A new pope has been named. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a native of Chicago, took the name of Pope Leo XIV. Will he continue down the progressive path of Pope Francis, or will we see a return to something more traditional? To forecast the future of the Catholic Church and why every American should be paying attention to this, we have Bishop Joseph Strickland, as the pope was announced in real time at the time of this recording.
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00:01:45.420Will he continue down the progressive path of Pope Francis, or will we see a return to something more traditional?
00:01:53.520Well, my next guest has warned that there are wolves roaming freely in the conclave.
00:01:58.700He is also the same man who called on every bishop and cardinal in America to publicly and unequivocally state that Pope Francis is no longer teaching the Catholic faith.
00:02:10.860He was removed from his position in Tyler, Texas, by the pope himself for that.
00:02:16.620But he has not abandoned his faith, and I thank him for that.
00:02:20.700To forecast the future of the Catholic Church and why every American should be paying attention to this,
00:02:25.700we have Bishop Joseph Strickland, as the pope was announced in real time at the time of this recording.
00:02:56.880That's a pretty fast, I mean, historically speaking, I think the fastest or the average is three days, and it's only been a couple of days.
00:03:11.820Well, I'm not sure what I'm expecting, but it is amazing to just come on with you and you say, I mean, the last I'd seen it was still black smoke.
00:03:22.460As I'm sitting down in my chair, I said, well, we have to say at this point, and then I saw the white smoke.
00:03:53.200Well, it'll take a bit to get the new pope into the white cassock and all of that, but it's amazing times, really.
00:04:04.640And I'm amazed at the interest, really.
00:04:08.420I'm very pleased, really, at the worldwide interest.
00:04:11.740I mean, social media has been preoccupied with the conclave.
00:04:17.120And I can imagine many non-Catholics and others saying, please, let's get on with something else.
00:04:23.340Well, I have to tell you, I think part of it is it is such an ancient ritual.
00:04:32.120Who is locked into an area with a bunch of people that have to vote, and it's all secret, and they take an oath before they close the doors, and then they wax seal the doors so they make sure that no one is coming out, no information in or out.
00:05:20.280And this time as well, we'll hear different stories as things move on and the Pope takes office.
00:05:28.220Because we'll hear stories about how this election came about, as we've heard in the past, but we always have to somewhat take it with a grain of salt.
00:05:37.300Not that they're not telling the truth, but it's one person reporting.
00:05:41.900It's not an official message of this is how the election unfolded.
00:05:46.500So before we go further and closer into what is happening right now, let me go back and kind of sweep up on the last Pope.
00:05:55.820Well, Benedict, he resigned, but he didn't resign.
00:06:10.320Well, I don't know if I can explain it, but I think as you say that, Glenn, it really ushered in 12 years of confusion right from the get-go.
00:06:21.560From Pope Benedict's resignation for whatever reasons, and I never read or heard a clear answer to why he did this.
00:06:31.400It was certainly a controversial step and somewhat cloaked in mystery, even though he did make some statements that he did this freely and all.
00:06:44.940But I think it really ushered in the papacy that followed with Pope Francis.
00:06:53.660Tremendous confusion, tremendous contradiction, and that is really troublesome for the church and for the world.
00:07:02.680I think that the church needs to be clear.
00:07:05.300As, you know, many people have asked me what qualities in the Pope, and I mean, some of the questions that you have, I'm sure, what am I looking for?
00:07:14.760And what really came to mind for me was what we say in the creed of the Catholic faith, one holy, Catholic, and apostolic.
00:07:23.560That's a good outline for who the Pope needs to be, one in the sense of promoting unity.
00:07:29.880That's one of the main jobs of the papacy, to keep the body of Christ that is the church united, holy, to look to the sacred, to have supernatural faith,
00:07:39.660to know that this world and all its appearances is not the totality of who we are or who the truth is.
00:07:47.160One holy Catholic, meaning all over the world uniting that, I mean, every nation, there's really no other entity in the world, never has been.
