The John-Henry Westen Show - A Pontiff for Our Time： The Promise of Pope Leo XIV ｜ Patrick Coffin

00:00:00.000 So that was a moment in time captured on camera where Pope Leo XIV is walking in an aisle.

00:00:08.980 It's a sea of media professionals. So everyone in that room are all about journalism and image

00:00:14.680 and media perception. And if you'll notice, he seems to have noticed the rainbow flag in his

00:00:20.780 peripheral vision on his left, so the viewer's right. And he just discreetly moves his attention

00:00:25.360 in a kind of redirect to the other side. He gives kind of symbolic spiritual high fives.

00:00:30.420 He's doing well-wishing and greeting and blessing people on the right-hand side. And then he turns

00:00:35.940 back and gives his attention to the full room. This is a big sea change. We would not have seen

00:00:41.540 this under Francis. This is a very quiet, non-condemnatory, non-confrontative message.

00:00:48.920 And in 2012, when he was Bishop Prevost of Chiclayo, Peru, the Peruvian context is much more

00:00:54.600 conservative in general than American culture. And he said some very strong things against the

00:00:59.740 homosexual lifestyle and the adoption of children by homosexual couples. And then as the gender 0.90

00:01:04.720 ideology began to take root in our culture and kind of a mind virus inside the church, he said some

00:01:09.600 very strong things against it. So this is a man who knows not only the power of media perception,

00:01:14.480 but also how to marry the theology with the words. And I look forward to the next little

00:01:21.100 poker tell that this Holy Father gives the Universal Church. I want to thank all the people

00:01:25.900 who donated to my Give, Send, Go. It's still open. There's still lots of work to do. Doing what I

00:01:30.200 hope and pray is prophetic journalism. From Rome, this is Patrick Coffin. Be a saint. What else is there?

00:01:39.320 Hello, my friends. We are here outside of St. Peter's Basilica, where a new pope has been elected,

00:01:45.320 Leo XIV. We're here with Patrick Coffin, a Catholic activist. He was known for a long time

00:01:52.200 on Catholic Answers and now is doing the Patrick Coffin Show. And a man of great faith, but also

00:01:59.540 a great study. And I'd like to get his perspective both on the new Leo XIV, and then we're going to

00:02:06.940 talk about news and everything else, but also some piece of history and how we can make this make

00:02:12.440 sense in our world today. Stay tuned for this episode of the Jonathan Weston Show. Patrick,

00:02:16.660 so good to be with you, my man. Thanks for the invite. Yeah. Let's begin as well. Let's do it.

00:02:19.940 Son of the cross. In the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Wow. It's all surreal.

00:02:26.880 I'm still in pinch me mode from yesterday. I know. That was pretty nuts because it was like we were

00:02:33.100 sort of filming and doing and then bing, bing. Seriously? Where were you when the white smoke happened?

00:02:37.680 Right down the road. Yeah. Because in here, the signals were jammed. Naturally. So you had no

00:02:45.940 reception. It was unreal. Makes sense. So let's get to this. You're an American. Well, now. And

00:02:52.760 you've got an American vote. Yes. So what's your first take just on that? That's one of the strangest

00:02:59.060 elements of the experience from yesterday. Realizing, you know, it's like you hear something

00:03:04.500 and there's cognitive dissonance. Did I really? Is it Robert Prevost, the Chicago guy who was in

00:03:09.680 Peru? Yeah. And then you put that together and you connect those dots. Oh, American Pope. American

00:03:14.560 Pope for most Catholics of every generation is an oxymoron. Like impossible, right? They don't have 1.00

00:03:21.000 the votes. They don't have the numbers or they don't have the linguistic ability or whatever it is.

00:03:24.980 And here we are. Only heaven's perfect. No matter who the candidate is, and I include every Pope,

00:03:30.740 there's going to be something about the way he says something or some element of his worldview that

00:03:37.080 you might have a quibble about. Overall, I don't know what your experience was. I was front and

00:03:41.580 center about 80 yards beneath the balcony when he came out. And I was staring because I thought

00:03:46.720 the word that came to mind was resplendent. He'd look very much like in the line or at least the

00:03:53.040 symbolic attire mode of Pope Benedict XVI. He had the pallium, the whatever, the mosetta, I think it is.

