Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 1018： WarRoom Takes A First Look At “Pope” Leo’s First Encyclical — So Many Missed Opportunities

00:00:00.000 This is the primal scream of a dying regime.

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00:00:12.940 I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people.

00:00:17.200 The people have had a belly full of it.

00:00:19.120 I know you don't like hearing that.

00:00:20.540 I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it.

00:00:23.220 It's going to happen.

00:00:24.500 And where do people like that go to share the big lie?

00:00:27.900 MAGA Media.

00:00:28.800 I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

00:00:34.680 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?

00:00:38.440 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

00:00:44.760 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann.

00:00:48.040 Wednesday 27th of May, Anno Domini, 2026.

00:01:00.840 Harnwell here at the helm on Steve Bannon's War Room.

00:01:03.780 Interesting show today, big event in the life of the Catholic Church and Catholics,

00:01:10.980 which is the publication of an encyclical.

00:01:14.320 We'll be discussing this in the first 25 minutes with our resident expert on all things Catholic, Frank Walker, editor-in-chief of Canon 212.

00:01:29.160 Frank, I'm looking at this encyclical here in front of me, Magnifica Humanitas.

00:01:36.360 It's called Magnificent Humanity.

00:01:39.520 Firstly, there are so many different reflections to make on this. Firstly, it's my impression that this has already attracted far more both interest pre-publication and post-publication than Francis' encyclicals.

00:02:02.720 and certainly the last one, which sort of sank without a trace,

00:02:05.940 The Lexit Nos, from October 2024.

00:02:11.460 But I sort of think this has got more engagement, I think,

00:02:15.980 with the secular news cycle, though I think largely for the wrong reasons.

00:02:21.720 I'll ask you to talk me through the encyclical,

00:02:24.380 what you think the takeaways are from this.

00:02:27.720 And then let's just sort of give an analysis between the two of us on what our personal takes are to this encyclical.

00:02:36.880 But what's it about? Pope Leo published it on the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum,

00:02:47.520 which was the start of the Catholic Church's foray into Catholic social teaching.

00:02:53.320 It's the foundation stone, really, which isn't, you know, I sort of, with hindsight, I think it was even near the 13th introduction here was, with hindsight, I say, was ill-advised because it set off so much now in the Catholic Church that we're fighting against every day.

00:03:17.260 But it wasn't, Rerum Navarum wasn't the, it's not the progressive panacea that the liberals and progressives have been quite successful in rewriting popular opinion for it to be.

00:03:34.000 It's quite strong on something which is extremely important to me in terms of politics, which is property rights sort of flowing out from that.

00:03:42.700 um and yet every time we get a major anniversary frank walker in the life of the church to actually

00:03:50.960 look and analyze apart from perhaps centesimus annus of john paul ii but every time there's a

00:03:59.500 keystone anniversary in the life of the church where we could go back and pluck out some of the

00:04:05.700 things from rerum novarum which were interesting they'd drop another encyclical on top of it to

00:04:10.600 to muddy the waters kick sand over it and distract and that's fundamentally my my one of my principal

00:04:17.500 concerns i'll talk through with you in the show today about this it seemed my criticism of this

00:04:23.420 one of my criticisms of this isn't so much the content and what is said it's the fact that the

00:04:29.200 catholic church is is spending energy saying it when i think it could be some of these arguments

00:04:34.660 could be made more effectively by the laity and steve bannon's making these arguments all the

00:04:39.760 time on the war room, for example. That's one concern. And the second concern is that

00:04:46.960 it seems to me a rather desperate attempt for an irrelevant hierarchy to make a stab,

00:04:55.140 a dash at relevance on the news cycle. That's my opener, right, of why I'm extremely hesitant

00:05:05.640 to embrace this encyclical. I want to hear what you have to say, though, on this.

00:05:11.760 Well, I know that they're comparing it to Ruron Navarro from 100 years ago or so,

00:05:19.060 and the liberals have always used that encyclical as an excuse to push policy.

00:05:26.560 So that's what is important to why they love that encyclical from Leo XIII and why Leo chose the name

00:05:34.140 Leo because of Rero Novarum. So this is the new one that they're throwing on top of it.

00:05:39.400 But really, it seems to me to be sort of a new attempt at Laudato Si, which was

00:05:47.640 Francis's encyclical about global warming, about climate change. When that came out,

00:05:54.800 that was a political tool for the left. And it has had, I'd say, poor results.

