The John-Henry Westen Show - May 28, 2019


Episode 11： Pope's lack of clarity is a sign of the end times： chatting with Cardinal Eijk


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

133.01738

Word Count

2,367

Sentence Count

167

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Cardinal William Jacobus Eich is the Archbishop of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and at only 65 years old, he is one of the youngest cardinals in the Catholic Church. In an article last year, Cardinal Eich lamented Pope Francis' failure to bring clarity on the question of intercommunion with Protestants. He also warned publicly even two years ago that by failing to clarify the Church's teaching on divorce and remarriage, Pope Francis was, and I quote, "f fracturing the Church." During my recent time in Rome at the World Life Forum, where the Cardinal spoke, I had the chance to sit down with him for an interview where we discussed Pope Francis, as well as some of the issues in the Church today requiring clarification.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, this is John Henry Weston, co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSite News.
00:00:08.820 I'd like to welcome you to this special edition of the John Henry Weston Show.
00:00:12.780 We're going to be speaking with one of the most outspoken defenders of the perennial Catholic
00:00:17.320 teaching in the Church, a medical doctor, a doctor of philosophy, and a doctor of theology,
00:00:22.880 not to mention a Catholic cardinal, and at only 65 years of age, one of the younger cardinals
00:00:27.880 in the Church. Willem Jacobus Cardinal Eich is the Archbishop of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
00:00:34.720 In an article last year, Cardinal Eich lamented Pope Francis' failure to bring clarity on the
00:00:40.320 question of intercommunion with Protestants. And I quote,
00:00:43.640 By failing to create clarity, great confusion is created among the faithful, and the unity of the
00:00:50.140 Church is endangered. I quote again, observing that the bishops, and above all, the successor
00:00:55.460 Peter failed to maintain and transmit faithfully and in unity the deposit of faith contained in
00:01:01.720 sacred tradition and sacred scripture. I cannot help but think of Article 675 of the Catechism of
00:01:07.700 the Catholic Church, he wrote. That article of the Catechism, which he quoted in full, warns of a
00:01:14.040 great trial that will shake the faith of many believers. It prophesies a persecution that will,
00:01:20.160 and I quote, unveil the mystery of iniquity in the form of a religious deception offering men an
00:01:26.100 apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. Cardinal Eich warned
00:01:32.740 publicly even two years ago that by failing to clarify the Church teaching over divorce and
00:01:38.060 remarriage, Pope Francis was, and I quote, fracturing the Church. During my recent time in Rome at the
00:01:43.920 World Life Forum, where the Cardinal spoke, I had the opportunity to sit down with him for this
00:01:48.360 interview, where we discuss Pope Francis, as well as Cardinal Eich's take on some of the issues in
00:01:53.280 the Church today requiring clarification. I've let the Cardinal lead us in our opening prayer,
00:01:58.980 so stay tuned, and here we go. Welcome to this special episode of the John Henry Weston Show,
00:02:04.820 coming at you today from Rome, where we are at the Rome Life Forum, which LifeSite founded in 2014.
00:02:10.420 We're very privileged to have with us today Cardinal William Jacobus Eich, who's from the Netherlands.
00:02:15.100 Welcome, Cardinal Eich. Thank you so much. And we'll begin, as we always do, with the sign of
00:02:20.140 the cross led this time by His Eminence. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
00:02:25.140 Spirit. Amen. Amen. So it is very good to be with you, Your Eminence, and you gave a discussion or a
00:02:32.740 talk today about gender theory and about homosexuality, these very difficult topics in
00:02:37.840 our world today. And yet for you, both from your medical background as well as your background in
00:02:42.840 theology and philosophy, it's a very simple answer of the Church. Can you give us very briefly what
00:02:47.660 what the position of the Church is on these things? Well, the Church says that there is an essential
00:02:54.800 relationships between some aspects of gender and biological sex, like being a father, mother, man or
00:03:05.680 wife, matrimony. You know, and these relationships, sexual relationships, always need to be, have a place
00:03:17.220 in marriage between man and wife. That's matrimony. And that's based just on the, what we, what God reveals
00:03:28.800 for himself in the Bible. It's a triune God. And John Paul II, Saint Paul, John Paul II, explained to us in his
00:03:37.660 theology of the body that there is an analogy between the triune God and matrimony. God is a unity of three
00:03:46.840 persons who give themselves totally to one another. And they differ in their relationships. And you know,
00:03:55.720 you see a kind of reflection of this in man, created in image of God. And also marriage is created in the image
00:04:05.900 of God. There's the most intimate relationship we know between two persons. And these persons give themselves