00:04:00.280 Kind of the fur line, almost medieval. I thought, man. And I didn't know much about him until about

00:04:06.560 two or three weeks ago. For him to deliberately appear that way for his big reveal, I thought said

00:04:12.280 something. Also the choice of the name, Leo XIV. That's in continuity with things I'm madly in love

00:04:17.760 with. But Leo the Great, Leo XIII, one of the great unheralded. Now you and I've talked about Leo

00:04:22.980 XIII. This is a Pope who reigned the longest in church history. I think he was 94 years old when he was

00:04:28.800 still cranking out awesome encyclicals. He wrote 11 encyclicals on the rosary alone. Think of that.

00:04:34.780 I could write an essay. 11 encyclicals just on the rosary. I don't want to overplay that card and

00:04:39.660 over-interpret things. But I think that is a sign of his base level priorities. I know there's some

00:04:45.520 negatives we can talk about and things that didn't make my wish list. But overall on par, I thought he

00:04:50.520 sounded joyful. I mean, what would that be like? You're talking Irby at Orby, and five minutes ago

00:04:57.580 you were playing baseball in South South Chicago, and now you're the vicar of Christ on earth.

00:05:02.240 But I thought he was at ease in his own skin. He seemed natural, if that's the right word.

00:05:09.040 There was none of the weirdness. Every Catholic I know says on March 13, 2013, there was an element of

00:05:15.520 oddness with Francis. I didn't get any oddness with Pope Leo XIV. As soon as this happened,

00:05:23.260 I got tweets. Trump was telegraphing when he put himself out on the AI photo as Pope. He knew it

00:05:28.320 was an American. The Vatican worked out a financial deal so they won't have to pay tariffs.

00:05:34.340 Yeah, the Trump AI thing, I think, was a dumb joke. It didn't land well. I wasn't happy about it. I 0.98

00:05:39.680 wasn't deeply offended. A lot of people have been doing the papal meme thing.

00:05:45.520 And my litmus test is, would I like it if Joe Biden's head was on? And the answer is no.

00:05:50.480 Lila XIII, let's go back to him for a second, because Lila XIII was the big one of the vision

00:05:56.540 and the St. Michael prayer. Of all the times that the world has needed kind of an exorcism,

00:06:02.040 now is the time. I'm hoping, I'm praying he sees some of that. That might be also some of the flavor

00:06:08.200 of the whole choice of Lila XIV, your thought?

00:06:11.020 I understand that the anniversary of that apparition was yesterday, May 8th. So that's

00:06:16.500 another providential lineup. Not St. Michael, the Archangel feast day. That's September 29th.

00:06:21.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know of the apparition which gave him the prayer.

00:06:24.680 Yeah, the St. Michael prayer. And he sort of...

00:06:27.220 Describe the apparition for people.

00:06:28.500 This is something written a lot about in the biographies. Some of the elements that have

00:06:33.520 attached themselves might be apocryphal. But after saying Mass in St. Peter's, the Holy Father,

00:06:38.140 Pope Lila XIII, was given a vision of Satan being granted 100 years of mayhem and adventure. And that

00:06:45.420 would have basically described the 20th century. It rained until I think in the late, just before St.

00:06:53.240 Pius X. So on the cusp of the beginning of the 20th century, that was his papal reign. And he kind

00:06:57.620 of looked forward in this vision to what was about to come. No one envisioned the bloodshed,

00:07:02.820 the Christian martyrdom, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam. It's the most violent history in 0.87

00:07:09.300 the world. In that hundred years slice that if the vision is correct and as reported, I think it was

00:07:16.100 vindicated. But also in the middle of all that darkness and bloodshed, you had May 13th to May,

00:07:22.000 October 13th, 1917 with the Blessed Virgin Mary. And her message in Fatima also has a 100-year

00:07:28.980 bookend to it. So there's some providential overlap between darkness and despair and the hope of the

00:07:35.220 gospel without compromise, which is to me the heart of the message of Fatima. So there's so much to

00:07:39.840 unpack about just the choice of name. There is. And since you brought up Fatima, there's something

00:07:46.100 very interesting here. This is a young man for Pope. Popes usually aren't 60. We could have 30 years.