00:06:03.180 they've used it over and over and over again but look at the the status of the uh of the whole

00:06:09.760 environmental movement now 10 years later it hasn't really engaged like they would have liked

00:06:16.840 this in particular has something that they feel like they can get their handle on and they can

00:06:23.740 engage with this they're very hopeful about it they want uh artificial intelligence they want

00:06:29.740 to be insert themselves in the middle of it, sort of like a union would insert itself between the

00:06:36.480 management and the labor, making a little place for them and becoming another layer of management

00:06:42.340 when it comes to everything AI, because AI is just the latest type of computing. And they've

00:06:50.100 even enlisted somebody who's in the AI business. Oh, this Ola, the Anthropic is the name of the 0.94

00:06:57.100 company, at the time of the release of this, giving a speech in general. And they're so happy.

00:07:05.940 We had Cardinal Cerny was up there yesterday looking ridiculous. I mean, he doesn't even 0.82

00:07:11.280 look like a cardinal anymore. They're talking about how wonderful it is that they're dialoguing

00:07:16.740 with the actual imperilers of the dignity, the people who imperil the dignity. See,

00:07:23.700 they they're the same people what they want to do is throw a monkey wrench in all sorts of

00:07:29.220 productivity and they they have all around the world and this time they feel like they've really

00:07:33.740 got a handle on it because they are working with people in the ai business but when you when you

00:07:37.980 read about this this uh guy who from anthropic he's really crossed the trump administration

00:07:43.940 see it's when you always have to go back to this is a political war ever since we've had francis

00:07:50.100 it's a political war and uh that that's the whole point of this this whole encyclical and in the

00:07:56.660 coming weeks we're going to see how they use it and based on how they use it you'll you'll see

00:08:01.500 what it's really all about this is a political war okay um and you said earlier that one of

00:08:11.220 your concerns is that this encyclical gives something to catholic progressives right to

00:08:17.360 get their teeth into um in terms of the in terms of the um the political debate

00:08:26.960 um you see here's another one of my problems with the

00:08:34.240 not just encyclical everything that surrounds it they announced last week that they were

00:08:39.200 forming a papal commission right on um on on ai um

00:08:51.280 is it i find it somewhat fraudulent for the pope to come out and try as i say it's a dash for

00:08:59.440 relevance i think and because he's coming out and trying to position himself here as the champion of

00:09:06.800 the ordinary working guy right in the fear of the jobs apocalypse and what have you but let's be

00:09:13.760 honest if he really cared about the employment opportunity of the ordinary regular guy he his

00:09:22.560 vatican and his institutional church would be leaving leading from the front of the possessions

00:09:29.360 against the third world illegal invasion because nothing is destroying jobs at the bottom rung

00:09:36.720 of the employment ladder than being displaced from your job for someone who works for half

00:09:43.220 your wage right but they're not leading from the front of uh of the anti-invasion political force

00:09:50.640 they're leading from the front against that in favor of against those who are standing and making

00:09:57.360 the difficult argument day to day in the in the public square against the invasion and they're

00:10:03.260 leading in from the front in favor of the invasion so they're the pretense here how can you do that

00:10:10.400 on the one hand and then push this kind of this kind of document out feigning pretending to be

00:10:18.320 the the the champion of the ordinary working guy i don't get it well they they just need to have

00:10:25.020 the cause. Just like all liberals, they have to have a cause. If they don't have a cause,

00:10:29.100 they have no purpose. They're inserting themselves in the issue. They talk about that in here. They

00:10:34.700 talk about how it's going to hurt jobs so much. But that's just like telephone operators. We don't

00:10:41.000 need them anymore. They want to promote people's job irrelevant and jobs that don't really help.

00:10:48.160 Everybody wants things to be helpful. The real problem here is that they have enough of the

00:10:53.540 electrical power and the infrastructure to support this. And yes, people need to work on it,

00:10:59.860 need to collaborate on making sure that it's just and it's human, like they say, and it

00:11:05.340 protects human dignity, but it will increase jobs. It'll just make people's jobs more efficient,

00:11:11.680 more productive, and more helpful. It's going to be good for jobs, but they want to be able

00:11:16.140 to stand in the way of it and stop it. And it's the same with the wars, with military.