00:07:58.880I mean, I guess the British Empire came close, the Russian Empire wanted to come close,
00:08:04.440but no entity in the world has that worldwide presence that the Catholic Church has.
00:08:12.300It is Catholic in that sense, which just means universal, katolekos, a universal faith that is the one faith of Christ,
00:12:27.160And when he puts on, I mean, traditionally, the white cassock, he is the Pope after he accepts.
00:12:34.880And so he's presented to the world by tradition.
00:12:37.620I mean, in our lifetimes and throughout the Church's history, the Pope would be presented to, he's the Bishop of Rome.
00:12:47.780By being elected Pope, he's named Bishop of Rome, which is the primal sea of the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church.
00:12:56.660So he's proclaimed as Bishop of Rome, you know, not that many papacies ago, it would have been announced on that balcony, on the loggia, as they call it, there in St. Peter's Square.
00:13:09.140And the people hearing it would have been the people of Rome.
00:13:12.800We have a new bishop, the Bishop of, of course, he's the Pope of the World Church as well.
00:13:18.420You know, there is one cardinal that I actually am rooting for.
00:13:24.420I don't have a horse in this, but, you know, or a reason, you know, but I do, I do, I would love to see the cardinal.
00:13:42.600I mean, Africa is on fire with Catholicism right now.
00:13:48.200It is probably expanding there and in China, probably faster than any place else, where Europe is really dying and the United States is dying in faith as well.
00:13:58.900There is a change with the young people now, but to have the next pope, a black African cardinal, would be remarkable.
00:14:13.260Do you know much about him or who, who are you looking?
00:14:18.520Is there somebody you're thinking, I hope it's not this and I hope it is this?
00:14:23.620Well, I, Cardinal Serra would be at the top of my list.
00:14:27.420He hasn't really been mentioned as even really by those who are predicting things.
00:14:31.760I haven't even heard his name mentioned as in the running as far as the, but I would be, I mean, I think he would be a great blessing.
00:14:40.280We have to acknowledge whoever is named the pope.
00:14:43.560It's a huge task that they will take on.
00:14:48.320And so, as I've encouraged people, as we wait for the name to be announced, we can't cease praying, even if we are disappointed or in dismay at the name.
00:15:10.420And as I've mentioned to people as we've led up to this conclave, through the church's history, there have been popes elected in past centuries.
00:15:22.000There have been popes elected who are very different men from the way they governed the papacy and the way they lived as popes.
00:15:29.040So, we can pray for that if the change is necessary, that we can pray for that, whoever is named.
00:15:37.220The African cardinal said it needs to be a man deeply in Jesus Christ.
00:15:43.520And absolutely, it's Christ's church, and we always have to remember that.
00:15:48.420Does it, does it, is there the possibility, because I'm in the political world, and the papacy is a political office in many ways.
00:15:56.620And I was over with Benedict the last time he brought the cardinals together and was appointing new cardinals.
00:16:06.640And I was supposed to meet with him that time, and something happened, but I was with a lot of the cardinals, who I think are the good guys, very, very Christ-like.
00:16:17.360And there was a real split in, you know, I mean, it was, there was a war, there was a civil war that was going on at the time.
00:17:45.880But, I mean, Pope Francis was very much on the, in the globalism kind of side of things.
00:17:54.100And that's very dangerous because, you know, much of the globalist agenda is very far from the doctrine of the Catholic church.
00:18:03.660But you have, now you have 80% of those who voted, 80% of the cardinals were appointed by Francis.
00:18:11.900Does that mean the same as it would if it was, you know, the Democrats or the Republicans named, you know, all the people in Congress that were going to vote?
00:18:25.500Does it mean the same or can you, can you marshal that many people?
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00:21:14.320When he's bringing the truth to the world, if you look at the gospel of Jesus Christ, all four gospels, the message that he brings, I think it's very obvious whether you believe him or not.
00:21:26.660I think it's very obvious that he knew there would be tremendous opposition.
00:21:31.320There's one passage in the gospel we read recently in one of the daily readings at Mass where he's sending the 72 out in the gospel.