00:07:52.000 Pope Leo XIV. So he's going to make a mark in history, barring something else. He's also going

00:08:00.040 to reign over that 100-year period of Fatima. Many people think that the 100-year timeline for Fatima

00:08:06.280 was in 2017. It's not. It was 2029. In 1917, she appeared to the kids and told them she's going to come

00:08:15.860 back and ask for something. And then she said that in 1929, asked for the consecration of Russia.

00:08:24.000 And that's when the sort of clock begins, if you will. And it runs out in 2029.

00:08:31.600 Five years out.

00:08:32.400 Exactly. And so most popes, especially six-year-olds, last at least five years.

00:08:36.840 So that's also an interesting thing. I look forward to the day that he really, really encourages

00:08:44.920 the faithful to pray the five for Saturdays from Fatima, but then also makes a consecration

00:08:51.320 of Russia that's just a consecration of Russia. Well, let's see. 0.90

00:08:54.500 A lot of my friends say, you only had one job. Concentrate Russia to the Evaculate Heart. 0.99

00:09:00.300 We'll see. Let me turn the tables a little bit. Where are you on the sister of the Shia was swapped

00:09:05.460 out with someone else? It's an interesting thing. I had the guy on who promotes that theory. He showed

00:09:10.660 the drawings, the sketches of what, not sketches, photos of the chin line and the facial things that

00:09:17.500 are different. I've struggled with it. I don't know. I'm a very firm believer in the secret not

00:09:23.200 being revealed. That's because to me, that's obvious. It was very plain to the most famous writers.

00:09:29.620 Fr. Michel wrote on, I think, the biggest volumes on Fatima. And it was so clear for everyone.

00:09:38.020 When the visions did come through in 2000, even if they are the vision, there's no explanation.

00:09:44.820 With the first visions, there was vision and explanation. They see how, and they freak out,

00:09:49.820 and our lady then explains to them what it means. Here's just a vision that's inexplicable,

00:09:54.400 and we have the explanation from Bertone. Thanks. No, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.

00:10:00.420 I saw footage of her voting, and she doesn't know her name. The voting staffer has to tell her who 0.97

00:10:07.120 her name is, and then she agrees. It's a little bit odd. I like to hue as close as I can to the

00:10:11.480 facts, but things like that kind of make you go, huh? Yeah. I mean, you're one of the most famous

00:10:14.900 people in the world, and you're on camera seeming a bit confused about who you are. It adds a bit of

00:10:20.920 fuel to that fire. It can, but also can come with age, but who knows? I mean, these things are so

00:10:26.740 weird. When I had a theory about a young pope, because there was a lot of banter back and forth

00:10:32.440 these last couple of weeks. Oh, they're never going to go for a young pope because they don't do that.

00:10:36.480 And I remembered, well, wait a minute. John Paul I, when he was here, they came in, vote for him,

00:10:45.080 and then they were exhausted, came in. One month later, they were all back. And when they got back,

00:10:50.140 they were like, that's it. Not doing that again. We're going to get someone who's going to last.

00:10:54.660 And that gave us John Paul the Great. Well, now I think, I honestly think America played a huge role

00:11:02.020 in this election. The dotering Biden running around as the leader of the United States,

00:11:07.500 of the greatest, you know, the power in every world for so long. I think that basically scared

00:11:13.520 a lot of the carbon, because they're coming from all over the world, and they all watched Biden.

00:11:18.040 So I did, I don't think they wanted a super old man who might use it like Biden did on the public

00:11:25.060 stage. He's super young for pope. Is he 69 or 70? I want to say 69. He was Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru.

00:11:31.500 Now, in the Archdiocese of Halifax, there was a longtime mission that the parishioners there

00:11:36.540 supported in Chiclayo. So I've heard that name Chiclayo my whole life, and I've never been there.

