The John-Henry Westen Show - Catholic ranch THRIVES despite ban from Archbishop Gustavo

00:00:00.000 He came out and prohibited all Catholics from coming to our retreat center,

00:00:05.240 canceled all of the retreat contracts that we legally had in force with him,

00:00:09.580 and sent me a letter from his attorney saying that I'm only to communicate with him

00:00:13.280 and no Catholic is allowed to come to our property.

00:00:24.940 Hello, my friends, and welcome once again to Sanctus Ranch.

00:00:28.720 You remember we were here in the old year,

00:00:32.200 and this is one of the most striking things that I've ever seen from an archbishop in the Catholic Church

00:00:37.620 because we're now used to funny, let's say, archbishops canceling good priests for doing the right thing.

00:00:46.140 The first time we saw an archbishop cancel a Catholic family's business was right here at Sanctus Ranch.

00:00:53.980 Dan Savigny and his family and their Sanctus Ranch here in Texas.

00:01:00.340 And we're going to do a little bit of catch-up with Dan to find out what's gone on over these past number of months

00:01:07.040 and how they've fared under the cancellation by Archbishop Gustavo.

00:01:12.000 Stay tuned for this episode of The John Henry Weston Show.

00:01:14.120 For U.S. residents, creating a will has never been easier.

00:01:18.340 Thanks to My Legacy Will, an online platform free of charge,

00:01:22.680 you can now create your own will and choose to include LifeSite News in it,

00:01:27.220 specify where your funeral will take place,

00:01:29.700 the number of masses to be offered for your soul,

00:01:32.200 and how your estate will be distributed.

00:01:34.340 We would be deeply grateful if you remembered LifeSite News in your will.

00:01:39.100 Visit mylegacywill.com slash LifeSite News.

00:01:43.420 Thank you for your support, and may God bless you.

00:01:46.880 Dan Savigny, so good to be with you.

00:01:48.280 It's great to see you again. Thanks for coming down.

00:01:50.220 Ah, it's a great pleasure.

00:01:51.380 Let's begin, as you always do, with the sign of the cross.

00:01:53.420 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:01:58.140 Amen. So, Dan, I know a lot of people, in fact, tens of thousands of people watched our original show.

00:02:04.660 I think most of them were flabbergasted.

00:02:06.280 They couldn't believe what had happened.

00:02:07.900 But for those who didn't, and if you didn't, I would encourage you to go watch the old show.

00:02:11.620 But for those who didn't, can you give us a short recap?

00:02:14.200 Yeah, we ran into a little problem here.

00:02:16.900 We have a retreat center we've had for the last eight years,

00:02:19.360 been doing retreats year in, year out, every weekend.

00:02:22.060 And then we had a priest that was available start staying at our property.

00:02:27.620 And we opened a Catholic school because of a need with our family and some others.

00:02:32.960 And so that priest was also teaching in our school.

00:02:35.880 We had a second priest that was retired that was also teaching in the school.

00:02:39.060 And we ran into a situation with the local ordinary that we wanted to have a meeting,

00:02:44.500 and he wanted to ask some questions, which we were open to doing so.

00:02:48.220 Scheduling didn't work out.

00:02:49.320 And all of a sudden, with no real notice other than I'm not going to reschedule the meeting,

00:02:54.720 he came out and prohibited all Catholics from coming to our retreat center,

00:02:59.840 canceled all of the retreat contracts that we legally had in force with him,

00:03:04.420 and sent me a letter from his attorney saying that I'm only to communicate with him,

00:03:08.580 and no Catholic is allowed to come to our property.

00:03:12.080 Yes, but we don't even know how to respond to that because that's so insane.

00:03:15.620 So the Archbishop in question is San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia Siller.

00:03:21.740 And he's quite well known all the time for doing all sorts of things.

00:03:25.480 Now, one of the things has been cancellations of very good priests,

00:03:28.780 a real crackdown as well on the Latin Mass.

00:03:31.020 What happened to that score?

00:03:31.940 Yeah, it seems to be something that he's very much against.

