of the individual to the sovereign. I don't think you
see that as much here. Although some people do tend
to have that approach.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It's in a modern world. You may be right about
that tendency, but the history of the Church is not
such that the pope has has received that. It's a
kind of a modern development. Many people call it Ultramontanism,
meaning ultra beyond the mountains. People would look beyond the
Alps to Rome for the answer for everything. But the
(29:21):
history of the Catholic Church has been that, Uh, you know,
popes do have an authority, but particularly when they're exercising
administrative authority or practical authority, there's been there's been a
sort of a give and take and a pushback, you know,
on certain issues where if a pope is commanding something
that's kind of out of his his line of authority,
(29:45):
there can there can be a sort of a gentle
or sometimes a rougher pushback. Many people don't know that though,
because for the last couple of centuries there's been this
Ultramontanism that's kind of had the mindset that, yeah, the pope,
you know, the pope not only as the final say,
but he has the first say in the middle say,
and nobody else has anything, and bishops are kind of
(30:06):
like middle managers that get pushed around by the guy
at the front office. But that's not, as you note,
a Biblical and then it's not really a Catholic view.
It's a kind of a distortion of traditional Catholic understanding.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, I mean, look, we have people who want to
make gods out of sports figures because they scored the
touchdown for their team. Professor David Devil, the chairman of
the theology department at the University of Saint Thomas and
Houston mentioned Cardinal Sarah, who is from Guinea in West Africa.
(30:41):
I tried to find a translated version and I can't
find it. But there is a video and it is translated,
but not vocally where he says, I'm afraid the West
is dying. He's speaking to an English reporter. I'm afraid
the West is dying. You're being invaded by other cultures,
other peoples which will progressively dominate you by their numbers
(31:04):
and completely change your culture, your convictions, and your values.
It strikes me that there is a role for the
Catholic Church in the preservation of the church, and that
is that cultures who wish to subjugate that church and
the Christian faith and their mass migrations would be called
(31:25):
out by the clarion call of Hey, what's happening here?
We are up against a break, Professor David Devil, you
are wonderful. Thank you for making time for us. Is
your newsletter is that open to subscription? How does someone
get hold of it? I get it by email?
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, it's yeah, I just send it out by email.
I'm hoping to maybe make it a substack, So.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Okay, well, if anyone is interested in the writings of
Professor David Devil, you could, you know, very humbly call
it David Devil's dribble, you know, just kind of self deprecating,
and that would be cool. You seem like you're good
with self deprecating. Thank you for being our guest, Professor,
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