00:11:39.920 It's a small city north of Lima. The first Archbishop of Lima is Sato Toribio de Mongrovejo.

00:11:45.040 Why do I know him? Because his feast day is my birthday, March 23rd. So the proving connection

00:11:51.480 with Chiclayo was known to me. And then I began to do a little bit more reading. And I know that he

00:11:57.160 was, at least if you listen to Catholic Twitter, he was the James Martin pick. And some of the bad,

00:12:03.740 the black-headed folks who are very active on social media were pushing him, which is to me a 0.95

00:12:09.480 negative. But that's part of the chatter that I don't pay too much attention to. 0.63

00:12:14.360 Well, it's really real because yesterday, Father Martin put out another tweet rejoicing and

00:12:21.600 everything else. So yeah, there's some reality to it. Also, his brothers were on television.

00:12:28.180 Both his brothers, I think one was in Florida, saying how basically he would continue from Francis,

00:12:33.740 that he loved Francis. And it wouldn't be much of a change. They both had the same issues since that.

00:12:39.060 I don't know if it was the same brother that I saw, but this one was saying that growing up,

00:12:43.420 Rob, he called him, was the holy one. And they always teased him, you're going to be pope one

00:12:48.360 day. And then he became ordained, and then he was a bishop. And then once he got the red hat,

00:12:51.940 all the family were like, this could happen. But it still didn't change the fact that he was dizzy

00:12:57.300 when the name was announced.

00:12:58.460 Because everyone who says it's an American pope is making a joke. And at least we got a new joke.

00:13:04.520 You lost the joke, hopefully. My hope is we gain the joke back, is the pope Catholic? And we lose 0.99

00:13:11.580 the joke, can the pope be an American?

00:13:13.320 You never know what the grace of, I know it's not ordination, the papacy is not a sacrament,

00:13:17.920 but hearing about all the people that want to be his mascot, like Father Martin, who glums onto

00:13:23.640 anything he thinks is going to have legs for his cliques, and that engagement, that's fine.

00:13:28.820 But have you seen the film Beckett?

00:13:30.860 No.

00:13:31.160 Beckett is the proto-Man for All Seasons. It came out in 1962, I think.

00:13:37.260 About Thomas Beckett.

00:13:38.280 Thomas Beckett and his longtime friend, they used to carouse and drink and fornegate together

00:13:44.060 when they were young men. The king replaces the older man, who was the chancellor, with his

00:13:49.240 buddy, expecting the buddy to go along and rubber stamp everything he did, which was probably

00:13:54.440 going to happen until he was ordained archbishop. And in that moment of ordination, you can tell

00:13:59.120 everything about Richard Burton's character changes, and that's what led to his martyrdom,

00:14:04.180 is just having the grace of office and the new level of fuel-injected fidelity to the gospel.

00:14:09.660 It's a great, great movie.

00:14:10.680 Wow. Well, as the story goes, that's exactly the same as Pius IX, right? Pius IX has this whole

00:14:17.800 history of coming in a quasi-liberal, and then he gets made the Holy Father. It's not quite

00:14:24.820 at the moment of, but I think all hell breaks loose in Italy, and then he changes. And he

00:14:30.240 becomes the Pope of, you know, doctrine like nobody else. So there is, I totally believe

00:14:35.900 in the grace of the office. I love miracles and the possibility of miracles, because we're

00:14:39.820 going to need some.

00:14:40.440 Pope Pius XI said, men must look for the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ. And he urged

00:14:48.960 that the faithful give public honor to Christ the King so that individuals and states would submit

00:14:54.000 once more to the rule of their Savior. And that is why LifeSite News is raising up the image of

00:15:00.120 Christ the King across the United States. And you can help us reach millions more. Please pledge your

00:15:06.660 support today for these billboards at lifefunder.com slash Christ is King.