00:03:35.380 And so there's been a restriction here.

00:03:38.080 There's one available in the diocese, but that's it.

00:03:40.780 And so I think that there was something that he didn't like.

00:03:44.320 The priests that were here would say the Latin Mass,

00:03:46.800 which we were very happy to have them say their private Mass.

00:03:49.800 And he didn't seem to like that either.

00:03:52.120 There's many stunning things that I want to get into.

00:03:54.480 But Archbishop Gustavo, as he calls himself, got into the news just the other day.

00:03:58.880 And I wanted to bring that forward only because it gives a good flavor

00:04:02.380 as to the Archbishop himself, where he's at.

00:04:05.740 And it just, I'll let the word speak for themselves.

00:04:10.280 This is from Archbishop Gustavo's X account, Twitter account.

00:04:14.480 The most controversial of these tweets was deleted.

00:04:16.980 Surprise, surprise.

00:04:17.520 But everybody still has the deleted tweet.

00:04:21.300 But let me read it to you.

00:04:22.900 He was on a rant about the new president-elect.

00:04:26.860 And we'll just leave it at that.

00:04:28.720 So he says,

00:04:30.340 Thanks be to God that Trump is not God.

00:04:33.420 Thanks be to God forever.

00:04:34.680 He went on to say,

00:04:36.940 Why these tragedies?

00:04:38.500 So this comes in the wake of New Orleans

00:04:41.140 and the explosion of the cyber truck outside the Trump Tower.

00:04:46.760 So why these tragedies?

00:04:49.280 Because elect president's words,

00:04:51.940 he means the president elects words,

00:04:53.640 in the last few years.

00:04:55.660 If we trigger actions, what do we want?

00:04:59.280 If the leadership speak about hate,

00:05:01.980 we will have hate.

00:05:03.520 Hate, he says again.

00:05:04.840 If we have actions of love, we'll love.

00:05:07.620 Some people does not want to love.

00:05:10.220 They have a problem.

00:05:11.620 Big.

00:05:12.660 Anyway, there's been a lot of speculations about what those tweets mean.

00:05:18.520 I think it's pretty clear what they mean.

00:05:21.300 He's not all that coherent, nonetheless.

00:05:22.960 But it gives you a flavor of where Archbishop Gustavo is coming from.

00:05:27.080 He's obviously a very anti-Trump.

00:05:29.420 That's as clear as day.

00:05:30.920 He says that himself.

00:05:32.380 But it's also anti-tradition, anti-Latin Mass.

00:05:36.160 Not even only Latin Mass.

00:05:38.500 It seems to be...

00:05:39.900 You guys had a difficulty here with Ordinarian Mass, did you not as well?

00:05:43.940 Yeah, we actually belong to the Ordinarian, and so there were challenges that were there

00:05:49.520 from what Archbishop Gustavo has been doing.

00:05:53.140 He seems to dislike anything to do with traditional Catholicism, which is really sad.

00:05:58.620 It is, because, I mean, for those of you who don't know, the Ordinarian Mass is not

00:06:02.140 a Latin Mass.

00:06:03.840 It is the old Anglicans who come into the church and they have a special rite.

00:06:08.180 But basically, it amounts to the traditional Latin Mass translated into English, and it's

00:06:12.720 really beautiful.

00:06:13.260 And it said the same, ad orientem, in other words, facing the priest, facing Jesus in the

00:06:17.180 tabernacle along with the people.

00:06:19.640 And they all receive communion, kneeling it on the tongue as is proper.

00:06:23.420 And so it's rather beautiful.

00:06:25.560 A lot of people loved it.

00:06:26.900 But even that was too much.

00:06:27.980 So it wasn't even an only anti-Latin.

00:06:30.540 It's kind of anti-tradition, the same tradition that's lasted in the church over 2,000 years.

00:06:35.820 But anyway, there's a good snapshot of Archbishop Gustavo.

00:06:40.660 But what is stunning, and I think what most people were so taken aback by, was the cancellation

00:06:46.380 of your business.

00:06:47.580 This is, after all, America.

