In our episode, Fr. Frank Pavone explains his struggles with his bishop over the years that ultimately led to being kicked out of the Catholic Church. We ll also discuss differences between Catholicism and Judaism, just how much freedom priests have to wade into politics, and if Democrats can be good Catholics. This is The Ben Shapiro Show: A Sunday Special, a special for our Daily Wire Plus members, hosted by Ben Shapiro. A reminder, some of this conversation at the end will be exclusively for our DAILY WIRE PLUS members, if you're not a member yet, click the link at the top of this episode s description to get the full conversation with Fr. Pavone, and every one of our awesome guests. Thank you so much for joining the show. Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire are dedicated to fighting for freedom, justice, and equality for all people, no matter who you are, wherever you are or who you're at, everywhere. The Daily Wire is a labor union, union, and non-profit organization dedicated to educating, caring, and celebrating the truth. Our mission is to empower and empowering people everywhere to live their best lives through the power and knowledge of their faith and their ability to use their voice to impact the world through their words and actions. We are your teachers, your mentors, your educators, your leaders, and your community s voice, your voice, and everything you need to know and believe in in God s truth and goodness and goodness. Thank you, God bless you! - Ben Shapiro, the greatest teacher, the Reverend, the Lord, the Pope, the Church, and all the Pope John Paul VI, and everyone else in the rest of the Bible, and so much more. - Thank you for listening, and thank you for being a good Catholic, and for supporting us, friend, and good day after day, and thanks for listening to us, again and again, and God, again, for being kind, and again and more, thank you, for sending us, and more! . - Ben Shapiro & the late-night edition of the Weekly Wire Plus Podcast, Sunday special, Monday Morning with your support, and Good Morning America, Good Day, Good Luck, Good Blessings, Good Night, and Much Love, and Thank You, God Bless You, Goodbye, Blessings & Good Night and Much Blessings - Your Day, - PRAISE & Blessings.
00:00:00.000When I see the Democrat Party destroying life, destroying religious freedom, destroying America, destroying our history, our memory, our symbols, when the church stands up and points with a very clear finger, this is evil.
00:00:17.000That's not the church being political.
00:00:33.000Frank Pavone was officially dismissed from the Catholic Church with no opportunity to appeal.
00:00:38.000Father Pavone is a priest, an anti-abortion activist, as the director of Priests for Life, a prominent Catholic ministry focused on ending abortion.
00:00:45.000Through the years, he has at times been considered a contentious faith leader, most notably for putting an aborted baby on an altar to show the reality of abortion.
00:00:52.000Another point of friction with the church is that Father Pavone was a religious advisor to President Trump and a very outspoken supporter of the president as candidate and as president because of his commitment to limiting abortion in the country and protecting pre-born children.
00:01:04.000The recent Archbishop's statement was vague, though, on which actions actually resulted in Fr.
00:01:08.000Frank's defrocking, and the Father's past communications with the Vatican haven't been clear either.
00:01:14.000Frank Pavone explains his struggles with his bishop over the years that ultimately led to being kicked out of the Church.
00:01:18.000We'll also discuss differences between Catholicism and Judaism, just how much freedom priests have to wade into politics, and if Democrats can be good Catholics.
00:01:37.000This is The Ben Shapiro Show, Sunday special.
00:01:39.000A reminder, some of this conversation at the end will be exclusively for our Daily Wire Plus members.
00:01:44.000If you're not a member yet, click the link at the top of this episode's description to get the full conversation with Father Pavone and with every one of our awesome guests.
00:01:51.000Father Pavone, thanks so much for joining the show.
00:01:54.000So why don't we start with the obvious.
00:01:56.000Major controversy in November of 2022.
00:01:57.000Why don't you describe what went down in November of 2022?
00:02:01.000I've never seen anything quite like it with regard to your relationship with the Vatican.
00:02:05.000Well, this is really the result of a 21-year battle.
00:02:09.000I started leading Priests for Life full-time 30 years ago, Ben, and it's become, within the Catholic community, the largest organization focused on ending abortion.
00:02:18.000Ending abortion, obviously, is a priority for the Church.
00:02:21.000Many support us, including in the hierarchy, including in the Vatican.
00:02:28.000You know, we were poking their conscience a little bit, maybe embarrassing them because we were doing the kind of things that a lot of people want to see their pastors and their bishops doing, but they're not doing.
00:02:40.000And a lot of the bishops don't like that.
00:02:42.000So for 21 years, various among them have been trying to hinder my work.
00:02:46.000And it's a long, long story that we've documented online.
00:02:50.000But now they've taken the radical step of saying, you can't be a priest anymore.
00:02:55.000Now, you don't throw somebody out of the priesthood without very serious reasons, as you can well understand.
00:03:00.000Anybody, Catholic or not, can understand.
00:03:02.000You've got to have a serious reason to do that.
00:03:05.000And this has simply been a long persecution for the fact that I have been very, very focused on abortion.
00:03:13.000I have not been afraid to speak into the world of politics and saying, you know, we've got to elect public servants who know the difference between serving the public and killing the public.
00:03:23.000And getting involved politically, it's not something that is out of line for the church to do.
00:03:28.000We've got to speak the moral truth into the political arena.
00:03:32.000But this is what it's resulted in, in the current climate we have in the church.