00:15:13.540 Let's get to what we know of Robert Prevost now, Pope Leo XIV. The most concerning thing right off

00:15:21.580 the bat for me was his dealings as the head of the Congregation for Bishops. He took out Strickland

00:15:27.480 from Tyler, Texas, and he installed McElroy into Washington, D.C. That all by itself is

00:15:36.040 ostensibly, I would say, is sinful if you knew about them, because I don't see how as a Catholic 1.00

00:15:44.240 you can do that. Now, everybody's going to say it wasn't his call. He was the head of the

00:15:49.200 congregation, but it was Francis who ordered and wanted it. So he has that. And my huge contention

00:15:54.860 is, let's say that's the case. If that's the case, then the one sign that everybody on earth

00:16:00.800 needs to look to is the restoration of Bishop Strickland as the one sign that will show that

00:16:07.500 this is real, and this isn't Francis 2.0, and that this isn't some kind of... Because honestly,

00:16:14.860 your position on Strickland, for my money, he was the holiest bishop in the United States. The guy

00:16:19.960 prayed all the time. He was simple. He was straightforward. The people loved him. 700.

00:16:24.200 100 families moved to Tyler in a little room of nowhere for this guy.

00:16:28.760 I consider Bishop Strickland a friend. He and I were on a pilgrimage together, Fatima in France,

00:16:35.360 and every stop in every big city and small village, the same thing would happen. A seminarian or a

00:16:41.100 priest would recognize him, beeline for him, and get down on one knee for his blessing. That Bishop

00:16:46.060 Strickland has that kind of cowpoke East Texas thing about him, anti-celebrity, classic introvert,

00:16:52.780 and he was always very humbly willing to bless things and, you know, even though tired at times,

00:16:59.180 Stanford's self, he's very kind. I don't know if you knew this, but he was never given a reason for

00:17:03.320 his removal. There's some canonical questions about the proper form that was taken in that.

00:17:09.520 If personnel is policy, I think you're right. I think his reinstitution and some other names of

00:17:16.560 priests and others who have been suspended, if they're restored, that's definitely in the credit side of

00:17:22.260 the ledger. Well, absolutely. That would be a signal to the whole world. It's an injustice that

00:17:28.400 he was party to. It's not often in life where you get a redo. And in his case, it's sort of unfair

00:17:35.660 redo because it might be that he's getting a bum rap because it wasn't his call and he had to do it.

00:17:41.940 And although you could say on the other side, you wouldn't have done that. We don't know that that

00:17:47.500 was his call and he went along with it. Maybe he had to or whatever. Yeah. But he now has almost

00:17:53.260 like never happens. He has the opportunity to undo an evil that he was complicit in, in some respect,

00:17:59.840 how much he was guilty for. We don't know, but he had a hand in it and he would admit he had a hand

00:18:03.840 in it. Is he going to heal the rest? To be announced. We'll see. I'll be very interested in

00:18:09.660 his first encyclical, his first message from on the Wednesday audience. Yeah. Often the first one out of

00:18:15.260 the gate, remember with John Paul II was redemptor hominis and he laid that foundation. There's so 1.00

00:18:19.560 many seeds of the future things that John Paul II would say are present like a little acorn in that

00:18:24.800 first encyclical. Two other things about then Bishop and then Archbishop Prévost, Cardinal Prévost,

00:18:31.320 and now Pope Leo XIV, I want to mention. One is he has been very strong out of his way almost to

00:18:37.340 condemn gender ideology and also the feminist virus in the mind of the church. I just read something that he

00:18:44.980 said a few years ago that on the question of women's ordination, which is a flat no,

00:18:49.120 declarizing women doesn't elevate them. It just adds more confusions. Now you might say, oh, 1.00

00:18:55.140 it's low hanging fruit. Of course there's only two genders, but how many people in the church, 0.98

00:18:59.880 in leadership say it? Yeah. Say the thing. Catholics want their leaders to say the thing 0.82

00:19:05.740 and that he has said. Now there's a rumor. I want to start with the rumor that you've probably heard.