00:11:21.980 This anthropic guy, he tried to, he would not let them, he had military contracts, and he would not provide the data information that the military needed.

00:11:33.180 And he got smacked down by Pete Hegseth.

00:11:36.280 And, you know, and the interior secretary, Dan Burgum is, I think his name is, he said, you know, I'm surprised that the popes even dabble in this, you know, comment on technology like this.

00:11:51.840 But J.D. Vance, the Catholic, was very gushing and very positive about it.

00:11:58.720 Oh, that's his job.

00:12:00.400 You know, things develop.

00:12:01.880 Doctrine develops with time, right?

00:12:03.560 And so we need to update our doctrine.

00:12:05.360 We need to update our just.

00:12:06.780 I mean, he could not have been more gushing.

00:12:09.580 That, to me, says that this is a real battle.

00:12:12.700 They've picked a real battle.

00:12:13.960 This is the battlefront.

00:12:15.560 And he's going to admit the pope has a right to say these things.

00:12:20.700 But when it comes down to the actual field and the nitty gritty of crossing, you know, business people and the Trump administration and its agenda saying, you know, this this encyclical says just war needs to be updated.

00:12:34.560 It doesn't really exist. They're going to hit the military. You can't use A.I. for military purposes.

00:12:40.080 They say, well, we're supposed to just like drop bombs like in World War Two and have them land on on civilians, you know, and then get blown out of the sky.

00:12:48.020 these are their great recommendations that they're going to have but it's gonna it's gonna be a

00:12:52.300 battle and that's what they're trying to accomplish you you're absolutely right on so many fronts that

00:12:57.640 this is a battle um we'll hit the the doug burkham and jd interventions uh just a couple of minutes

00:13:05.440 uh because i've got to do it's time of the show halfway and we've got to do a quick shout out to

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00:16:19.020 Back to Frank Walker.

00:16:20.920 So, off the top of my head, Doug Birkin, the Interior Secretary, as you were mentioning just a moment or so ago, said that he didn't realise it was the Pope's job to come out with AI-type editorials.

00:16:40.740 and the vice president and newly minted catholic jd vance called the pope's analysis profound he

00:16:54.420 said it was uh he said it was profound um and that illustrates i think the somewhat the splits

00:17:02.900 within the administration right now on this which are going to the splits which i think

00:17:09.960 will only um get wider i mean i didn't know of jd vance when he was still a protestant

00:17:18.440 but i guess back in those days he might have had something more um you know so many converts to

00:17:25.480 to to conceal catholicism they lose their edge when it comes to saying things and they just think

00:17:34.040 identifying with the figure of the pope is the heart and the essence of catholicism and it's

00:17:40.040 really not frank walker that really sort of right that's that's that's you you gave me the segue

00:17:46.280 now into into what i really want to say about this encyclical um and that i think and this is

00:17:54.520 really what highlights for me why it's all it's not that it's wrong it's that it's out of place

00:17:59.640 first of all let's differentiate between ai and transhumanism okay often bunched together because

00:18:07.400 of because of course the trans humanist religion leans and is dependent to some extent on ai but

00:18:16.920 they are different phenomena ai i would bracket for now at least as still being largely the tool

00:18:24.020 a tool much like any other an impact an important tool a powerful tool right um

00:18:32.320 transhumanism and therefore as a tool its effectiveness will rotate around the human

00:18:41.820 agent that is directing it with regards to transhumanism that is i i think just spiritual

00:18:48.700 hubris spiritual pride plain and simple with a heavy lucifer and satanic or satanic element

00:18:58.760 thrown in the antidote to both of those phenomena transhumanism and ai isn't papal

00:19:09.140 encyclicals. It's the misdirection of the human heart and what I think modern theologians will

00:19:23.460 call affectivity, right? St. Augustine would have called it affectus, which I think is the

00:19:31.140 correct, the more broader correct theological philosophical term. But the problems here for

00:19:37.340 both tools and ambitions and i'm talking about ai and transhumanism they are they are emanations of

00:19:49.500 disordered human desire and the antidote to that is faith in jesus christ right

00:19:58.260 that transcends catholicism it transcends evangelicalism in the splits between

00:20:04.360 catholicism and protestantism right this is something that is so elemental

00:20:09.700 faith in jesus christ offering up your will to god is the antidote

00:20:16.360 um to these i think it's a phenomena i think it's very interesting it's that that they're