00:04:36.000I'm honestly not aware of any blasphemy that I've committed.
00:04:41.000And, and yet, you know, they make up these things.
00:04:44.000Like one time they said, they said, oh, well, you said, you said on one of your broadcasts that you would not forgive a person from, for voting Democrat if they came to you in confession.
00:04:54.000Well, I said, hey, listen, the voting booth is not a sin-free zone.
00:06:04.000And even now, you see, I'm not dressed in my priest collar because if they're saying, well, you can't present yourself as a priest, I'm not going to rebel against that.
00:06:13.000I'm going to work through the systems that the church provides to get reinstated.
00:06:18.000But if the question of obedience is, well, you can't save these babies' lives, ultimately it comes down to the question of conscience.
00:06:26.000Obedience in any sphere of life never wipes away conscience.
00:06:31.000And this is something very, very basic and simple.
00:06:34.000If I see a child over there whose life is in danger and I want to go over and save him, Trespass laws fall by the wayside.
00:06:40.000You know, all kinds of other things fall by the wayside because the saving of life takes priority.
00:06:45.000And that's really been the nub of the problem.
00:06:48.000For some reason, some of them don't want me focusing on abortion.
00:06:50.000So when it came to the statement that it was your social media posts, your blasphemous social media posts, there was a lot of speculation about which particular posts were the ones in question.
00:07:01.000So they haven't articulated to you which post, which is kind of surprising considering that, again, there is a lot of speculation about one particular social media post in the lead up to the 2016 election in which you put an aborted baby on an altar.
00:07:13.000Now, I'm totally ignorant in most facets of Catholic doctrine, as the yarmulke would suggest.
00:07:22.000What are the rules as far as what you can put on an altar?
00:07:24.000What exactly would the blasphemy have been if you were going to steel man the argument and try and explain what they would say is wrong with it?
00:07:33.000The word has a very, very specific sense.
00:07:36.000If you have a church, a recognized Catholic church, where the altar has to be consecrated by a bishop, okay, that is like the highest form of an altar.
00:07:48.000What I did prior to the 2016 election is I did a series of seven videos in our office building of Priests for Life where we have a room that we call a chapel and a table that we call an altar.
00:08:00.000But it's not in that category of, you know, an officially designated consecrated chapel or altar.
00:08:06.000But those are technicalities, of course, and I think that what they were really doing and objecting to that had nothing to do with those technicalities.
00:08:13.000But it had to do with the fact that—two things.
00:08:16.000I was showing people what an abortion looks like, which wasn't the first time I had done.
00:08:20.000I'd been doing it for decades, and they didn't complain before.
00:08:24.000Secondly, that I was saying, here is a baby killed by abortion.
00:08:30.000You, the voters, can protect babies like this by electing people willing to protect them.
00:08:36.000I was making a very simple point and pointing out that, hey, as things stand now in American politics, the Democrat Party is not willing to protect them.
00:08:51.000If tomorrow the parties swapped positions on abortion, My message would be exactly the same.
00:08:58.000We have to elect people who are willing to protect these babies.
00:09:01.000So they didn't like the politics of it.
00:09:05.000We got a lot of positive feedback of people saying, hey, it's about time, you know, we ripped the veil off abortion.
00:09:12.000And I've always been convinced of that, Ben, that in order, I say, you know, the American people will not reject abortion until they see abortion.
00:09:22.000But just so happened at that time, before that election, they said, oh, we have to punish him for doing this.
00:09:29.000But there was another thing going on behind the scenes.
00:09:31.000And this tells part of the story, what I've been through these last 21 years.
00:09:36.000A few weeks before I did that, I had said to this particular bishop in Amarillo, Texas, who has been the source of a lot of this unfair treatment, I said, I have another bishop favorable to my ministry who's willing to accept me.
00:09:52.000Therefore, I am formally requesting, and I used all the proper procedures of the church, I'm formally requesting to leave your diocese and to join his.
00:10:06.000And then, the response I got was, I'm punishing you for making this video.
00:10:12.000Well, if a bishop issues a punishment like that, it makes the process of transferring to another diocese, it puts it on hold.
00:10:19.000So I'm looking at this saying, yeah, I've done this kind of thing before, I haven't said a word, and now when I have an avenue to get out from under your oppressive authority, you put a roadblock in the way.
00:10:31.000Seems to me that is what was really going on.
00:10:34.000Well, how does the church draw these lines?
00:10:49.000You've said something that's blasphemous.
00:10:51.000And typically, I mean, in Judaism, blasphemous has, like, very specific connotations.
00:10:54.000I mean, normally in religious communities, from what I understand, if you were to say, I assume, in the Catholic Church, Jesus is not divine, that would be blasphemous in the Catholic faith.
00:11:03.000I'm not aware what would make it blasphemous to even put an aborted baby on a not consecrated altar as you talk about.
00:11:12.000And so, this is the part where I'm wondering, are there any other situations that you're aware of where rhetoric alone, where the rhetoric is just, say, inflammatory or passionate, but doesn't actively contravene Catholic doctrine?
00:11:25.000Has that ever been considered blasphemous?
00:11:27.000Not blasphemous, but it has been considered reason for restricting the activity of priests.
00:11:45.000And that bishop has responsibility for the priests that work in that geographic area.