00:19:10.520 When John Paul II was in Baltimore, there was a guard dog and the dog stopped and the Pope,

00:19:17.040 oh yeah, and John Paul II said something about Wizard Chapel nearby. Turns out the dog was

00:19:22.660 exactly in line with the Eucharist. Now I hope that's just one of those, I hope that little 0.93

00:19:26.500 anecdote's true. Maybe it's not true. I heard a rumor this week that a seminarian somewhere on the

00:19:32.780 east coast spotted, then Archbishop Pervo saying the traditional Latin mass. Now without confirmation,

00:19:39.800 it's a nice sounding rumor. I just saw a photo of him in full fiddleback,

00:19:45.340 sacerdotal regalia. And I'm locating which mass that was. It was somewhere in a chapel,

00:19:51.780 if not in St. Peter, underground last year. So this is kind of recent. I'm sorry, that's more doing

00:19:58.440 than saying. That means something if you're going to do that, because it means he said it before.

00:20:03.020 No, no one with a red hat is going to humiliate himself celebrating a mass that's much more

00:20:08.160 complex and longer than the Novus Ordemissi. So two more signs of hope to me.

00:20:13.440 A lot being written, of course, the Italians have to do it. They're the ones who we didn't know. They

00:20:17.140 have so many contacts here. And a lot is being written about secret deals and secret agreements,

00:20:22.420 about Pervos going into a meeting with Cardinal Burke at Burke's residence, about a dinner on

00:20:30.060 Sunday with Erdo and having 40 or so of the more conservative cardinals there. That I know is

00:20:37.500 true. But what went on behind those doors, we don't know. If you follow LifeSite closely,

00:20:42.380 you will have noticed that we got a tip about a week ago now that it was Pervos. And so before

00:20:51.620 the election on the 6th, we put out this huge thing going through where he's coming from.

00:20:58.400 And that's a real study.

00:21:00.560 Because Cardinal Dossier.

00:21:02.080 It is very much so.

00:21:03.060 Previous decisions and so on.

00:21:04.260 Yes. And he, like everyone else, I guess you could say, fell in hard for the COVID prep.

00:21:10.520 And this was really tough for me. He not only insisted on community in the hand,

00:21:14.720 he wanted confession by phone. And so that's a really tough one. I don't think confession by phone

00:21:20.680 is valid.

00:21:21.260 It isn't. I would love to hear chapter and verse on that. Because that's, it can't even

00:21:25.300 be in multiple languages. You can't fax it. You can't text. Have a solution.

00:21:29.540 So those are hard things. That was reported on Info Farakana, by the way. A lot of the COVID stuff

00:21:33.820 is verifiable. You know, we did the, or he did the be in a mask and preach stuff, talk to media.

00:21:41.840 He's big on environmental stuff, which is painful. And he's very anti-American immigration policy,

00:21:49.620 specifically Trump, American immigration policy. He argued against Vance's position about

00:21:53.720 love and subsidiarity.

00:21:56.840 Only heaven is perfect.

00:21:57.780 Yes. Under JP2 and under Benedict, there was a different thing going on. It wasn't a perfection.

00:22:05.940 We still had Assisi. We still had, but you know what? Everybody, their dog and their cat understood

00:22:12.600 that in Assisi, John Paul was trying to bring everybody to the church. It wasn't about, oh,

00:22:17.580 you'll be a good Muslim and I will, you know, no. He was kissing the Quran. He did do that, 1.00

00:22:23.300 but it's about the truth and only the truth and come to the truth. So you have some truth in there,

00:22:29.580 but it is not, it comes to the real truth. But for this kind of thing, it is, it's tough. We need

00:22:38.420 a Catholic again. And I truly think we could get there. I think a lot of people were bamboozled by

00:22:44.940 COVID and the nonsense. What do you make of his course for synodality also from the loggia?

00:22:50.960 Yeah. Synodality is one of those words that was invented last Tuesday that was supposed to

00:22:54.560 pretend we've heard our whole lives. I don't know what it means, literally. It's word salad. I think

00:23:01.460 it means being nice and open and listening. I don't see the word appearing in scripture or sacred

00:23:05.220 tradition or any material document, but it is bandied about as the verb du jour or the noun du jour.

00:23:12.360 I think it's something that leaders glom onto because it sounds kind of relevant. It's like objection

00:23:18.720 proof. You're against synodality? You're, you're mean. Jesus was nice. The model that present that is

00:23:25.000 presented by synodality to me is, is the confused German thing. Yeah. And we, we, that's been with

00:23:31.600 us since the sixties. Yeah. It's don't give us a Pope that gives direction. Um, suggestion is okay,

00:23:37.640 as long as we're okay to go the other way. Um, what do you think will happen with China? That was a big 0.98

00:23:42.740 thing with Peraline and, uh, Zen probably did the harshest intervention that any Cardinal's done with

00:23:49.020 another Cardinal in many, many years, called him not a Christian, uh, or, or not having the faith

00:23:54.420 multiple times, once in 2013 and then a decade later. Um, so what, what do you make of that?

00:24:01.920 And the ousting of Peraline, the story about apparently about Maradiaga storming out,

00:24:05.800 he couldn't get it going for Peraline is true. So your thoughts?

00:24:09.720 I would like to know what Cardinal Prevost, um, interaction was with Peraline and the decision

00:24:16.240 to, to make this intrinsically evil deal with the communist Chinese. I would like to see, 1.00

00:24:22.440 if not this Pope, then a future Pope do what I thought maybe Pope Benedict would do. And that is

00:24:26.980 act as the vicar of Christ to China, the way John Paul II did with the Soviet Union. Wow. 0.73

00:24:33.220 I would love to hope and pray that it will be Pope Leo the 14th to, uh,

00:24:39.700 defrost the church in China. Think of the practicing Catholics in jail as we speak. 1.00

00:24:46.700 How many inches has the, has the knife gone into their backs when they're willing to suffer so

00:24:50.980 much for Christ in his church? And it's funny because they were in there specifically because

00:24:55.680 they upheld papacy. Right. This is, maybe we're still in that 100 years of martyrdom,

00:25:00.300 red and white. Um, that's, that's in the category of we shall see.

00:25:04.280 Even though there's lots to know and there's lots of sad stuff, I've, there's signal things that I'm

00:25:10.880 looking for that I think are baseline because the restoration of the faith itself, we can't go 0.68

00:25:17.340 forward with, we're just going to accept where Fennuccio's implicants have us and then just,

00:25:22.200 you know, go from there. We're, this is the new reality. Like that's the one place I think

00:25:26.280 a conservative, like a political analogy makes sense. The conservatives, when they get in,

00:25:31.580 they don't roll back except for Trump. Trump, Trump was an exception. They usually get in and

00:25:35.920 we're just going to hold here. We're not going to make worse. Yeah. But the liberals, oh my gosh,

00:25:41.460 strewn as fast as they can. Yeah. They're much more anti-status quo than conservatives.

00:25:45.740 So that's one thing that scares me. The possibility of just cementing the Francis Magisterium as if it's

00:25:53.520 normal Catholicism and going forward, because then I think we're flying under a false flag.

00:25:57.280 I think one of the 800 pound elephants in the chancery is the documents of the Second Vatican 0.71

00:26:03.420 Council. Catholics, especially conservative Catholic Inc. loves to complain about the spirit 0.97

00:26:07.780 of Vatican II, how those crazy liberals have, have missing, you know, miss, misshapen the, uh, 0.94

00:26:12.120 the council itself. There's no such thing as a debate over the spirit of Trent. Why? Because 0.89

00:26:17.880 there's no ambiguity in the documents. You might disagree with them, but there's no doubt about

00:26:21.660 what they're saying and what they intend. I think, and, uh, I think that I've got some grounds for

00:26:27.400 hope here that the documents themselves in some parts may be subject to future revision as the

00:26:32.540 catechism of the Catholic church, which John Paul II described in the first edition, 1983 as a sure

00:26:37.800 norm for the faith. Well, that sure norm was, was tweaked on the question of, uh, the nature of

00:26:44.640 lying and also the availability and the suitability of the death penalty. So there's precedent for

00:26:49.240 official, the dust is on it. It's out there being revised. Yeah. Um, the document on religious

00:26:55.520 freedoms, uh, certain sections of the guidance of respect to contraception and so on. A lot of the

00:27:00.820 documents of the Second Vatican Council bear the stamp of the sunny 1960s, the heady, uh, the only

00:27:06.820 constant is change and kind of the, the, the age of Aquarius. I don't think it's a lunatic

00:27:12.040 leftist at its core. And I, I accept it as a Catholic, but I do think that some of the ambiguities

00:27:18.840 can be cleaned up because the bishops that rubber stamped the documents, including Archbishop

00:27:22.260 Lefebvre, they came back to their dioceses and they, they, uh, they implemented it according to

00:27:27.740 their own lights. That that's when it all kind of came loose. That's when all of the, the abuse

00:27:32.200 scandal happened. That's the bleed out of the church. That all happened between 65 and 75.

00:27:37.020 That's the, I won't call it the sweet spot. Let's call it the sour spot of when things,

00:27:41.060 a lot of things fell off the rails. I would love to see a resurgence of the traditional

00:27:43.900 at mass. My dream is just me, John Henry. My dream is just, can we just delete the Novus

00:27:48.640 Ordemus say, can we just go back to the previous 900 years where mass is the mass is the mass

00:27:53.880 in every country, in every village in Hamlet?

00:27:56.800 Yeah. You know what I think would have the best chance of that is the, um, ordinary at mass,

00:28:01.900 which is basically TLM in the vernacular. Yeah. The English, I mean, they invented the

00:28:05.920 language, so props to them. Uh, the ordinary at mass is very, very regal and, and beautiful.

00:28:11.900 There's so much to unpack. Any final thoughts for us on, uh, Louis, Louis, Leo, the 14th.

00:28:17.780 I'm not on the close personal, you know, relationship. I don't call him Louis yet. I think there's

00:28:21.920 meaning in his choice of the name. Uh, I think there's meaning in his choice of a very traditional

00:28:27.520 appearance, uh, in his, his, uh, his media debut splash, if you will. Um, Jesus Christ is Lord.

00:28:33.920 He's the head of the Catholic church. Uh, we've had good, bad and different popes. Uh, it's not

00:28:38.680 Peter is the rock. Patrick isn't. And I, I liken what, what Catholics are undergoing now with all

00:28:46.100 the confusion and the, and the uncertain sound from so many pulpits, our Lord, it seems to me that

00:28:51.460 he's in a power nap at the front of the boat. And I would rather have our Lord and savior with us

00:28:56.240 fast asleep than the alternative. And I, I, for one don't want to be one of the disciples. He

00:29:00.620 rebukes when he wakes up. Yeah. So, you know, we keep vigil, we stay close to the sacraments

00:29:04.740 and, uh, we rejoice that there's such a thing as the gospel without compromise. And we pray for

00:29:08.960 hopefully the 14th, that he can embody the office as, as we have hungered for too many years.

00:29:14.140 Biggest encouragement that I had, believe it or not, it's such a small thing. It wasn't investments.

00:29:19.800 It, uh, wasn't the Latin prayers when he was praying and said the name of Jesus,

00:29:26.020 who about, Oh, it was so small, but I thought that's really beautiful. And then when he went

00:29:32.440 to give his first blessing, he started to tear up those things for me touched me. But that's where

00:29:37.680 hope was for me anyway. It's the tiniest things, but yeah. And he, he did say he was the son of

00:29:43.980 Augustine, not sort of, you know, you know, Hans Kung or something like that as the same Brooklyn

00:29:49.480 could be a waste. God bless you. It's an honor to connect with you again. Thanks for the time.

00:29:54.440 Appreciate it. And God bless all of you. We'll see you next time.

00:29:57.680 Aloha everyone. This is Jason Jones for LifeSide News. We hope you enjoyed this video. For more

00:30:07.740 content like this, check the link in the description. You can also connect with us on social media to

00:30:14.380 stay up to date with the latest news on life, faith, family, and freedom. Thanks for watching

00:30:21.340 and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - May 21, 2025

A Pontiff for Our Time： The Promise of Pope Leo XIV ｜ Patrick Coffin

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