00:20:25.240 that they're so heavy on this idea of artificial intelligence because that requires

00:20:30.380 an artificial reality. You have to have a reality. Intelligence is processing data of reality and

00:20:40.480 making good conclusions. And with Leo Church, I mean, a church would be integral to that. That's

00:20:47.080 the point of the church, to tell you the reality, the spiritual reality and the physical, the reality

00:20:53.680 of the past and the future, of our whole lives and after we die. That's reality. But what we have

00:21:00.120 with Leo's church and with Francis's is an artificial reality. And so they're very excited

00:21:06.700 about having artificial intelligence because they want to use that to impose a reality on

00:21:15.580 everybody and create this fake kind of thinking. And they really want to be ahead of the game and

00:21:22.660 involved in it right away. Chris Jackson and his response to this release, he had a great point

00:21:28.640 that he made at the end of his piece that the synodal uh catholic church under leo is is already

00:21:36.960 like an artificial intelligent algorithm catholic doctrine and teaching go in one end and always

00:21:43.500 something uh new and and false comes out at the other end so they're they're really in this same

00:21:51.900 business and they're just expanding on what they've been doing already you know that um

00:21:57.780 i asked chat gpt to tell me the probability that the new you know what you just said there about

00:22:06.920 the church and everything being and you're quoting chris jackson

00:22:10.720 the the one and only chris jackson um reminded me of some research that i did i asked my chat gpt

00:22:21.600 agent i fed in the whole encyclical and i said um tell me the probability that the new encyclical

00:22:28.720 was written using ai and this is this is what it said it said there was a 0 to 10 chance that it

00:22:34.520 was primarily generated by ai a near certainty that humans controlled the intellectual architecture

00:22:43.740 but get this 70 to 85 percent chance that ai tools assisted portions of composition

00:22:52.700 and editing so frank walker make of that what you will well it's out what they're saying out there

00:23:00.440 is that cardinal kissy fernandez is is primarily responsible for writing this and he's been the

00:23:06.160 producer of so much what they came out in the francis era and so much even quoting he's actually

00:23:11.200 quoting himself. So whatever process he's used, it's four times as big as word for word as Rerum

00:23:19.420 Navarum. And even J.D. Vance says he's just sort of red bits and pieces. You should be able to

00:23:26.440 be able to read an encyclical. It shouldn't be absolutely impenetrable. A person should be able

00:23:33.260 to make sense out of it. But that's not the point. The point is to use it as a tool that they can

00:23:37.880 pick and choose from things here and there and that's why it's like this so yeah maybe ai was

00:23:44.260 was part of it because they're an ai they're an ai church in so many ways and they don't really

00:23:49.260 that would be people read that would be that would be ironic would it not that would that

00:23:55.940 would be ironic if if if my ai agent gbt is accurate in that analysis let me go to that

00:24:02.840 figure once again right 70 to 85 percent chance that ai tools assist and i quote my own ai here

00:24:09.300 70 to 85 percent chance that ai tools assisted portions of composition or editing look in the

00:24:16.780 two minutes before we go to the break i just want to make this point um and i don't want to come

00:24:23.300 back to banging on the drum yet again about the second vatican council but i'll make this

00:24:29.320 observation before the council the church the catholic church was it's it's a hundred percent

00:24:35.840 mission was bringing souls to jesus christ and conversion right that lifelong process of

00:24:43.920 conversion via formation the post conciliar church because it's not fundamentally interested

00:24:49.620 in the faith and sees everything through a political lens is interested in conversion

00:24:58.500 to the extent that people self-identify people identify as catholic that's what it thinks

00:25:04.820 right version entails right and it's not um you know evangelicals understand this most

00:25:13.840 novice order catholics seem to have forgotten it but what what all christians should be involved

00:25:18.960 with is is preaching the gospel and bringing people on an individual basis to conversion

00:25:24.680 in jesus christ when when that happens all the things that come out of that can then be dealt

00:25:31.420 with like the order of the affections those things that you desire that you love that you want those

00:25:37.260 things that that change how you think because because you you love certain things so much they

00:25:41.460 change how you think and how you act right as they should but if you are loving and desiring the wrong

00:25:46.780 things then that will that will that will poison everything else that comes out of that right so

00:25:52.840 But the real solution is to return to formation on a one-by-one basis of the laity of priests, of bishops, of cardinals, of popes, to the rule and law of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

00:26:08.180 What this is, is a political viewing of political problems and giving political solutions to it fundamentally.

00:26:17.000 And there's nothing more post-conciliar than that, I think.

00:26:21.740 frank walker 30 seconds jd vance makes it doesn't make the exact point but he says i

00:26:27.480 stopped twitter for lent being catholic and being christian is great through things like lent and i

00:26:33.800 may stay off it forever i'm not on x anymore and that's the way you should look at ai he doesn't

00:26:38.980 say that but he's saying it in the same article yeah we have control through our personal conversions

00:26:44.740 we're dominant over these types of things we don't have to let them ruin our lives just because

00:26:49.940 they're powerful. This is a powerful tool. It's a great thing, and it's great that the country is

00:26:54.880 supporting it. And with our Christian understanding, we can use it to make everybody happy.

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00:28:38.480 right now is totally free it's where i put up exclusively all of my content 24 hours a day

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00:28:47.800 your favorites steve bannon charlie kirk jack the sober and so many more download the getter app now

00:28:53.540 sign up for free and be part of the movement welcome back i think what we're going to have

00:28:59.280 to do frank walker listening to your analysis on this encyclical because it is it's very long um

00:29:06.720 is spend some time reading through it, underlining, digesting it,

00:29:12.240 which I would never do to a Pope Francis encyclical

00:29:17.220 because life is simply too short.

00:29:19.580 But in order to refute some of these things on their own terms,

00:29:23.540 perhaps speak to Steve and see if we can do a special roundtable on this.

00:29:31.940 Because as you say, unlike a lot of encyclicals,

00:29:36.720 that are just here today gone tomorrow and they capture a new cycle for 24 hours.

00:29:43.300 This does deliberately drop material that exponents in the debate can use,

00:29:50.820 that I say Catholics in public life can use to push an agenda one way or the other.

00:29:57.560 And that's a very important thing here.

00:30:01.200 So we'll follow this, we'll continue to study it folks

00:30:04.740 and we'll come back with further insights on this but in talking about

00:30:13.140 where the Catholic Church went wrong post council leads us quite nicely into

00:30:25.620 the news that we're following every Wednesday Frank Walker which is the big

00:30:31.080 You know, this is the biggest event in traditional Catholicism since 1988, and that is the Lefebvreists' consecrations of the new bishops, which you and I were speaking about last Wednesday.

00:30:44.900 We didn't know the names then. I mean, there'd been some suggestions, I think, on various sites on the internet, but the society, the SSPX, the Lefebvreists, have published the four names of the guys who are going to be consecrated bishops. What's your take on this selection, Frank?

00:31:05.580 well there's there's not a whole lot that's been out on it uh so far but the first thing that uh

00:31:13.440 people have been saying about it is that they're young they're young bishops you know it's scary

00:31:19.220 to release that information because you wonder if they'll be targeted it was a few years ago that

00:31:23.680 many sspx priests and um and uh and um uh priors at the heads of seminaries were heads of um you

00:31:33.680 You know, we're one central parish with lots of other parishes, satellite parishes around it.

00:31:40.000 We're targeted for all sorts of charges by church militant.

00:31:43.820 And I could see, that's a press organization.

00:31:48.360 I could see this happening to these guys.

00:31:50.560 But they're looking at the four that they picked.

00:31:53.440 The things that strike me are none of them are or that were in seminary at a time when Archbishop Lafave, the founder, was started, who started the order.

00:32:04.500 And he had a special saintly kind of charism.

00:32:07.520 He wasn't there.

00:32:08.820 And if they did go to the Cone Seminary, which was a central seminary for the SSPX and still is today, it was only after their bachelor's level kind of studies, just at the tail end of it.

00:32:22.960 And I'm also struck by the fact that some of them are very young. One of them is 36, one of them is 42. A few of them ran actually are rectors in seminaries, but there's sort of an American English weight to it because one of them is completely American and a couple of them only speaks English is all he speaks.

00:32:46.860 So these are different things. It's heavily on the Americans. One is the rector of the seminary in Virginia, which has a lot of seminarians and teaches at that seminary. And he's a young one. He was born in 1990.

00:33:01.360 that's right let's go through them because they're only four so you've got here i think

00:33:07.980 because the sspx is largely it's it's emotional heart it's historical heart is in france um it's

00:33:17.260 it is still large to this day i think a french movement so they've got two french guys one

00:33:22.380 swiss guy um and an american so um the swiss guy is 53 the american uh is 45

00:33:33.680 from kansas i know that's like the center of the sspx for the united states and he basically grew

00:33:43.520 up in that town of st mary's which is like the planet sspx well lest lest we forget because

00:33:50.560 some people incorrectly suggest that pope leo is the first north american pope um which

00:34:00.160 putting aside whether he's a valid catholic pope for one moment he's not the first i mean even if

00:34:05.040 he is he's not the first north american pope um because as all as all as all informed catholics

00:34:12.240 will remember pope michael of um of happy memory of happy memory uh was can the the the late pope

00:34:22.960 michael born and bred in in kansas um french another french one um is uh 42 and then the the

00:34:34.080 the second French guy, born, as you say, in 1990.

00:34:38.960 That's after the original consecration.

00:34:43.600 So I think just before the death of Archbishop Lefebvre himself.

00:34:48.260 That must have been, what was it, 91 or something, 92.

00:34:52.600 So this guy's totally been formed in the post-Lefebvre era.

00:35:02.680 I just want to draw out a couple of things.

00:35:06.080 I don't really have that much to say about the four candidates.

00:35:11.000 What's the expression? Candidates for Episcopal Consecration.

00:35:14.340 They all seem perfectly reasonable.

00:35:16.500 I'm more interested in the letter that came out of Mensingen,

00:35:22.560 the head, where the HQ of the Lefebvreists is.

00:35:30.020 You saw this letter, right, from Father Pagliarani, who interestingly hasn't put himself on that list, which goes back, I think, who's the head of the Lefebvreist, which goes back to the Archbishop Lefebvre's original intention that the Secretary General wouldn't be one of the bishops, right?

00:35:56.220 Bishop Fele, I think, is the notable exception to that.

00:36:03.820 But Archbishop Lefebvre really wanted the bishops

00:36:10.300 to be in service to the community

00:36:12.220 to provide for the continuity of the sacraments

00:36:20.160 and what have you,

00:36:21.380 rather than being in the traditional leadership position.

00:36:25.220 But going to the letter that accompanied the nominations, I just want to throw one extract at you and ask you for your quick takeaway on this.

00:36:35.180 He says, the Secretary General says, in no way do these consecrations constitute a negation, a refusal or a challenge launched against the supreme plenary and immediate power of jurisdiction of the Vicar of Christ over the universal church.

00:36:52.960 and my response to that is yeah whatever because that is exactly what these

00:36:58.860 consecrations are without papal approval right

00:37:02.800 yes that would be true if it weren't for the state of emergency that they use as

00:37:08.560 justification and yeah he felt the need to throw that

00:37:11.520 out there well there sure is a state of

00:37:16.060 there sure is a state of emergency but that's because of the guy at the top of

00:37:20.240 the apex, right? The state of emergency is because of the Pope. I don't understand why

00:37:29.160 you would put that simpering passage into this letter. We don't say we're doing this

00:37:35.240 because it is essential. Unless he thinks, and this is what I want to ask you for, unless

00:37:39.440 his strategy is by saying this, putting all the simpering language into the letter, he

00:37:44.960 He has, at the back of his mind, a hope that the Pope will say,

00:37:53.460 oh, well, then, if that's what you want to do, do it,

00:37:56.900 and we won't excommunicate you.

00:38:00.720 I don't know.

00:38:01.880 I have the same questions myself about the choice of young men for bishops.

00:38:07.200 This one, Hanapieh, is really just a metaphysics professor and dogma.

00:38:12.920 why did they pick bishops that could last for many, many years?

00:38:16.020 They expect the situation in relationship to the church to go on for another 40 years.

00:38:22.220 I think that they're, I think they would like to preserve things the way they are.

00:38:27.000 And so, like you said, they're covering any, all possibilities of being able to be pursed

00:38:33.160 further away from the church.

