The papal biographer who did all the books with Pope Benedict and did some fascinating deep dives into the life of Pope Benedict, Peter Seewald, just came out with a scathing criticism of Pope Francis last week. And we're going to do a deep dive into that with our German correspondent, Andreas Weilze, and our senior correspondent, Jim Hale, who goes all over the place.
00:19:31.700But yeah, they're at least, you know, upholding Catholic teaching in that sense.
00:19:37.100But even among those, many are still against the traditional Latin Mass.
00:19:42.000So, for instance, many restricted the traditional Latin Mass, even though they're against the synodal way.
00:19:46.300So you can see they're not really traditional in that sense.
00:19:49.860You know, there's only very few that I've heard about who secretly allow the Latin Mass to continue in their dioceses.
00:19:56.540And I don't think I should talk about it, because if I do, they will get attacked by all the other bishops.
00:20:04.140So it is really, really rough in Germany right now.
00:20:07.640So it's just basically, you know, the faithful and some priests who are, you know, who are just upholding the traditional faith in Germany right now.
00:20:19.880So this is actually an interesting thing.
00:20:23.180It goes back to a decision made or a change of heart, if you will, that a lot of the church hierarchy had after the Second Vatican Council.
00:20:32.660And I know, Jim, you're actually well-read in this as well.
00:20:37.440It relates to a very definite decision to move away from condemnations, anathemas, from holding people to account.
00:20:48.840And remember, the church always does this for good reason.
00:20:51.840Never to beat up on someone, to be nasty.
00:20:55.540Always to call them back to the truth.
00:21:01.200In fact, one of the spiritual works of mercy is to call the sinner back, to admonish, if you will.
00:21:09.000But it certainly seems to me, anyway, like the church has basically left that idea of mercy in admonishing people and trying to encourage them back to the faith by telling them that they're wrong.
00:21:27.900You know, John Henry, Sevald points out that although Benedict never renounced Vatican II, and he always affirmed the need for Vatican II, and there's a lot to be said about that.
00:21:43.780He does point out that Benedict saw this thing slipping away actually in 1964, which I think was after the third meeting.
00:21:51.560He saw where this was going, and then later he did acknowledge that things, especially with the liturgy, that that's where the real momentum was heading.
00:22:09.780And I think you can connect, you know, that to right where we are right now.
00:22:20.840I mean, I haven't traveled in Europe extensively, but in my time at LifeSite, I think I've been on the continent four times.
00:22:29.100And you can really see, I mean, unlike here in the U.S., or especially here like in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, we have a lot of really strong Novus Ordo parishes.
00:22:42.640Well, I don't—Andreas can tell us more about that, but you don't see a lot of that in Europe anymore.
00:22:48.940So their attempts to snuff out the Latin mass in Europe, really, you have to see that as their attempt to really just apply the coup de grace to any form of Orthodox Catholicism in Europe.
00:23:08.200And now, you know, what is happening here?
00:23:33.100I mean, even Bishop Betzing, who is, like you mentioned, the head of the German Bishops' Conference, even he alluded to multiple times just very recently, we're just about to cover this, that, you know, we have to think the church differently.
00:24:10.480So you can say a lot of people call it the Synodal Church because, you know, they have the Synodal way.
00:24:15.320And so call it the Synodal Church versus the Catholic Church.
00:24:19.080And I think that's an accurate description of what is going on.
00:24:24.520Well, I actually even mean among the faithful.
00:24:26.480So I've still got cousins in Germany and relatives who tell me that they are talking about things like, oh, that's a new church, church, rather than just a regular Catholic church.
00:24:40.120So do you find yourself among the faithful or not so faithful or, you know, just regular Catholics?
00:24:46.420Are they themselves recognizing parish by parish what kind of church this is and sort of designating that even in their language?
00:25:23.220So the practice is already, you know, that it's a different church.
00:25:28.640So I think local people always know, and that's also my experience, what parishes to avoid.
00:25:35.200And, you know, there's always these, you know, for me in Vienna as well, we have our few pockets of orthodoxy.
00:25:43.020It's basically, it's easier to point to the churches that you can't actually go to or that they're good to go to than rather than eliminate those that you cannot go to or you should not go to.
00:25:51.720Because it's only a few pockets of orthodoxy, unfortunately, in my experience.
00:26:19.760It tells you when, what day, you know, gets you to mass anytime, anywhere, anywhere in the world.
00:26:24.300Well, the problem is if so many of the faith of the churches are unfaithful, are heretical now, it really, boy, we need, like, mass times to designate.
00:26:38.080Well, yeah, this is a new church community or whatever you want to call it.
00:26:58.620But, you know, I can drive an hour from here.
00:27:02.300And last month, you know this, we covered a rainbow mass in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
00:27:13.140We stood out there on the sidewalk, and we had a rosary with the Tradition Family and Property, a rosary of reparation for this taking place, you know, in the nation's capital where, you know, Cardinal—
00:27:27.360With the blessing of Cardinal Gregory.
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00:28:46.600You know, this idea of a false mercy, a, you know, we don't want to condemn anybody.
00:28:58.580That attitude, which now is extended toward pro-abortion politicians like Nancy Pelosi, oh, please come and receive communion, or towards, you know, homosexual activists or transgender individuals or whatever, under the guise of mercy, it's not merciful at all.
00:29:16.320You're allowing them to go down the highway to hell, the easy road.
00:29:24.360But you got to think of this, that same merciful attitude was extended first to the sex abusers among the clergy.
00:29:33.800So it was like, yeah, we don't need, remember the famous thing that we already alluded to earlier, Cardinal Daniels, who was, he was probably the first high-ranking prelate in the Catholic Church caught on tape doing cover-up for sexual abuse.
00:29:51.360When, if anybody doesn't remember, he sat there with a sexual abuse victim who was actually recording the conversation.
00:29:59.720And this sexual abuse victim was abused as a child by his uncle, who was a bishop friend of Cardinal Daniels.
00:30:09.660And Cardinal Daniels can be heard on tape telling him not to go after the bishop now, he's going to retire next year, look to your own sins, he said.
00:30:21.840And so that's a major cover-up of abuse, caught on tape, still allowed.
00:30:28.960But this whole Church of Mercy thing, when you're dealing out mercy in that way, basically covering up for the evil, wallpapering over it, so that all of it stays there and still festers, doesn't allow them to be cleansed and to embrace Christ and his truth, is not mercy at all.
00:30:50.300But it's actually a form of, if you will, hatred.
00:30:54.900If you think about the eternal realities, you're encouraging people down the road to hell rather than calling them to repentance, the love of Christ, which leads to eternal bliss.
00:31:07.800It's not really merciful, like you said, to ignore the sins of people and to not point them to redemption and to call them to redemption, which is, you know, the calling of every Catholic, but especially, you know, the bishops and priests and the Pope, first and foremost.
00:31:25.140And, you know, to get back to the Peter Seward interview, he alluded to that as well, that Pope Francis likes to style himself as this Pope of mercy, but he really, he's an authoritarian.
00:31:39.340So again, very, very strong words of condemnation.
00:31:41.880So he's very authoritarian on how he deals with things in, in, inside, but outside, he just presents himself as this merciful Pope while undermining the faith and not pointing people to their sins and to redemption, especially, of course, today, sexual sins.
00:32:00.640I mean, that's the big, the big, biggest issue in the church today that he's trying to undermine and he's never calling people on redemption for that, you know, his famous statement, who am I to judge and all the call, all the, you know, confusion that he caused in that regard.
00:32:14.500Now, that's actually a very interesting point, because while this kind of false mercy or whatever, this approach, sort of a laissez-faire kind of approach, accept everything and anything, is probably true of a lot of people.
00:32:34.920Even you could say, even you could say, you could criticize Benedict allowed for too much, or even Cardinal Muller, or even, even Pope John Paul in some ways, allowed for too much, you know, in an understanding perhaps of a mercy and wanting to be nice to people and so on.
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00:34:41.420Thanks for watching and may God bless you.