00:21:40.660While he's still alive doing his public ministry, he sends 72 out to begin to proclaim the message.
00:21:48.500And he says there, I'm sending you as lambs amongst wolves.
00:31:26.220I mean, I've heard in France the same thing has happened.
00:31:29.120Even in some of the countries in Europe that are where the church is really being decimated,
00:31:34.540young people are returning, and they're returning to tradition and formal Orthodox faith.
00:31:43.320Let's talk about that for a second, because as they're now marching around the square and assembling, I don't even know what, but the Swiss Guard and others are marching now, and we're waiting for the Pope to emerge from the Vatican balcony at any minute.
00:32:03.360Is what's happening, the search for traditionalism, the search for, I think in some ways, ritualism, tradition, is that because we have just destroyed all tradition in our life?
00:32:25.280You know, just everything is up for grabs, and there is something to be said of tradition and order that brings that peace and deeper understanding of your relationship with the sacred.
00:32:43.600You go anywhere, and everybody dresses the same, no matter you're meeting the President of the United States, the Pope, or, you know, you're at a baseball game.
00:32:53.140There is something to be said for decorum and tradition and setting of things apart, and we don't do that anymore.
00:33:02.020Is that what you think people are flocking to when they see things like the Latin Mass?
00:33:10.040Yeah, well, really, Glenn, I think what you're talking about now goes just about as deep as any issue, and it fits right into Catholic theology that I believe is the reality that we live.
00:33:27.900I know, you know, 1.5 billion more or less Catholics, so that means a whole lot of people aren't Catholic in the world.
00:34:04.520A man, a man in all things but sin, but Jesus Christ, truth, walking the earth, then that sets up the real understanding for why are people—it's part of our DNA.
00:34:32.100It brings you to balance and meaning in the universe.
00:34:36.020And whenever we depart from truth, whether personally as I sin or globally or as nations, when we veer off from the truth, if you look through history, things trace back ultimately to the truth, to the truth that we are created by truth, by God.
00:34:57.960And so I think that's the natural instinct, especially of young people.
00:35:02.980I mean, if you look at children, they have a natural instinct to smell fake.
00:35:09.640And teenagers, especially, they can tell you, that's a fake person, or that person's real.
00:35:18.280They may hate what they're saying, but they have a barometer for that, that we kind of get jaded about as we get older and more experienced.
00:35:26.760We don't necessarily grow in wisdom as we get older.
00:35:29.500But so all of that, I think, is a natural instinct.
00:35:33.740And I think that it's for that reason that you see young people that are entering into the world, entering into their journey through life after leaving home and beginning to set up a career and a family.
00:35:46.000And they're gravitating to those pillars of truth that they long for and that they see some stability in instead of everything's up for grabs.
00:39:33.160Politically, it's been tricky because some bishops will welcome me into their diocese to have a mass or to give a talk.
00:39:41.080Other bishops won't because of the politics.
00:39:43.640You know, they don't want to get in trouble with the archbishop or the cardinal or the Vatican for, you know, supporting me or making it look like I'm okay when so many see me as in opposition to the Pope.
00:40:01.060I really, as a Catholic, that's a very serious issue to be acting in opposition to the Pope.
00:40:09.040I always tried to emphasize for myself and those I spoke with, I'm supporting Christ, the truth that he proclaimed, the gospel that he taught, and the church that he established.
00:40:23.800If that puts me in opposition to Pope Francis or any Pope or any cardinal, then so be it.
00:40:51.840I mean, I really prayerfully struggled with and grappled with because, you know, we're supposed to be obedient to our superiors in the Catholic faith.
00:41:02.680I mean, the priest that I worked with made a promise of obedience to me as their bishop, but it's a hierarchical obedience.
00:41:11.120I looked at Thomas Aquinas to get some guidance, and he helped with a couple of brief paragraphs.
00:41:18.580Obedience is ultimately, again, going back to if God is truth and we want to be obedient to the truth, obedience ultimately is obedience to God.
00:42:28.200But I had to be obedient truth-wise to God.
00:42:31.640And there were too many instances since then and before that where Pope Francis was at least hedging on the truth, if not clearly denying it.
00:42:41.120I mean, one thing that I've said to people often is, and I'm sure you're very aware of it with all of your work, personnel is policy.
00:42:50.180And if you look at the personnel that Pope Francis either shielded or welcomed into his inner circle, that – the policy that that illustrates is not the Catholic faith.
00:43:05.680Well, this Rupnik, I mean, shielding this artist and welcoming his art with this man who's not just abusive, which is horrible, but also sacrilegious to the sacraments of the faith.
00:43:27.060I mean, I mean, you have pictures of him, you know, meeting with this Rupnik and welcoming his art and all over the Vatican and all over the church throughout the world.
00:43:38.380Frankly, Pope Francis, you know, wrote notes and made phone calls to Father James Martin, who clearly is playing loose with what the church teaches with homosexuality and sexual morality.
00:43:57.800I mean, that's a huge issue that's been in the world in this time and in the church.
00:44:28.280It is the basis of humanity, and God would be there to say family has to be ordered between a man and a woman because otherwise we die out.
00:44:41.480Now, where you go from there on compassion and everything else, you know, but the truth is that if God made man, he wanted man to, I mean, be fruitful and multiply.
00:45:18.660You encourage them to come to the truth, but it's not compassion to deny the truth, and that's too much of what's been happening.
00:45:27.060Can you talk about just that with the compassion of, because we're right now saying that if you were born in the wrong body, which I don't think is even possible,
00:45:38.100it's compassionate to coddle you in that, to confirm that truth that you believe is the truth, and even mutilate your body as a child.
00:46:01.480Really, Glenn, that's a perfect way to put it.
00:46:05.680It's really devastation dressed up as compassion, because it's not the truth.
00:46:13.660And, I mean, DNA tells us that even the composition of a man's body and a woman's body, I mean, you can look at the pelvic structure.
00:46:22.640All of it says, this is a man, this is a woman.
00:46:26.760If people are in the gender dysphoria, it really is, to me, it is one of the areas where things are so broken, because, I mean, what does it mean to be a man or a woman?
00:46:45.400I mean, you know, the question has been raised, what is a woman?
00:46:50.440And that is insidious as the individual who maybe has some struggles.
00:46:56.860To sort of confirm them in the struggle, I mean, that's where we are.
00:47:02.220It's like, oh, well, just support them in this identity.
00:47:05.980I mean, and we both, I'm sure, seem ridiculous extremes of this.
00:47:12.320But one example that, to me, just illustrates how harmful it is and how distorted it is, there was a report, I presume it was a true report, you know, these days, you know, AI and everything.
00:47:25.880But supposedly, a young man identified as a deer and got shot by a hunter thinking it was a deer.
00:47:38.000I mean, that's the extreme of the lunacy of saying, oh, I identify.
00:47:44.980And really, that illustrates, I mean, you can say, oh, well, that's just bizarre or whatever.
00:47:50.420But it's the playing out of self-identifying and saying, okay, how God made me.
00:47:57.940I don't have to understand that and if there are conflicts to come to a piece about who I am.
00:48:05.420For one thing, Glenn, I think a big part of the problems that we see, young people, a lot of people, don't believe they are deeply loved by God.
00:49:28.840What I do know is that God gives us things, not that he's assigning those things to me, but he is giving things to me to cope with those so I can conquer those things and become truly who I am.
00:49:53.180You hear, oh, poor you, I'm sorry that happened, and I am sorry that things have happened to people and into my own family, etc.
00:50:02.520But this is a chance to celebrate because it pushes you to figure out who you are, that you do have a divine spark in you that can conquer even the hardest things that are known to man.
00:50:49.700I mean, we speak of original sin, a disordered, broken world, that God's grace—I mean, he loved the world so much, he sent his own son, Jesus Christ, to bring healing, to bring grace.
00:51:03.660If we follow him, I mean, Christ says, you must take up your cross to follow me.
00:51:09.820That's been left out of the picture as well.
00:51:12.420Everyone follow Jesus, but don't take up the cross of repenting of your sins.
00:51:18.780But as you're saying, Glenn, God's grace gives us the strength.
00:51:24.140And, I mean, I could say in my whole life, I'm sure—I mean, you've overcome alcoholism.
00:51:39.660You overcome—there's a beautiful image that I read about recently that in Japanese pottery—I forget the name of it, but they'll take broken pottery and lacquer it back together.
00:51:55.980And they put gold or silver dust in the seams to beautify it.
00:52:05.780But through that—I mean, I understand, I don't know if it's biologically true, but that when you have a broken bone, it heals back stronger.
00:52:17.060And I think that's another image of that same reality.
00:52:19.700Through enduring the challenges and growing through them, not altering yourself, but just continuing to deal with it, you become a better person.
00:52:33.720You become more of the person that God calls you to be.
00:52:38.180And compassionate, recognizing others are walking that same path.
00:52:43.580And I had a brother that died young, and it was not certified as a suicide, but, I mean, it was definitely—he attempted before, and it was officially ruled an accident, which was helpful to my parents.
00:53:13.100For me, when I, as a priest, can say that I know how hard this is, people can tell that you really do know, rather than just sort of saying the pastoral thing you're supposed to say.
00:53:44.220I was with some scholars on the Shroud of Turin, and we were supposed to see the actual Shroud of Turin.
00:53:51.240They were going to open it up for these scholars, but it is actually the property of the Pope, and with the Pope dead, nobody can give them permission to open it up.
00:54:01.100So we didn't get the opportunity to see the real thing.
00:54:03.880But, you know, I have spent a couple of months now talking to these scholars, and I am absolutely convinced that that is the Shroud of Christ.
00:54:15.600I mean, it is—as one of the—I think he was the physicist—the physicist and the chemist both said the same thing to me in separate occasions.
00:54:26.800It's more ridiculous and harder to believe that it wasn't, you know, the burial shroud.
00:54:41.700You might not be able to explain it, but all of the facts that are now starting to compile underneath, for you to dismiss the hard facts, it doesn't prove it to be real.
00:54:55.560But it is—it's more—you're denying so much reality to be able to say, no, it's not.
00:55:06.200You know, it's not saying it is, but to say, no, it's something else.
00:55:11.140There's nothing in that other category that is saying it's something else.
00:55:17.320And really, Glenn, I'm glad you brought that up, because I think there are real-world, tangible examples like that that are—
00:55:29.300I believe God is giving us in this time of where faith is ridiculed and so many people are leaving faith of whatever comes in and not believing in him.
00:55:38.300God is giving us things like the Shroud.
00:55:40.980Another example to me is the Tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
00:55:45.380I would encourage you to study that also.
00:55:47.640So, Our Lady of Guadalupe, I wanted to ask them about that, because I was—I had an experience down at the Basilica for Our Lady of Guadalupe when I was very young.
00:56:00.140And I've never really investigated that or anything.
00:56:11.860What you're saying about the Shroud, they will say the same thing about this Tilma from 500 years ago, that it's a pigment that doesn't exist.
00:56:24.100It's put on that cloth in a way that we can't duplicate.
00:56:28.500I mean, there are amazing things about the Tilma that are—to me, it's another gift that God has given us through the Blessed Virgin Mary.
00:56:38.720500 years ago, converted a continent in so many ways to Catholicism.
00:56:44.360I mean, we've lost ground there to some extent, but that image of the Tilma, they're just amazing things that he said.
00:57:24.360There's no—I mean, God's going to require faith one way or another.
00:57:28.180So you can believe in it or not believe in it, and it doesn't really matter to me, but I do believe that he is showing us things because things are getting tougher and tougher.
00:57:40.080And it's amazing how the Shroud technology is now, just now, catching up to be able to tell us things about it.
00:57:49.560So Pope Francis called that an icon instead of a relic.
00:57:55.920What is the difference, and does that matter?
00:58:22.900Back with more, and hopefully the Pope, the new Pope, in just a minute.
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