00:38:35.260 And that, you know, that's why I think that Bishop Dominique Ray's intervention where

00:38:41.960 he said the people they need to integrate them and make sure they keep them with the sspx is so

00:38:46.800 important it's important for them to be connected alongside leo's church and i know i know that's the

00:38:53.760 way that they feel about it they want to be they don't want to be pushed completely out into the

00:38:57.980 darkness they want to be there somehow so maybe that's what you're maybe that's why he's saying

00:39:02.120 these things that you're calling a simpering it does sound simpering to a lot of people

00:39:06.460 it's uh it's um it's a great point frank that you raise that what's the strategy here of picking

00:39:16.400 such young guys it's like um when when presidents nominate justices to the supreme court right

00:39:24.300 associate justices to the supreme court um it's a lifetime appointment and because you never know

00:39:31.200 how long you're going to have the senate for this is like for whichever president does the

00:39:35.560 nomination let's go let's go for the youngest person possible because at least that way we

00:39:40.760 can lock in their presence um uh even if we lose the white house and or the senate at least we can

00:39:48.880 get this guy locked in for many decades um so that makes us a point that you that you mentioned why

00:39:54.980 go for people deliberately so young as this present crop of bishops unless the strategy is

00:40:02.020 to try to lock them in for whatever they hope in terms of rapprochement

00:40:11.240 with the Vatican, which is a very bad sign,

00:40:15.820 if that's really what they're working towards still after all this time.

00:40:20.080 There's another bad sign out there too.

00:40:22.520 One prominent commenter said that these guys would be more inclined to unity

00:40:26.620 and not break away bishops like Bishop Williamson

00:40:30.400 a couple of decades ago, just recently died.

00:40:33.240 He broke away, not for not being Catholic.

00:40:35.300 He was Catholic, but these guys are going to be in unity.

00:40:39.000 And that sounds frightening to me too.

00:40:41.780 Are they going to be malleable, young, controllable?

00:40:46.180 Because every day the Pope Leo goes on about unity,

00:40:50.280 unity, unity, but it doesn't ever mean unity with goodness

00:40:53.860 or unity with truth.

00:40:55.620 so yeah there are some it's you have to be suspicious because the situation is so important

00:41:03.180 you know these these men are holding all this tradition of the catholic church the ancient mass

00:41:09.320 the doctrine all of it in certain hands and how however they serve that however they connect it

00:41:14.980 to what you know used to be the faithful uh church in the catholic church i i whatever they

00:41:22.280 feel like they have to do i understand you know yeah they're they're growing and they're still

00:41:26.820 there and it was the fact that they did this in 1988 that they're still there today and they don't

00:41:32.440 sound like they're ready to compromise in any way but this uh this political business well i hope so

00:41:37.700 i i hope so i i had sort of hoped under the present leadership that there was a breaking

00:41:44.740 away of the strategy of bishop fellow um which i think was i personally think was disastrous for

00:41:51.200 the SSPX. They tried it, they lived through it. Hopefully, they won't walk down that path again

00:41:59.020 of being obsessed by having a political reunification with Rome until Rome first, as Lefebvre always

00:42:06.640 said correctly, before we have dialogue with Rome, Rome needs to re-embrace the traditional

00:42:12.720 Catholic faith. We've got something just, I think, an interesting intervention because you just

00:42:18.440 mentioned Bishop Ray of France. But let's first do a quick recap of Birch Gold's contact details.

00:42:30.360 Text Bannon to 989898. These are times of turbulence. If you're looking at the stock market,

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00:43:49.500 Bannon for your free discovery call with Tax Network USA. We'll give those numbers out

00:43:54.820 on the show as always constantly. You might keep a pad and pencil by your armchair as

00:44:03.660 you're watching the war and just to jot down these numbers and to call after the show frank walker

00:44:09.220 dominic ray bishop uh ray was one of the great i think outstanding supporters of tradition

00:44:20.320 um he was removed in 2025 if i'm not mistaken by the late unlamented pope francis he's come out

00:44:30.200 with a strong statement, I think, all things considered.

00:44:34.900 Correct me with regards to the SSPX consecrations.

00:44:39.560 Correctly, tell me what he said in the closing minutes of the show,

00:44:44.360 final three or so minutes.

00:44:46.140 But correct me if I'm wrong, because what he said here,

00:44:49.740 at least in this statement, is very different

00:44:52.200 from what most of the trad bishops, trad inks pocket bishops are saying,

00:44:58.840 because Trad Inc.'s pocket bishops and Trad Inc.'s pocket cardinals

00:45:04.820 are coming out basically to a man telling the SSPX

00:45:09.040 not to go through with these consecrations.