00:11:49.000Memos go out from the bishops to their priests, giving guidance at various times about various things.
00:11:56.000The criteria of what you're saying about where does the church draw the lines, very subjective.
00:12:01.000A bishop is king in his own domain, and you see the whole wide spectrum of the same situation being treated differently by different bishops, including the way they treat me.
00:12:19.000But, in regard to the point about rhetoric, now these memos are coming out from various bishops, we've got some of them again catalogued on our site, where they're saying not just, you have to teach the official teaching of the church, obviously we're obliged to do that, but they're going way beyond that.
00:12:38.000I have memos from these bishops where they're saying, you cannot make people angry.
00:12:44.000You cannot be talking about things that divide the people of God.
00:12:51.000Well then, what do you have to say about Jesus Christ, who got people so angry that they nailed him to a cross?
00:12:56.000I mean, I don't understand it, and I don't see how we can even Abide by such guidance as that.
00:13:03.000How can you carry out the duty that you freely agreed to to proclaim God's moral truth in our day and age and not get people angry?
00:13:13.000How is that even possible to ask somebody to do that?
00:13:17.000So in a second, I want to ask you about sort of the differences within various diocese with regard to the addressing of these issues.
00:13:25.000Because it seems like some bishops are perfectly willing to address these issues and others seem very shy and retiring about addressing controversial issues.
00:13:30.000I want to get to that in just one second.
00:13:32.000First, let's talk about your internet privacy.
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00:14:40.000Alrighty, so let's talk about sort of the differences in diocese.
00:14:44.000So first of all, how common is it to move from a diocese to a diocese?
00:14:46.000Like you were suggesting that you were trying to move from one to another.
00:14:49.000Is that a fairly commonly granted thing?
00:14:51.000Yes, and it's granted for the good of the priest himself and or of the work that he's doing in service to the church.
00:14:59.000And the church has always provided for this simply because The church recognizes that, hey, this is a family, and these are human beings, and there's going to be clashes, and some of them are going to be irresolvable.
00:15:10.000So you allow the priest then to request to move from one diocese to another.
00:15:16.000It's not an everyday thing, but it's common enough.
00:15:20.000When it comes to the variation between the diocese in terms of how they address these issues, the variation seems incredibly wide, right?
00:15:27.000You see some bishops who will say, we don't want to give communion to, for example, politicians who claim they're Catholic, but then are in favor of same-sex marriage, transgenderism, abortion.
00:15:35.000And then you'll see other bishops who'll say, well, no, no, no, it's totally fine.
00:15:37.000You should be able to give communion to these people.
00:15:40.000That seems like even more than a variation in rhetoric.
00:15:43.000That seems like a pretty strong variation in terms of sort of legal application of bottom line And because there's that variation, things end up going down to the least common denominator.
00:15:53.000I've spoken with a number of bishops who have been very, very strong on these issues.
00:15:57.000Like, take, for example, someone like Biden.
00:15:59.000You know, should he, claiming to be a Catholic, be able to receive communion?
00:16:03.000And many bishops have said to me privately, no, of course he should not, and I would like to publicly prohibit him from doing so in my diocese.
00:16:13.000And then this is what they go on to say.
00:16:15.000But a lot of my brother bishops have politicians in their diocese who are just as bad, and if I go ahead and discipline Biden within my jurisdiction, and my brother bishop in his doesn't discipline an equally bad politician or Biden himself,
00:16:34.000Then we're calling attention to division within the church and casting maybe my brother bishop in a negative light, and I don't want to do that.
00:16:46.000So it all then ends up, you know, simmering down to the least common denominator, which ends up being do nothing, say nothing, But that hurts people.
00:16:55.000You've got people out there that are making sacrifices every day to live their faith, whether they're Jewish, Protestant, Catholic.
00:17:02.000When we're making sacrifices, we want to please God.
00:17:04.000And that means we have to give certain things up.
00:17:06.000That means we have to refrain from doing things we might otherwise want to do, or do things we don't like to do.
00:17:11.000And we're paying a price, all of us who are trying to please God.
00:17:15.000And then we look and we see these other people, they want all the benefits of being known as a Catholic.
00:17:21.000And none of the sacrifices, or at least throwing some of the teachings out the window like Biden and Pelosi do.
00:17:28.000And these bishops who don't want to do anything aren't being sensitive enough to that.
00:17:34.000These people are living with profound disappointment in the leadership of the church.
00:17:40.000I mean, and this I think goes to a broader issue, and this is not just in Catholicism, it's true across mainline religions everywhere, is that what you're starting to see is that the only areas of these religions that are growing are places that actually are quite militant about their faith.
00:17:52.000So in Judaism, which my own religion, obviously the only growing demographic in Judaism is the Orthodox.
00:17:57.000Every other demographic in Judaism has been declining.
00:17:59.000The same thing is true in the Catholic Church.
00:18:01.000The same thing is true in Protestant communities.
00:18:03.000Mainline Protestantism is having a serious problem with people dropping out, but more evangelical communities are growing.
00:18:08.000So what do you think this says about religion overall and how it's weathering in the face of a secular frontal assault?
00:18:17.000And what does it say about what leaders should be doing On issues of broad public concern, because it does seem like there are a lot of people who are running away from the fray in the hope that if they're conciliatory, that if they're nice, then more people will come to the church because they won't feel alienated.
00:18:31.000Yeah, what it's showing is what the true heart of religion consists of.
00:18:36.000If religion is institutionalized, then of course there are reasons for a certain amount of institutionalism.
00:18:47.000They nevertheless have to be faithful to what the core is, which is that sacrificial relationship, that covenant relationship with God as they understand it.
00:18:57.000And if that's not at the core, you know, for Christians we talk about, you know, do you have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ or not?
00:19:18.000And that's what's being purified in the dynamic that you just described very accurately.
00:19:23.000Where do we find the real life in the various faiths today?
00:19:27.000It's among the people who take God at His word, take Him seriously, treat it as a real relationship, and are willing to make the sacrifices that that entails.
00:19:39.000Similarly, for leadership, I see a parallel between what's going on in the church and what's going on in American politics.
00:19:45.000We see Donald Trump come along and he speaks in a way that American citizens are sitting there saying, hey, that's the way I talk about these issues around the kitchen table, including really getting worked up about something.
00:20:23.000He said things that the people were thinking and feeling, they knew it, it meant something, and then if he promised something, he carried out the promise.
00:20:32.000Unlike so many politicians, they're talking and talking and talking, you don't know what they said.
00:20:36.000And if you do understand what they said, it bears very little resemblance to what they actually end up doing.
00:20:43.000People don't want to sit there and listen to a religious leader speaking or a priest preaching, and end up at the end of it either saying, I don't know what in the world he just said, or, ah, what he just said, well, I could have told myself that.
00:20:56.000Oh yeah, everything's okay, you're all right with God, you know, go and have a good day.
00:21:31.000That they want, and that they want it, not because they've learned that they should want it, but because they see you, and they see what faith is doing in your life.
00:21:38.000So, when it comes to the crossover between Catholic doctrine and politics, you've obviously been very vocally in favor of Republicans getting elected because the Republican Party is pro-life, the Democratic Party is, as they say, pro-choice, but anti-life in sort of the traditional connotations of the word.
00:21:55.000How do you make the case to people that would say that, you know, Catholic doctrine or religious doctrine, it allows for a variety of opinions in terms of how you vote.
00:22:04.000So, okay, sure, the Republican Party is pro-life.
00:22:06.000Sure, the Republican Party opposes same-sex marriage.
00:22:09.000But the Democratic Party is more for social justice matters.
00:22:11.000It's more for economic redistribution.
00:22:13.000How do you privilege one idea over another idea and how does that mesh with Catholic doctrine?
00:22:18.000How can you draw such a clear dividing line between The relationship between the issues needs to be looked at.
00:22:22.000Nobody in the pro-life community says abortion is the only issue.
00:22:24.000What we say is that the right to live is the foundation of every issue.
00:23:54.000Well, how are these issues interconnected with one another?
00:23:56.000In fact, the American Catholic bishops for all the kind of disparities that we were talking about before, issued a fantastic document in 1998 called Living the Gospel of Life.
00:24:09.000And they articulate what I was just saying by using the example of a house and a foundation.
00:24:15.000They said all the different issues that we have to be concerned about, like you said, social justice, which covers a wide range of things, can be seen as the interconnected parts of a house.
00:24:26.000But the foundation is the right to life.
00:24:30.000And then they go on to say abortion, and they also mention euthanasia, attack that foundation directly.
00:24:36.000And therefore, and here's the wording they use, they say that a politician's positions on the rightness of these other issues is rendered suspect if they are not advocating the right to life.
00:24:56.000He wrote a document in 1988 in which he said, The common outcry which is justly made on behalf of human rights is false and illusory if the right to life is not defended with maximum determination.
00:25:11.000Now what you said about taking the principles and the individual voter deciding how to apply them has a very strong validity to it.
00:25:20.000The church has been given a religious and moral mission Not a political one, in the sense, therefore, that we're not saying the church should become a political party or an arm of a political party.
00:25:32.000We have to stand, as a Christian church, we have to stand on the platform, not of the Republicans, Democrats, or any other party, on the platform of the gospel, right?
00:25:42.000And we judge everything in the light of that.
00:25:44.000So there's a wide range of room here for, and we always would hold, that the voting choice is the individuals.
00:25:54.000But the principles that we inform people of, and the teachings that have to shape those decisions, do have These key components that enable us to say that certain issues are more weighty than others.
00:26:10.000Certain issues are non-negotiable, as we would say.
00:26:13.000There's no room for a pro-abortion position on the part of a believer when we articulate the principles of our faith.
00:26:23.000And that's where you begin to work it out.
00:26:26.000So, in a second, I want to ask you whether the divisions from diocese to diocese and inside the Catholic Church among its various thinkers, whether those divisions are more the result of sort of pragmatic judgments about what is the best way for the Catholic Church to gain adherence moving forward and preserve eternal values, or is it really there's a certain ideological shyness that some people have about some of the positions of the Catholic Church?
00:26:46.000I'm going to ask you about that in just one second.
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00:27:54.000Okay, so let's talk about the divisions inside the Catholic Church and what you think undergirds those.
00:27:58.000So, to take the example of my own religious community, because again, I know it better than I know other religious communities, there are differences among rabbis on many of these sort of big issues of the day.