00:04:13.700 totally to one another. But they differ from each other. They are complementary to each other. Of course,
00:04:19.880 in the field of procreation. Men cannot procreate alone. The woman cannot procreate alone. They have to
00:04:27.380 procreate together. And collaborating with one another in the sexual relationships. And this way, they know,
00:04:36.260 they donate themselves totally to one another. And man is a unity of soul and body. Not only man,
00:04:45.140 soul, not only body. He is soul and body. And he gives himself totally to somebody else. In this case,
00:04:53.060 marriage is married to his wife. He gives himself also at the level of the body. And you know,
00:04:59.140 at the level of the body, the most authentic expression of it is seksual relationship with man and wife,
00:05:06.740 between man and wife in matrimony. And this has to be a complete donation. That means that you must be ready
00:05:18.500 to give. A man must give the mothership, motherhood to his wife. And the wife should give the mothership to
00:05:27.380 her husband. You know, and when we block this by contraception, the donation is not complete. And a
00:05:38.260 sexual relationship always needs to be open to procreation in order to be a reflection of what's
00:05:46.660 happening in the triune God, in this community of the three divine persons. That's the basis for
00:05:55.460 the church's doctrine on matrimony and sexual ethics. Beautiful. Now, there are in the church today,
00:06:03.700 some among, even among priests and bishops even, who suggest a different way forward. They say the
00:06:12.020 doctrine won't change, but they say there can be a different pastoral approach, a pastoral approach
00:06:17.700 that doesn't quite measure up to what the doctrine is. And it goes something like this. They'll say,
00:06:23.780 for instance, in Germany, some of the bishops even allow for this, where that they don't say marriage
00:06:29.860 for homosexual couples, but they will indeed give blessings for homosexual couples. How would you
00:06:35.460 react to that? Well, I would never bless a homosexual couple. You know, we must, of course,
00:06:44.820 have compassion with people who have problems with their gender. You know, who have problems with
00:06:53.460 homosexual, lesbian feelings, who feel themselves to be transgender, transsexual, and so on, you know. We
00:07:04.900 need to give them assistance. As much as we can give, we need to support them in order to live a life
00:07:15.940 as celibatarians. And, you know, we have to take them seriously. Don't laugh about them. Don't reject them.
00:07:26.420 They have compassion with them. But, you know, the compassion does not imply that you agree
00:07:33.860 that homosexuality, sexuality is something willed by God. You know, that's the other way. So, we have,
00:07:42.820 there are limits, but we, that's not real compassion. Compassion and righteousness needs to be together.
00:07:53.140 They are connected to one another. There is no compassion without righteousness. So, there are,
00:07:59.860 you know, norms for our sexual behavior. We did not create ourselves. We have a creator who created
00:08:07.860 us in this way, who created marriage in a certain way, as I explained as an image of what is going on
00:08:15.700 in the Triune God. He is the model for everything we do, also for our marriage, for sexual relationships.
00:08:25.860 So, we need to follow His words. We find the Bible in which the Church, you know, teaches, guided by the
00:08:35.860 Holy Spirit.
00:08:36.500 David, these answers are challenging in today's world. A lot of people would criticize you for
00:08:42.980 them. But you seem to be willing to be open to criticism as long as you're following Christ and
00:08:49.700 doing, despite hardships, doing what needs to be done for the faith. One of those things that you did
00:08:55.620 recently, I read you were concerned with the Holy Father's answer vis-a-vis communion for Protestants,
00:09:03.220 and you talked about it publicly even, very much in a way like St. Paul did to Peter, publicly talking
00:09:11.780 about your dismay that the Holy Father didn't bring clarity. What led you to that? I know you've received
00:09:19.540 some pushback already for doing that. So, what led you to that? And if you knew beforehand the kind
00:09:25.700 of pushback you'd get, would you reconsider doing it at all?
00:09:29.700 I did not criticize the Pope. I asked him to give clarity. That's another thing, of course.
00:09:36.660 And, you know, all the Cardinals are special advisors to the Pope. So,
00:09:41.460 I've done. My duty, I would like to say, yeah. You know, every Pope has his own qualities,
00:09:52.820 and the Popes who succeed one another, they supplement each other. So, this Pope has a more
00:10:00.580 pastoral approach. Pope Benedict had a theological approach. Pope John Paul II was
00:10:11.220 very strong in speaking to big groups of people, to the masses, you know. You could stir them up,
00:10:19.780 and so every Pope has his own qualities. So, I don't criticize the Pope, but I just asked for clarity
00:10:29.220 with regard to some aspect of the jock doctrine, for instance, intercommunion.
00:10:34.340 And I asked for that also in the field of gender theory, because there is much confusion now about that