00:45:11.160 That doesn't appear to be what Bishop Ray is saying,

00:45:16.060 and God bless him for that.

00:45:18.340 What has he said?

00:45:20.580 Yeah, like Cardinal Muller attacked them and Cardinal Burke today.

00:45:24.760 Cardinal Burke was just at this pilgrimage of Sarch,

00:45:27.100 and he attacked them.

00:45:28.380 he always attacks them but he this guy who was said that regular mass and the ancient mass

00:45:33.720 and and got a lot of trouble from uh francis even he was very obedient the whole time he said

00:45:39.560 we shooting there's 160 increase in adult baptisms in france and they're looking for tradition like

00:45:48.480 we've said on this show so many times they want tradition there's people out there on the computer

00:45:53.600 on the internet that have platforms and podcasts. We need to encourage initiatives to these people

00:45:59.440 to bring them close to the ancient mass. They're looking for the ancient mass. And we need to be

00:46:05.120 able to find ways, remain in dialogue with the SSBX. He didn't say whether he agrees with them

00:46:10.000 or not. He said, but whatever happens, we need to remain in dialogue and integrate traditionalists

00:46:14.780 into the structures of the church. That's really important. Not forget them, not pretend that

00:46:20.940 they're not one of us. Include them. Even Francis understood that. You need to include them as a

00:46:26.680 part of what you are, because it's a Catholic tradition. He said, we need to accept the new

00:46:31.960 tendencies of these young people that are coming into the church. This is the recipe, really, for

00:46:36.920 the future. And nobody's been saying this. Francis fired him. He's only 73. And he said,

00:46:44.680 I don't agree with being fired, but I'm obedient to the Holy Father, but I don't agree with their

00:46:49.960 reason the assumed reason that they gave so he knows how to become combative at the same time

00:46:56.760 without hurting feelings and being disobedient um so yeah i i think that this is the way that

00:47:04.320 you should deal with this it's a new generation wants to be baptized and we need to rediscover

00:47:08.780 our roots because it's the way to discover a new christianity meaning our roots are the future

00:47:14.920 that's his message

00:47:16.640 I'm not really fired, I'm still really involved

00:47:19.240 and you can see here that he is

00:47:20.640 this guy is a guy

00:47:22.540 and it is interesting

00:47:23.140 and it is interesting that he's

00:47:26.740 not using the opportunity here

00:47:28.720 of this interview to throw the

00:47:30.880 SSPX under the bus

00:47:32.260 in order to burnish his credentials

00:47:34.560 with Rome, he's saying

00:47:36.520 church, the church should integrate

00:47:38.800 traditionists

00:47:39.520 which I think is very good on him

00:47:42.340 God bless him for that stand

00:47:43.960 um you know in the final two minutes less minute and a half of the show i just want to take this 0.70

00:47:49.940 opportunity to to address both catholics who will just go to their ordinary mass in their local

00:47:56.920 parish on sundays um in the vernacular the novus order and even the evangelicals look so because

00:48:04.380 sometimes i i have gone to assemblies of god in the past i've always gone to mass but i have

00:48:09.320 sometimes gone when i was in belgium to the assemblies of god uh because i enjoyed it

00:48:17.400 and i thought there were great groups of uh of of protestants doing those things i've been to

00:48:23.380 protestant church until i converted about 25 or so years ago i would make this suggestion both to

00:48:31.580 to catholics and to protestants go onto the internet get your phone out find out where your

00:48:35.660 local traditional latin mass is and i'm not saying go to it every sunday just go to it once and see

00:48:42.800 what you think to it uh and then send us a message on on a via getter of what you thought that's the

00:48:48.160 end of the show frank walker thanks for sharing your insights on magnifica humanitas the the pope's

00:48:56.300 encyclical will continue to digest this one i think over um the coming weeks you're available

00:49:03.500 your exceptional analysis is there on canon 212 and of course stumbling block uh i go i check on

00:49:12.520 canon 212 myself every day to find out what's going on in the catholic church frank walker

00:49:17.780 many thanks indeed to you thanks also to spencer and will in the control room

Bannon's War Room - May 27, 2026

WarRoom Battleground EP 1018： WarRoom Takes A First Look At “Pope” Leo’s First Encyclical — So Many Missed Opportunities

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