00:28:09.000One of the big issues that comes up a lot is same-sex marriage, and there seems to be a couple of divisions among rabbis on this.
00:28:18.000It is well accepted in Jewish law that same-sex marriage is not a reality.
00:28:22.000However, there are some rabbis who tend to take the viewpoint that you just don't talk about it so much.
00:28:26.000Just like, you know, don't talk about it so much because it alienates people.
00:28:30.000Obviously, this issue has become a motivating factor for many people on the social left.
00:28:34.000It's become increasingly popular in the United States.
00:28:36.000The idea of same-sex marriage is equivalent to heterosexual traditional marriage.
00:28:40.000And so if you just don't talk about it, then maybe you won't alienate as many people and they'll come in.
00:28:44.000And then there are some people who are actively sort of They're embarrassed by the position.
00:28:48.000They don't actually understand why, for example, same-sex marriage should be barred by, in Jewish law it's called halakha, why it should be barred by halakha.
00:28:55.000And so we're going to acknowledge that that's what the law is, but we're really kind of shy that that's what the law is.
00:29:00.000So I wonder if that sort of controversy is mirrored inside the Catholic Church as well.
00:29:05.000If everybody's pretty clear on the law and they just are pragmatically, the ones who are shy, if they're shy pragmatically or if they're shy ideologically about these issues.
00:29:13.000You know, it reminds me of what people often say when they first hear about my ministry.
00:29:33.000In fact, I've worked with psychologists who have studied the Catholic clergy and have said, you know, they find a disproportionate amount of inability to deal with one's emotions when facing criticism.
00:29:52.000And these have been some interesting studies over the years that it's like, okay, I'm going to get up there as a celibate man.
00:29:58.000I'm going to start talking about abortion.
00:30:00.000What happens when, you know, a young mom comes up to me irate after mass and starts yelling at me?
00:30:08.000I'm going to feel very uncomfortable and perhaps unable to respond to her.
00:30:12.000Now, obviously, There's ways to respond to that anger and whatnot.
00:30:17.000But if they feel so uncomfortable that they want to just run away from that kind of potential, in fact likely, happenstance, well then there's going to be silence.
00:30:58.000If they're sitting there and they never hear you talk about it, They're going to conclude either A, he doesn't know about my pain, B, he doesn't care, or C, he knows and cares, but there's no hope.
00:31:37.000They're in pain all day long, from many different directions they get triggered.
00:31:43.000We've got to be the source of the healing, and in order to give that healing, we've got to be able to speak up.
00:31:46.000So some of it is due to the psychological issues, some of it is due to this just bad information, And then, Ben, some of it is due to political loyalties.
00:32:01.000Involved in praiseworthy programs related to social justice, but programs that are advancing because there's funding coming from their friends who are Democrat politicians, they're entering into, you know, alliances, agreements, and there are loyalties there where there's almost like, you know, how explicit it is or isn't varies from case to case, but it's sort of like an agreement that, okay, you know, you'll help me as long as I don't embarrass you over abortion.
00:32:31.000Or these other issues, like you mentioned, all the gay rights stuff as well.
00:32:36.000So when it comes to the broader Catholic Church, not just specific diocese, there's been big debate, and I have a lot of Catholic friends, obviously, about Pope Francis versus Pope Benedict.
00:32:45.000Obviously, Pope Benedict recently passed away, at a ripe old age, after having done a lifetime of enormously good work.
00:32:52.000I was a big Pope Benedict fan from the outside, obviously, and he was dedicated, I would say, Specifically to the idea that there are eternal truths that are worth preserving, and he made this sort of his central pitch.
00:33:04.000If you read his speeches, you read his writings, all of it is about this idea that there are these truths that are worth preserving.
00:33:09.000Obviously, we have to use those truths, and then we have to see how they apply to the times and the controversies of the times, but we can't shy away from those truths.
00:33:17.000And for this, he was called recidivist, and he was called sort of backwards by the media.
00:33:21.000The idea was that he was antiquated, as opposed to the brand new, super progressive Pope Francis.
00:33:27.000Every two weeks we read a headline from the New York Times, shocked and bewildered that Pope Francis hasn't come out as both pro-choice and pro-trans.
00:33:34.000Every few weeks they'll be like, oh well the Catholic Church has reaffirmed its teaching that gay marriage is not okay.
00:33:42.000I'm not aware that Sunrise is So, I wanted to ask you about the differences between Benedict and Francis.
00:33:54.000Do you think that those are exaggerated?
00:33:56.000Why do you think the perception exists that there has been a shift between Benedict and Francis?
00:34:01.000Have you felt inside the church a shift from Benedict to Francis?
00:34:09.000One of the confusions that always arises when there's a transition from one pope to another is that a lot of people are inclined to think about it the way we think of the transition of one political administration to another in our elections for president, for example.
00:34:27.000And that only applies to a certain extent within the Catholic Church because of something that you just referred to, that there is a body of teaching that has come down to us for 2,000 years that the Church considers unchangeable.
00:34:41.000A pope is not able to just change doctrine.
00:34:45.000And you're not going to see them try either.
00:34:47.000You're not going to see Pope Francis stand up and say, well now, you know, we have believed this for 2,000 years in the Catholic Church, but I am declaring today that this is no longer our belief.
00:34:55.000He can't do that, and he knows he can't do that.
00:35:02.000They'll say something that is open to different interpretations, and when somebody asks them to clarify it, as Pope Francis has been asked by eminent cardinals in the church to clarify certain things, and he has been silent.
00:35:17.000So, is it that he's trying in this backdoor way to change and modify these teachings without coming out and saying that he's doing something that he knows he can't do?
00:35:29.000Or is it that he's got this idea that, well, you know, to foster vigorous debate within the church and to get people to rethink why we believe certain things is a good thing?
00:36:01.000We're strongly encouragement of my work and the things that we do to uphold these changeless teachings of the church.
00:36:10.000But in practice, you've got these stark differences.
00:36:15.000And then when you combine that, for whatever motive Pope Francis sows confusion like this, Well, you combine that with the way the media is.
00:36:26.000I mean, even under John Paul and under Benedict, they'll look for something that they can just spin, and in order to confuse people, it's a toxic combination of dynamics there that is leaving a lot of Catholics very confused.
00:36:43.000I mean, a lot of them are just kind of hanging on to their faith by saying, well, you know, No matter what he says, you know, I still have the Eucharist, I'll go to Mass, I know why I'm a Catholic, but if it weren't for that, they'd be out of there.
00:36:56.000I mean, it does seem like there's been a radical shift in focus in terms of the issues, even if you just look at the issues that he's chosen to focus on, right?
00:37:03.000So he's spent an enormous amount of time focusing on, for example, environmental issues.
00:37:08.000Far be it for me to talk again about Catholic doctrine, an area in which I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that if you're talking about sort of a hierarchy of issues that are relevant to today's times, environmentalism and stewardship of the trees seems like that should rank below pro-life issues, it should rank below marriage, it should rank below the immutability of sex.
00:37:28.000These are very, very basic issues, like right in the first couple chapters of Genesis.
00:37:33.000That global warming should be sort of top of the heap and the thing that Pope Francis seems to, at least in the media, talk most about.
00:37:39.000It seems almost as though he is deliberately not talking about the things that are the hottest topics in order to avoid the controversy or maybe to leave an open debate about these sorts of things.
00:37:49.000Remember, Ben, when he addressed Congress and there was a certain point in the speech where he said, you know, we have to affirm the right to life of every human being.
00:37:58.000And the Republicans started cheering and then he goes on to say, and that's why I stand before you today to oppose capital punishment.
00:38:08.000It's very, it's undeniable that he's focusing on certain things.
00:38:11.000And not only he himself, but here's the ripple effect that happens in the Catholic community.
00:38:17.000If Pope Benedict comes out and says, you know, we got to do something about climate change, then you've got these, as we were talking before about the bishops and the cardinals, there's a trickle effect all the way down where they want to show the Pope how, you know, how much in line they are with him.
00:38:33.000And so then it becomes a priority in the diocese.
00:38:36.000And it's the first thing that the bishop talks about, and they want to curry favor with the Pope.
00:38:42.000Oh, let me show him how pro-environmental we are, and they'll start up an office.
00:38:46.000They never existed before, and they asked an office to deal with climate change.
00:38:51.000There's another thing going on here, though.
00:38:53.000I do know that Pope Francis has very much in the center of his mind and heart and priorities people who are on the outskirts of the Catholic Church.
00:39:03.000In other words, people, maybe they were baptized Catholic, or maybe they're not at all connected with the Church, but they're looking at the Church and saying, hmm, I wonder if I'm interested or there's some kind of attractiveness there.
00:39:14.000But they may have the idea that, well, what is the church?
00:39:19.000Well, the church is about no abortion and no gay marriage.
00:39:24.000And I know that Pope Francis is very concerned about showing those people that the church is about much more than that.
00:39:31.000Well, you show those people that the church is about much more than that, By proclaiming to them the gospel of God's love and salvation and the path to salvation as we understand it.
00:39:43.000Not by bringing up all these other issues that are just politically correct issues.
00:39:49.000But I think that's part of what is driving some of this.
00:39:53.000And in and of itself, of course, it's a very legitimate thing.
00:39:56.000We do want people on the outskirts to feel like, hey, maybe there's a lot more to the church than what you've seen in some of the headlines about our opposition to uh... these evils and the it also plays into the math we're talking about earlier work is people almost the the feeling the excuse to say okay well sure one party is not for life one party is pros and sex marriage in one party is pro transing of the children but the pope does talk a lot about environmentalism and that party does talk a lot of warming and make sure they have an electric car and so you elevate one issue
00:40:25.000above many other issues in sort of public life it tends to just bite by force of of repetition gain a new importance as compared to issues that as you suggest tend to be more fundamental to catholic teaching than whatever debate you're having about carbon emissions today And then, you know, you mentioned the contrast from Benedict to Francis.
00:40:43.000Benedict, in fact, before he even became Pope, you know, there was a famous letter he sent to Cardinal McCarrick, then Cardinal McCarrick, in 2004, saying that, you know, as you bishops deal with another presidential election, Make sure voters understand that, you know, they can't be electing pro-abortion candidates.
00:41:04.000And he went on in that letter to clarify the weighting of the issues that, you know, it's not like capital punishment in a war, which could sometimes be justified under Catholic teaching, but abortion can never be.
00:41:18.000And he, you know, he did the opposite of the dynamic that you're pointing out here that Francis seems to do at times.
00:41:27.000There's a pretty fascinating article in the New York Times recently with one of their usual headlines that is counterintuitive to them, but perfectly intuitive to people who actually understand religion.
00:41:35.000And the counterintuitive headline was, as the Catholic laity gets more liberal, the priests get more conservative.
00:41:41.000And the idea was that the priests are increasingly out of touch with the laity, when what the real headline should have been is what we've discussed before, the priests are getting more conservative because the people who actually go to church regularly are more conservative.
00:41:54.000And so when you say Catholic laity, what you're really talking about very often is people who were baptized but don't go to church regularly.
00:42:00.000I mean, we have this in the Jewish community also, right?
00:42:01.000Tons of people who are Jewish but don't go to synagogue, have never been to synagogue, you know, eat on Yom Kippur, right?
00:42:08.000And so to say, you know, Judaism is getting more conservative as the quote-unquote laity gets more liberal would be to completely mix up the math.
00:42:15.000The question that I have is when it comes to the future of the Catholic Church, Now, Pope Francis is obviously getting up there in age as well.
00:42:21.000There's already talk about who is going to succeed Pope Francis.
00:42:24.000There's a lot of question about which direction the church is going to move.
00:42:27.000Is it going to continue to move in what appears to be a more progressive direction politically in line with Pope Francis?
00:42:33.000I mean, there's a lot of theory that he was an actual liberation theologist in line with sort of Marxist economic teachings back when he was a cardinal.
00:42:40.000And so the question becomes, is the church moving more in that direction or do you think that the kind of new wave of more conservative and traditionalist priests is going to move the church back in a more right-leaning direction?
00:42:53.000And that question becomes especially interesting given the fact that the real areas in which the Catholic Church is seeing success are not in the West.
00:43:00.000I mean, they're actually in South America, they're in Africa, they're in Asia.
00:43:03.000The Catholic Church is having some real problems of bleed out in places like the United States and Europe.
00:43:08.000But it's picking up adherence in other parts of the world.
00:43:11.000I think there's going to be a pendulum swing in the next conclave, the election of the next pope, because I think a lot of the cardinals are deeply concerned about what's going on.
00:43:21.000Just from a purely pastoral angle, aside from their own ideology, they're seeing the hurt, the confusion among the Catholic people, the division.
00:43:32.000Maybe a sign of where we're going is the recent election that was held among the American bishops.
00:43:40.000They chose a new president of the Bishop's Conference.
00:43:43.000Every few years they elect a president.
00:43:47.000And they didn't choose anyone from among the bishops that Pope Francis has been elevating who really do share his ideology.
00:43:57.000They chose someone who's considered more conservative.
00:44:02.000I think among the bishops, too, there's a sense of, you know, we've got a problem on our hands here, and how much further can we go in this direction of confusion and liberalism and just outright wrong theology and wrong morals?
00:44:17.000I think there'll be a pendulum swing in the right direction.
00:44:19.000So one of the big questions that's come up inside the Catholic Church, and as I say, we have a bunch of people who I work with, Matt Walsh, Michael Mills, who are really dedicated Catholics, and both of them are big fans of the Latin Mass.
00:44:29.000This obviously was a major controversy inside the Church with regard to Pope Francis' position on the Latin Mass.
00:44:35.000Why do you think he made the decision that he made?
00:44:37.000And for those who don't know or understand the controversy, what was the controversy about Latin Mass?
00:44:41.000The Church is, to quote a mentor of mine that I think many of our listeners would know, Fr.
00:44:47.000Benedict Rochelle, the Catholic Church is so old and so big that almost anything you say about it is true.
00:44:54.000And because of the old and big history that we have, the Mass has been celebrated in various ways over the years.
00:45:03.000There are certain essentials, and then there are certain non-essentials.
00:45:07.000And some of them are cultural, some of them linguistic, but there was a big, big change at the time of the Second Vatican Council, obviously, in the way that the liturgy was conducted.
00:45:16.000Preserving the essentials, a lot of the old traditional elements fell away, but it's not that you couldn't still say the Mass in that way that it had been received for hundreds of years, you know, in Latin, The priest and the people are facing in the same direction, the idea being we're all looking towards God, and various other differences, much more solemnity, the Latin music, the chant, and so on.
00:45:43.000So the controversy here that you're referring to is Pope Benedict said, Let's have the option.
00:45:52.000The church should thrive on variety when it comes to the non-essential elements that, yeah, if a congregation, if a priest individually prefers to say the Mass the way that it was before the Second Vatican Council, as long as he's not saying that the Second Vatican Council was not valid, there are people who hold that, as long as he's not saying that,
00:46:17.000Why not use this beautiful liturgy and music and form of worship that we've inherited over the centuries?
00:46:25.000Well, Francis comes along, and for reasons that I'm not sure I even fully understand, he says, no, you can't have that.
00:46:47.000Shall I face this way or face the people?
00:46:51.000I think it's simply the point That that liturgy represents an entire mindset that includes the priority that we give to certain moral issues, the more fundamental ones, that includes even some, to some extent, political loyalties.