00:06:49.780 So there's one thing about Mass, if he doesn't want you to have Mass on your property and whatever.

00:06:56.120 First of all, it's private, which is another weird thing.

00:06:58.520 But anyway, beyond that, he said that Catholics in his diocese are forbidden from coming to your

00:07:04.500 property, i.e. to your business, which this is as well.

00:07:07.520 Yeah, that's one of the things that just seems insane.

00:07:10.120 Quite frankly, imagine that we had ordinaries all over the country say, you can no longer go

00:07:15.960 to McDonald's or to Chick-fil-A, or they don't even say you can no longer go to Planned Parenthood.

00:07:21.460 But yet this bishop thought he could tell all Catholics that they could not come to our property,

00:07:26.540 not set foot on our property, or attend any of the activities we have, whether they have

00:07:31.420 anything to do with the faith, or they're simply a dinner, they've been told that they

00:07:36.480 cannot come.

00:07:37.180 Yeah, it's a really good comparison to say to a restaurant or something, because you run

00:07:41.480 sort of in here or a hotel, if you will, but also there's a bakery here now.

00:07:46.540 Tell us a little bit about the different businesses running out of here.

00:07:49.240 And tell us about your family, because you don't only have one child and you're running

00:07:53.260 this for yourself with your wife.

00:07:54.540 Tell us about your family too.

00:07:55.720 Yeah, well, my wife Jennifer and I started Sanctus Ranch.

00:07:58.280 It's about eight years ago.

00:07:59.760 We have six children.

00:08:01.040 One of them is now married with our first grandson, which we're very excited about.

00:08:05.840 But the remainder are here.

00:08:07.700 And so we do have many things that are going on.

00:08:10.160 This year has been challenging.

00:08:11.780 We've had to scramble and try to figure things out.

00:08:14.980 But one of the things that has come to us is that our daughter, who is discerning her vocation,

00:08:20.640 has been helping us out with our new school, Lumen Christi Academy.

00:08:24.100 And one of the things that she wanted to do is she felt like we could have an outreach

00:08:29.680 program here from the Academy where we taught good skills and we were able to evangelize.

00:08:35.080 So she opened a sourdough bakery and it's been wonderful.

00:08:38.700 But I think we were sharing with you earlier today, we've had people that are very interested

00:08:42.340 in buying the bread from her.

00:08:44.920 It's wonderful.

00:08:46.120 It's excellent.

00:08:47.120 But they won't come and purchase it here on the property.

00:08:50.220 She has to drive to a church parking lot just to be able to deliver their bread. 1.00

00:08:56.480 But at this point, she has to drive to a non-Catholic church property to deliver her bread.

00:09:02.380 It seems incredibly insane, but that's what we've been dealing with for the last year.

00:09:07.580 Pope Pius XI said men must look for the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ.

00:09:14.200 And he urged that the faithful give public honor to Christ the King so that individuals

00:09:18.760 and states would submit once more to the rule of their savior.

00:09:22.580 And that is why LifeSite News is raising up the image of Christ the King across the United

00:09:28.100 States.

00:09:28.640 And you can help us reach millions more.

00:09:32.020 Please pledge your support today for these billboards at lifefunder.com slash Christ is

00:09:38.260 King.

00:09:38.580 So that kind of insanity, it leaves me almost speechless.

00:09:42.960 There could be a lot of anger associated with it because of the injustice, the gross, absolute,

00:09:50.720 disgusting injustice toward a family of six children, toward a business run by a Catholic,

00:09:58.260 whether he likes that kind of Catholic or not doesn't even matter.

00:10:00.940 If you were Protestant or Jewish or anything else, this would be, why is it not an outrage for 1.00

00:10:08.180 everyone?

00:10:09.340 Those are some big questions.

00:10:11.560 One of the things people would say to you, have you not sued this guy yet?

00:10:16.680 What's your thought there?

00:10:18.200 Well, it's been challenging.

00:10:19.300 We've had two choices.