00:10:44.660 in the church. I think that already Saint Paul offers, yeah, Saint John Paul II
00:10:52.740 did give all the clarity's we need. So, just teach, read what he taught, then you will know the truth.
00:11:01.700 His theology of the body has got the Jesus, just to the beginning of his pontificate,
00:11:05.940 He also figured out the splendor, and all the things he said about marriage. And, you know,
00:11:15.060 he wrote a lot of things on marriage. Just read that, and you will find the truth, and the answers
00:11:23.540 for our actual challenges.
00:11:27.060 One of the, and my last question to you, today, the church is facing very severe times, especially
00:11:32.820 because of this abuse crisis within the clergy. Many, many people, even good Catholics,
00:11:39.620 have an aversion to clergy somehow now, and we seem to be in a real time of crisis also brought on
00:11:45.940 from the outside, but also from the inside. There's a lot of division, even in the hierarchy.
00:11:51.780 How are good Catholics supposed to deal with this situation? What would you suggest for them?
00:11:58.100 Well, I should say that the church should do everything in the interest of the victims of
00:12:04.900 sexual abuse. It's our experience in Holland that many people, not many people left the church for the
00:12:12.580 sexual abuse affair. They did so because they lost their faith. Well, that's of course very, it's pity,
00:12:20.740 and it shouldn't happen. But anyhow, that's how it went. When we had this crisis in 2010,
00:12:29.620 we received a lot of complaints in, you know, a short time, and we decided to ask a well-known politician,
00:12:42.420 with a good reputation, to investigate the sexual abuse problem from 1945 until 2010. He did so. He reported his report,
00:12:56.100 in 2011. It was a very honest report, with horrible details, I must say. So everyone saw that it was an independent report,
00:13:08.500 and he recommended us to erect an independent foundation, with four pillars, reporting center,
00:13:23.620 a complaints commission, compensation commission, and a platform for assistance to the victims.
00:13:30.580 And we followed these recommendations. And this complaints commission, compensation commission,
00:13:38.980 treated some 2000 complaints. In 2014, the number of complaints was getting free law. And you know,
00:13:50.340 there was a final date for lodging these complaints at the 1st of May 2015. And afterwards, we erected a new reporting center.
00:14:07.380 So, still people, you can lodge complaints against people in the church, collaborators of the church,
00:14:16.020 who transgress a certain code of pestle behavior. And, you know, it also implies sexual abuse.
00:14:29.060 And we still have a regulation for people who want to lodge, you know, a complaint which is prescribed.
00:14:37.460 So, we did all this in order to give a possibility for people, for victims of abuse, which was prescribed. They could lodge in a complaint even against the people who were dead,
00:14:53.700 which is impossible according to canon law and to Dutch law. So, it was a kind of clowns regulation in order to help the victims as much as we could.
00:15:06.900 And there was a final report of this independent foundation. It was published the 18th of December of 2017. And we were able to present this report,
00:15:21.940 the president of the Dutch religious in the Netherlands. And I was responsible on behalf of the Dutch Bishop's Conference for the sexual abuse case. And we could present this report in the presence of the president of the main organization of victims.
00:15:49.540 And many people were supervised. And many people were supervised. And that was possible. But the president of the main organization of victims was president. And he was quite positive about what we did.
00:16:01.540 About what we did. So, we did what we could. And, you know, I think that I can say that the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands has done most in this field.
00:16:15.540 And the minister of security, he presented what the Dutch church did as an example for the Jehovah Witnesses who are now facing the same problems and for other organizations.
00:16:31.780 Wow. Wow. Excellent. Your Eminence, did you want to add anything else for the viewers at LifeSite News?
00:16:37.600 Well, you know, I hope only one thing. There's much confusion in the church, but don't lose hope.
00:16:44.600 Christ is leading his church even now, in this moment, in this very now that we are speaking to each other.
00:16:54.600 And he will do so until the end of times. The ports or doors of hell will not prevail against the church. So, go on, full of hope.
00:17:06.480 And when you are still believing, be very, very grateful that you can positively and consciously live with Jesus in your life because that is the most beautiful thing you can experience.
00:17:24.360 Beautiful. If I might ask that you would give us all a blessing, your own blessing for us, that would be just awesome.
00:17:30.240 Amen. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
00:17:38.420 Amen.
00:17:39.060 I pray for you and pray for me.
00:17:41.920 Will do.
00:17:42.380 We both need it.
00:17:43.320 Amen.
00:17:44.460 For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston. May God bless you all.