The John-Henry Westen Show - March 31, 2020


Assessing the Pope's responsibility in the chastisement of coronavirus


Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

151.79707

Word count

3,421

Sentence count

176

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Pope says that we have the Coronavirus, and that it's the result of Mother Nature getting angry at us for not doing enough to protect the environment. But Fr. James Martin says that s not what the Bible teaches.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.360 Welcome to the John Henry Weston Show. You've heard by now that Pope Francis has
00:00:04.260 scandalously said that we have the coronavirus thanks to nature being angry
00:00:08.940 with us for not protecting the environment. Plenty of other modernist
00:00:12.840 prelates, such as Father James Martin, have spouted similar things in the last
00:00:16.100 few weeks, but Cardinal Burke, Bishop Schneider, and many saints and popes of
00:00:20.540 the past, not to mention our Lord himself, have said differently. Stay tuned.
00:00:30.000 A couple of very quick items before we start. If you haven't already subscribed
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00:01:10.320 by clicking the give.lifesitenews.com link below this video. And let's begin as we
00:01:16.300 always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
00:01:20.520 and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. When I first heard that Pope Francis had suggested that
00:01:26.960 the coronavirus was the result of nature throwing a fit because we had failed to take care of the
00:01:31.820 environment, I couldn't believe it was real. Surely, even though the Pope has been wrong
00:01:36.380 on so many matters of faith, like contraception, cohabitation, divorce and remarriage, transgenderism,
00:01:41.420 and so on, surely he couldn't have gone against scripture and tradition on the coronavirus calamity
00:01:46.940 that has struck the earth. So, we made sure before we ran the story that we found the video
00:01:52.960 of him actually saying it. And for those who may not yet have seen it or don't believe it,
00:01:58.980 you can watch him say this now. It wasn't fake news.
00:02:03.460 Curiosamente, hacía mucho tiempo que el planeta no estaba tan limpio. Puede que sea todo esto un ajuste
00:02:09.920 de cuentas de la naturaleza con nosotros. Hay un dicho que seguramente vos lo conoces. Dios perdona siempre.
00:02:19.480 Nosotros perdonamos de vez en cuando. La naturaleza no perdona nunca.
00:02:26.940 Los incendios, las inundaciones, los terremotos. O sea, la naturaleza está pataleando
00:02:34.980 para que nos hagamos cargo del cuidado de la naturaleza.
00:02:41.000 Pope Francis, of course, wasn't the only one. Fr. James Martin, one of the most notorious promoters
00:02:46.540 of heresy on the subject of homosexuality in the Church, castigated Cardinal Burke,
00:02:51.500 who recalled in the wake of the onset of the virus that all evil results from sin.
00:02:56.640 And I'll quote it for you. So don't listen to anyone, even clergy, who tell you that the
00:03:03.300 coronavirus is a punishment for sins, either your sins, the sins of some group, in brackets,
00:03:08.800 usually a group they oppose, or the world's sins. Jesus rejects this approach, he says.
00:03:15.440 Fr. James Martin adds,
00:03:17.660 Jesus rejects three times the idea of a monstrous God who punishes people with illness or disability.
00:03:23.320 This is not the God of the New Testament. Instead, Jesus accompanies us in our infirmities
00:03:28.500 and for those in his time, heals them. End quote.
00:03:33.460 This is utter nonsense and demonstrates or plays into a profound ignorance of Scripture and the 0.95
00:03:39.680 Catholic faith. Firstly, all evil, death included, entered the world through sin, as we know from 1.00
00:03:46.080 the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, chapter 5, verse 12. Cardinal Burke brought this fact up in
00:03:52.440 the statement on the coronavirus that he made. He said, and I quote,
00:03:55.640 There is no question that great evils like pestilence are an effect of original sin and of
00:04:01.400 our actual sins. End quote. And that was the key quote about which Fr. Martin was complaining.
00:04:08.640 But what about the scriptural account of Noah and the flood, which is all about God punishing the
00:04:14.220 world for sin? The church has always taught, in line with the Holy Bible, that there are four sins
00:04:20.220 which cry out to heaven for vengeance. As you can read in the Catechism of St. Pius X, speaking of
00:04:27.440 willful murder, the sin of sodomy, oppression of the poor, and defrauding laborers of their wages,
00:04:33.840 Pope St. Pius X says,
00:04:36.140 These sins are said to cry to God for vengeance because the Holy Ghost says so, and because their
00:04:42.620 iniquity is so great and so manifest that it provokes God to punish them with the severest
00:04:47.880 chastisements. End quote. And related to that, we have the account of Sodom and Gomorrah,
00:04:53.840 which were destroyed as a consequence of their grievous sins, especially homosexual acts. 0.97
00:04:59.440 And in case some like Fr. James Martin would suggest that this is all allegorical and untrue,
00:05:04.940 Jesus himself talks about the punishment of Sodom. In Matthew 11.25, we read our Lord saying,