00:10:20.380 We could either go down that road and that would consume the vast majority of our energy,

00:10:25.500 or we needed to continue to move forward with what the Lord put in our heart, what we're

00:10:31.780 supposed to be doing with the mission here.

00:10:33.960 And John Henry, I want to make sure that people know this.

00:10:35.820 There's a lot more people than just my family.

00:10:38.340 There are employees and their families.

00:10:40.640 There are teachers in our school.

00:10:42.560 There are priests that are working here that otherwise don't have an income from any source.

00:10:47.280 So all of those responsibilities have kind of been on the shoulders of the organization

00:10:51.920 here.

00:10:52.760 And so we've had to make those decisions.

00:10:54.340 As we've sought the counsel of the board, we've talked to benefactors.

00:10:58.860 Um, there are many that want us to pursue that legal action and it's still on the table,

00:11:04.660 uh, that we will do so.

00:11:06.080 Uh, but for the remainder of the year, we've actually just been trying to hold on because

00:11:11.380 we believe God's doing something incredible here.

00:11:13.440 And, and I will tell you every moment that we get to the very last possibility, uh, God

00:11:20.900 has shown us that he wants us to continue.

00:11:22.440 That's one thing that's truly incredible.

00:11:24.460 I mean, you had your year booked out and then you had a cancellation of everybody because

00:11:31.220 it was ordered by the bishop, which, which it's stunning that a lot of people listen to

00:11:36.920 that, but it goes to show when they won't come to the bread store that's here to buy

00:11:43.220 the bread because somehow they feel that they're not allowed onto the property.

00:11:47.360 If that can be a thing, gosh, bishops would be powerful.

00:11:51.580 Imagine that.

00:11:52.820 Okay.

00:11:53.240 In my diocese, you can only go to, you know, the, uh, Metro store because everything else

00:11:58.000 I'm forbidding.

00:11:58.800 Why not?

00:11:59.180 It's the same thing.

00:12:00.020 They could become kingpins, mafia types of some kind.

00:12:02.980 Wouldn't that be amazing?

00:12:03.880 This is what we've actually had to go through this year.

00:12:06.920 I mean, I will share with the viewers.

00:12:08.780 I've had priests that are friends come to the ranch, not in any capacity.

00:12:13.180 And the archbishop has called their bishop personally to threaten them that they're never

00:12:21.760 to come set foot on the property.

00:12:23.400 Again, uh, the level of, um, angst that is there is crazy.

00:12:30.020 Uh, it's, it's had an impact on our property insurance.

00:12:32.980 It's had an impact on many other things.

00:12:35.580 Uh, and it is kind of like someone might be a kingpin, uh, pulling strings.

00:12:41.600 Uh, even though we have spent the year with our head down, not making waves, not pushing

00:12:48.320 out an agenda.

00:12:49.300 We've just gone about the work that we've had yet, even in months of quiet, nothing

00:12:55.040 happening, all of a sudden it'll come back out with another attack.

00:12:59.060 So how were you able to survive?

00:13:01.140 What's been going on here?

00:13:02.200 That's enabled you to, to push forward.

00:13:04.260 Because I mean, when you get your whole main business, just canceled, like at a drop of

00:13:08.020 a dime, most people go, we're dead, but you guys didn't do that.

00:13:13.140 You, your wife, your six children, and all your faithful employees, uh, including some

00:13:18.720 canceled priests have, uh, soldiered on and, uh, almost miraculously, because how else could

00:13:24.900 this continue?

00:13:25.620 You have a huge facility.

00:13:27.040 You keep building.

00:13:28.000 How does that even happen?

00:13:28.800 By the grace of God.

00:13:29.940 Um, but we want to say thank you to you.

00:13:31.540 We want to say thank you to everyone that, uh, participated in the life funder that you

00:13:35.180 established really that very first month afterwards, that's what got us through.

00:13:40.720 And so to everyone out there that supported us, we are very, very grateful.

00:13:44.520 And then there've been benefactors that have stepped up.

00:13:46.980 Uh, and, and quite frankly, it's been from all over the country and all over the world.

00:13:50.960 People have stepped up and said, this isn't right.