00:47:11.000And I think what Pope Francis is trying to say here, trying to do, is to signal that that's not the direction he wants the Catholic Church to go.
00:47:29.000But I think that's part of what's going on beneath the surface.
00:47:33.000The Latin Mass issue is really fascinating to me because, again, to take my own religion inside Judaism.
00:47:37.000You know, when I pray, and I pray three times a day, I pray in Hebrew.
00:47:40.000And this has always been a thing in Judaism and attempts that have been made by conservative or Reform congregations to move away from Hebrew.
00:47:48.000And originally, it was not into English, it was into German.
00:47:50.000If you look back at the original Reform movement, it didn't work out well for German Jews, obviously.
00:47:54.000But the idea was that when you assimilate into a culture and that when you allow people to speak in the vernacular, that this is going to allow them to more closely commune with God.
00:48:03.000That actually seems to have been Yeah.
00:48:05.000the opposite of what has been achieved in the Jewish community.
00:48:09.000The people who actually pray most consistently are the people who pray in Hebrew, and what it's served as is mostly an entree into the religion, meaning you are praying in a language you don't fully understand, which is why you need to learn the language so you understand exactly what you're praying, meaning you have to engage more.
00:48:22.000It's basically an encouragement that if you want to know what you're doing, you really should learn what you're doing.
00:48:28.000And it seems like that's what the Latin Mass would be for Catholics as well.
00:48:31.000You're praying in a language you don't really understand, which means that you should really learn that language so that you can begin to understand many of the writings of the Church, which were written originally in that language.
00:48:41.000What do you think is the practical impact?
00:48:44.000You're hitting on something here that's so extremely important.
00:48:47.000It really goes to some of the core elements of of spirituality that cut across religious lines goes to the question of who is God.
00:48:56.000There's a phrase in Latin, mysterium tremendum et fascinosum.
00:49:02.000Are we to be afraid of God or are we to be attracted to God?
00:49:07.000When we encounter God, should we feel like running away, or should we feel like embracing Him?
00:49:12.000And the reality is, He's both at the same time, right?
00:49:42.000It's the Mount Sinai and the thunder, lightning, and the people were afraid.
00:49:47.000There's got to be both at the same time.
00:49:49.000Using a language that we don't understand or don't fully understand helps us to understand that, hey, we're encountering something bigger than we are, bigger than our mind, bigger than the world of the familiar and comfortable.
00:50:19.000Let's decorate the place in a way that's going to make us feel a certain way.
00:50:23.000No, you're entering into something Not only bigger than you are, and bigger than any human being is, but you're entering into something that is historically rooted and is taking you back to the beginnings.
00:50:35.000Of course, the further back we go, the more, obviously, Jewish and Christian life and spirituality and history converge into one.
00:51:05.000These do go to very deep matters of spirituality.
00:51:07.000And it's actually one of my real concerns with what Pope Francis did, because by saying that you shouldn't pray in this particular way, and essentially, it almost creates a harder gap between those who buy into Vatican II and those who don't buy into Vatican II.
00:51:20.000It seems like the easiest thing for him to do would have been to say, okay, well, you can pray this Mass.
00:51:25.000That doesn't make you separate from the doctrines of Second Vatican Council.
00:51:30.000There should be a diversity of practice inside the agreement that we all agree with the Second Vatican Council.
00:51:34.000It seems like it opens up wider a gap between people who agree with the Second Vatican Council and people who don't agree with the Second Vatican Council.
00:51:41.000So for those who are not steeped in this sort of stuff, what did the Second Vatican Council do?
00:51:46.000And how widespread is the movement inside sort of the Catholic Church to Let's open up again some of the issues of the Second Vatican Council.
00:51:54.000Yeah, the Second Vatican Council was what we call a pastoral council.
00:51:58.000I mean, it issued 16 documents that reaffirmed Catholic doctrine, but asked the question, how can we more effectively present this teaching to the modern world?
00:52:10.000In other words, it's a council that was rooted in the conviction the world has very much changed.
00:52:16.000and is changing faster than it ever has, how do we preserve our witness to the faith in this changed circumstance?
00:52:24.000So a pastoral council gives rise, not to changes of doctrine, but to fostering new ways of articulating it.
00:52:34.000That, in a nutshell, is what the council tried to do.
00:52:37.000And in, for example, saying that, well, it's not just the clergy who are the the holders and keepers and teachers of the faith.
00:53:09.000As far as the liturgy goes, let's have full, conscious, active participation in the liturgy.
00:53:14.000Those are the words that the Council documents use.
00:53:17.000Well, there's nothing wrong with that.
00:53:18.000We want people to be fully entering into the liturgy.
00:53:22.000But the changes represent to some people an actual abandonment of, for example, the teaching of the Mass as a sacrifice rather than simply a meal.
00:54:05.000So in a second, I want to ask you to get back to some of the politics of the intersection between religion and politics.
00:54:11.000But first, folks, there's a lot more to this conversation.
00:54:13.000We're going to get into what post-Roe America will look like, the dynamics of the 2024 presidential race, and how will Father Pavone's own story end.
00:54:20.000For our Daily Wire Plus members, you want to hear this stuff.
00:54:23.000And if you'd like to hear the full conversation, click the link at the top of the episode description.