00:05:10.300 End quote. And you, Capernaum, shall you be exalted up to heaven? You shall go down even
00:05:16.240 to hell. For if in Sodom had been done the miracles that were done in you, perhaps it would have 0.98
00:05:22.160 remained till this day. End quote. All throughout the scriptures, the New Testament included what are
00:05:28.700 today called natural disasters that are related to God's displeasure. At Christ's death, there was a
00:05:36.760 horrific earthquake, as we read in Matthew 27.51. Quote, Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in
00:05:44.720 two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split. End quote. Jesus himself warns
00:05:52.080 of divine punishments. He tells his apostles, as recorded in Luke chapter 10, to wipe off the dust
00:05:58.800 from their sandals as a testimony to those cities which have rejected his teaching, and warns, and I
00:06:04.520 quote, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable at that day for Sodom than for that city. End quote. 0.55
00:06:11.160 And again, when Jesus heals the invalid man at the Bethesda pool, as recorded in John 5, he tells him,
00:06:17.480 and I quote, Behold, you are made well, sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you. End quote.
00:06:25.340 But let's get back to what the Pope said about this. Life Cites Mexico correspondent Matthew Hoffman
00:06:31.200 points out that the Pope's attribution of the coronavirus pandemic to environmental damage
00:06:36.100 is in keeping with the strongly environmentalist eco-theology he has been promoting during his
00:06:42.420 pontificate since the publication of his encyclical Laudato Si' in 2015, and particularly at the recent
00:06:49.220 synod of bishops for the Pan-Amazon region, which tended to displace spiritual concerns with
00:06:54.760 environmental ones. Last November, the Pope said that he hoped to add the ecological sin against
00:07:01.640 our common home to the Catholic Church, to the Catholic Church's catechism. His opinion of the
00:07:08.540 origin of natural disasters as nature lashing out against man's environmental sins is echoed by
00:07:15.800 Leonardo Boff, a dissenting liberal theologian who abandoned the Franciscan order and entered into a
00:07:22.120 union with a woman after being censured by the Vatican for a tax on Catholic doctrine.
00:07:27.660 Boff is a strong supporter of Pope Francis and has known him since the 1970s. In a recent article for
00:07:34.360 a Brazilian magazine, Boff stated that the coronavirus pandemic is the revenge of Gaia, a personified planet
00:07:41.260 Earth who has become outraged over environmental offenses and which he also calls the Great Mother.
00:07:46.640 He said, and I quote,
00:07:48.260 I believe that current diseases such as Deng, Chikunga, Zika virus, SARS, Ebola, measles, and the
00:07:56.700 current coronavirus, and the widespread degradation of human relations marked by deep inequality, social
00:08:02.420 injustice, and a lack of minimum solidarity, are a reprisal for Gaia, for the offenses we inflict on
00:08:11.140 her without interruption, he added. He also said, it is not without reason that the virus has erupted
00:08:18.320 where there is the most pollution. So it seems we're back to pagan idolatry of Mother Earth, 0.88
00:08:26.860 also known as Gaia, also known as Pachamama. It's very clear in scripture that God hates idolatry.
00:08:35.540 When the Israelites turned to idolatry while Moses was away on the mountain speaking with God,
00:08:40.820 God was ready to destroy them all. But Moses pleaded for the people of Israel and appeased 0.80
00:08:47.200 God's wrath, as you can read about in Exodus 32. It's worth noting that just before this virus broke
00:08:55.520 out, the Pope allowed for idolatry in the Vatican. The Pachamama idolatry, which commenced with a pagan
00:09:01.980 ceremony in the Vatican Gardens, which included prostration before a statue of Pachamama, which was
00:09:08.060 later processed in St. Peter's Basilica, where the Pope and several cardinals said prayers before it,
00:09:13.440 was condemned by cardinals, bishops, priests, and laity all over the world. In a letter to Pope Francis
00:09:20.080 asking him to repent, which included the signature of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the facts were laid
00:09:26.800 out this way. On October 4th, Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess
00:09:35.360 Pachamama. He allowed this worship to take place in the Vatican Gardens, thus desecrating the vicinity
00:09:44.520 of the graves of the martyrs and of the church of the apostle Peter. He participated in this act of
00:09:52.560 idolatrous worship by blessing a wooden image of Pachamama. On October 7th, the idol of Pachamama
00:10:00.900 was placed in front of the main altar at St. Peter's and then carried in procession to the synod hall.
00:10:10.280 Pope Francis said prayers in a ceremony involving this image and then joined in this procession.
00:10:15.860 When wooden images of this pagan deity were removed from the church of Santa Maria in Transpontina,
00:10:23.460 where they had been sacrilegiously placed and thrown into the Tiber by Catholics outraged by this 0.53
00:10:29.300 profanation of the church, Pope Francis on October 25th apologized for their removal and another wooden
00:10:36.340 image of Pachamama was returned to the church. Thus a new profanation was initiated. On October 27th,
00:10:44.920 in the closing mass for the synod, Pope Francis accepted a bowl used in the idolatrous worship of Pachamama
00:10:52.980 and placed it on the altar. Cardinal Burke drew attention to this kind of idolatry in comments about
00:11:01.320 the coronavirus, which you can find on LifeSite News. He said, and I quote,
00:11:05.260 A person of faith cannot consider the present calamity in which we find ourselves without
00:11:10.740 considering also how distant our popular culture is from God. It is not only indifferent to his
00:11:18.080 presence in our midst, but openly rebellious toward him and the good order with which he has created us
00:11:24.180 and sustains us in being. And Cardinal Burke added,
00:11:28.320 We witness too, even within the church, a paganism which worships nature and the earth.
00:11:35.740 He continued, There are those within the church who refer to the earth as our mother,
00:11:41.100 as if we came from the earth and the earth is our salvation, but we come from the hand of God,
00:11:47.180 creator of heaven and earth, end quote. There is another very interesting observation between
00:11:54.900 God's punishment and recent controversies of Pope Francis. The Pope allowed sacrilegious
00:12:01.620 communions, allowance for Holy Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics,
00:12:06.580 which before the Pachamama idolatry was the most common concern about the Francis papacy.
00:12:12.140 And this, this profanation of Holy Communion has a direct tie to God's punishment as laid out in
00:12:22.540 the New Testament. I caught this in a 2015 interview of Bishop Athanasius Schneider with
00:12:29.160 church militant Michael Voris, which predates the coronavirus. But watching it now seems prophetic.
00:12:35.760 In speaking of God's punishment for sins, Bishop Schneider mentions several examples in scriptural
00:12:41.720 history and the, and in the future, actually, that are related in the apocalypse of the book of
00:12:46.140 Revelation. He also, however, speaking of the wrath of God or punishment of God, quotes the New Testament
00:12:54.080 first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians chapter 11, which says, and I quote,
00:12:58.720 whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be
00:13:04.840 answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body,
00:13:11.320 eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason, many of you are weak and ill, 0.56
00:13:17.540 and some have died. Did you catch that? For this reason, many of you are weak and ill,
00:13:23.680 and some have died. From what? From not eating and drinking the body and blood of the Lord worthily.
00:13:33.620 Many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. Doesn't that sound like a perfect picture of what we're
00:13:39.580 experiencing in this coronavirus pandemic? Many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
00:13:47.720 But, is it really sane to imagine even some part of this plague is the result of Pope Francis's
00:13:56.920 betrayal of our Lord? Well, actually, there is historical precedent for exactly such a thing.
00:14:03.220 In the Old Testament, we read the story of the God-selected leader of his chosen people,
00:14:10.280 King David, betraying God and the chastisement that fell on all the people because of it.
00:14:17.360 The account is related in the second book of Samuel, chapter 24, in which we learn that David,
00:14:23.540 pridefully enumerated, had a census of all the Israelites. But later, he knew he was wrong,
00:14:29.340 and he confessed his sin to God, asking the Lord to remove his sin. And the Lord made it known to
00:14:35.660 David, through the prophet Gad, that David was to choose which punishment would befall the people 0.97
00:14:41.360 because of his sin. Here's how 2 Samuel 24, starting at verse 12, relates the story.
00:14:48.400 Go and tell David, This is what the Lord says. I am giving you three options. Choose one of them
00:14:55.480 for me to carry out against you. So Gad went to David and said to him, Shall there come on you
00:15:01.540 three years of famine in your land, or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you,
00:15:08.040 or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over, and decide how I should answer the
00:15:16.220 one who sent me. David said to Gad, I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord,
00:15:23.100 for his mercy is great. But do not let me fall into human hands. So the Lord sent a plague on
00:15:30.480 Israel from that morning until the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to
00:15:37.900 Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented 0.95
00:15:44.280 concerning the disaster, and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, Enough, withdraw your
00:15:50.980 hand. End quote. Wow. In truth, however, we are all guilty of idolatry in some ways. How many times
00:16:01.700 have we given in to lust, to gluttony, to pride, to anger, to laziness, to jealousy, or to greed?
00:16:10.220 And it is our very sins, and especially those of abortion, lust, and sodomy, which have drawn down
00:16:17.180 upon us the chastisement of God. And beyond coronavirus, there is a more severe punishment
00:16:22.680 that has been afflicting the world for many decades now, but more acutely in recent days.
00:16:29.840 St. John Eudes wrote in his book, The Priest, His Dignity and Obligations, that, and I quote,
00:16:35.680 The most evident mark of God's anger and the most terrible castigation he can inflict upon the world
00:16:43.580 are manifested when he permits his people to fall into the hands of clergy who are priests more in
00:16:51.060 name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of raviting wolves rather than charity and affection
00:16:58.240 of devoted shepherds. St. John Eudes added, When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof
00:17:08.060 that he is thoroughly angry with his people and is visiting his most dreadful anger upon them. End quote.
00:17:17.480 So, we can never say that God doesn't have control over what goes on in our world.
00:17:22.780 He knows, he sees, and yes, he's even able to stop bad things from happening.
00:17:29.640 However, by going against God's plan for the good of mankind, which is called sin,
00:17:34.980 we push God out of our lives. Christians are taught that as we push God away,
00:17:40.520 his protection is also pushed away by us. For true Christian believers, these are realities of life,
00:17:47.540 not speculative theories or myths. And in our busy, very materialistic life, in which we don't seem to need
00:17:54.740 God at all, we completely lose the sense of this reality until tragedy strikes.
00:18:01.840 Christians are also taught that the devil is what scripture calls the prince of this world.
00:18:08.080 The devil intends evil or harm to come to us. God permits much evil in the world,
00:18:14.000 but the faith teaches that he does so because he can bring great good,
00:18:18.680 even from the worst and seemingly hopeless situations. I find it most easily explained by
00:18:24.680 taking a hard look at reality, eternal reality. Most seem not to live a life that accepts the reality
00:18:33.880 that God would have a role or shall, shall we say, a deliberately intended message for us in
00:18:40.400 disasters such as the coronavirus. In reality, we are here on earth for a very short time,
00:18:47.000 a blip, if you will, in terms of the span of our real life after death, which goes on for eternity.
00:18:53.660 Those who do not believe are prone to end up in the depths of despair when calamity strikes.
00:18:59.740 But seen in a spiritual light, life is primarily about deciding which path to take for eternity,
00:19:05.940 the path toward God or the path away from him. And from that perspective, there can be a special
00:19:12.780 hope regarding the plight of victims of calamities such as the coronavirus. Countless people, when
00:19:19.000 they are faced with such a calamity, turn their hearts to God, many for the first time. Some after
00:19:24.820 a long time of rejecting God. And while their prayers and pleadings for safety may not be realized in
00:19:30.440 this world, they suddenly become more open to a deep change of heart that they know will set them
00:19:36.760 in a direction of being happy, safe, and calm with a loving Father forever in the next world.
00:19:43.520 One of the unique consoling truths in Catholic teaching on suffering is that Christ suffers with
00:19:49.920 us. He suffers with all of us, with all of our pains, in all of our calamities. He is there for us at
00:19:57.400 all times, but closest when we are suffering. And so in the end, it really is up to us, up to God's
00:20:06.680 people, to bring the blessing of God on the earth. We read this in 2 Chronicles 7 14. It says,
00:20:14.220 If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from
00:20:21.860 their wicked ways, and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. If my people called by my name,
00:20:34.340 that's us Christians, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, then I will
00:20:40.660 hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. So let's take up this challenge.
00:20:49.000 Right now we're in Passion Week, the week where we prepare for Holy Week, the most sacred time of
00:20:54.400 year. We must make it sacred, even if we are denied the sacraments. Let us kneel and pray our rosaries,
00:21:02.280 following along with the holy sacrifice of the Mass broadcast from the holiest priests we know.
00:21:07.800 Make our spiritual holy communions, and if you're able to find priests who will offer clandestine
00:21:13.720 masses, or if in your area masses are once again open to the public, please remember to receive our
00:21:20.400 Lord on behalf of the countless Catholics unable to receive him this year. Beg the Lord to return to us,
00:21:27.040 to remember us in his great mercy. Stay under the mantle of Mary, for she will protect us and give us
00:21:33.020 shelter, leading us always to her Son. And let us together repent for our sins and those of the whole
00:21:42.620 world, offering to the Eternal Father the most sacred body and blood, soul, and divinity of his dearly
00:21:48.820 beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in union with the masses said throughout the world.
00:21:55.940 For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston, and may God bless you.
00:22:00.200 Hello, this is John Henry Weston. I'd like to invite you to subscribe to the John Henry Weston Show
00:22:08.340 YouTube channel if you haven't already done so. There you will find all the past episodes and much
00:22:13.780 more. Thanks again for watching, and may God bless you.
00:22:30.200 Thank you.