00:13:53.260 What you're doing is good and holy.

00:13:55.200 Uh, and so we've made some tweaks to what we're doing.

00:13:57.700 Uh, our school, Lumen Christi Academy, our, our classical education school, uh, has taken

00:14:04.020 a bigger role here.

00:14:05.880 People have started to come together to support those students.

00:14:09.280 So the Lord keeps giving us the next step forward, but it's really been by his grace

00:14:14.500 and the generosity of so many people that we're still here today.

00:14:17.660 Give us your take on why people should give to it because people are giving from outside

00:14:23.720 of the state, heck outside the country.

00:14:26.720 They're not going to ever come here.

00:14:29.720 Why would Catholics do that? 1.00

00:14:31.000 You know, I think that's, what's beautiful about the Catholic faith.

00:14:34.660 You know, how many, how many generations gave to a cathedral that their kids were never going

00:14:39.860 to pray in.

00:14:41.280 Um, so there are people that see what we're doing here at Sanctus Ranch.

00:14:44.860 Um, they see the school, they see the facilities, they see the mission and they're saying, I want

00:14:50.520 to, I want to sow into that.

00:14:52.080 Uh, I want to help you guys achieve what God's placed on your heart.

00:14:55.480 So by people doing that, we've grown the school from, we started with six.

00:15:00.100 We now have 27 students.

00:15:01.540 We look to see that going, uh, up past 50, uh, in this coming year, we're building a new

00:15:07.160 school here on the property.

00:15:09.220 Uh, we continue to create a place where families can come together.

00:15:13.300 That domestic church that we're all responsible for. 1.00

00:15:16.520 We can bring that domestic church together in events where kids are playing on the front

00:15:21.720 lawn.

00:15:22.220 Uh, people are coming together for an event that we're going to have this evening.

00:15:25.780 It's a great opportunity for us as Christians to come together to solidify the faith.

00:15:31.440 And so that support from all over the country allows us to do that and to be a place of refuge

00:15:36.420 for people that are in need.

00:15:39.320 It could be a traditional organization.

00:15:41.520 Uh, it could be someone looking at the school.

00:15:43.640 It could be families that just say, I want to be around other people that are living out

00:15:48.040 the faith.

00:15:48.540 That's what we're trying to do here at Sanctus Ranch.

00:15:50.960 Beautiful.

00:15:51.360 I want to end off with a challenge, a challenge to the local Catholics who are obeying the 1.00

00:15:59.780 order not to come to Sanctus Ranch, even for buying of bread or just to stay in the facility

00:16:07.100 to use it when their family and friends are coming over from visiting for wherever, because

00:16:12.060 it's beautiful.

00:16:12.700 And they're not using it because they're not supposed to buy the archbishop's order.

00:16:16.980 I hope you also did not vote for President Trump, because if you did and you know your

00:16:23.200 archbishop hates him and would likely wish you to come to Sanctus Ranch before you voted

00:16:28.440 for him, I hope you did.

00:16:30.760 You did obey that as well, because if you didn't obey that and you happened to vote for Trump,

00:16:35.060 you went against the order in a way that's, oh my gosh, way over the top.

00:16:38.580 Because the order for him to tell you not to vote for Trump is exactly the same as his

00:16:46.020 order to tell you not to come and patronize a business, particularly a business with good

00:16:51.760 folks that you know are good who have six children and then the business that they built

00:16:57.000 up.

00:16:57.260 It's an unbelievable thing.

00:16:59.100 Dan, I want you to know from LifeSite News, from our many, many supporters out there, we

00:17:04.220 love you, we love what you're doing, we're amazed to see how your fidelity continues and

00:17:10.600 your willingness to work for Christ, for his church, despite the attacks from within, are

00:17:16.180 truly incredible.

00:17:17.400 God bless you, my friend.

00:17:18.400 God bless you.

00:17:19.040 Thank you.

00:17:19.500 Thanks all of you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

00:17:21.560 And may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - January 15, 2025

Catholic ranch THRIVES despite ban from Archbishop Gustavo

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript