The John-Henry Westen Show - July 23, 2019


Episode 18： Mass apostasy, doctrinal confusion sure signs of anti-Christ (Part 1 of 2)


Episode Stats

Length

21 minutes

Words per Minute

117.47426

Word Count

2,506

Sentence Count

138

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

In this episode of the John Henry Weston Show, John Henry interviews Michael D. O'Brien, a famous novelist, painter, author, essayist, and speaker. In this episode, the two discuss Michael's life, his conversion story, and his views on apostasy.


Transcript

00:00:00.400 Welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show. I'm your host, John Henry Weston, and very pleased to bring you today an interview with Michael D. O'Brien, famous novelist, author, painter, and speaker, and stay tuned. Welcome, Michael.
00:00:16.440 Thank you, John Henry. Very glad to be here.
00:00:19.200 Stay tuned, my friends. It's going to be a great show.
00:00:30.000 And let's start off, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:00:47.400 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
00:00:51.460 Michael O'Brien, for those of you who may not know, is, well, I'd love to start with a great friend, and a great friend of LifeSite.
00:01:01.800 He's also a very faithful brother, who has been an exemplar to me personally, but to many, of the faith.
00:01:11.260 And he's got an incredible conversion story.
00:01:14.100 I would encourage you all to get the book by Clemens Cavillin, put out by Ignatius Press, the biography of Michael O'Brien called On the Edge of Darkness.
00:01:24.060 Edge of Infinity.
00:01:25.320 Excuse me. Edge of Infinity.
00:01:27.700 We try to avoid the darkness.
00:01:31.020 Absolutely great.
00:01:32.540 And that's wonderful.
00:01:35.080 We're not going to cut that out in post, but we'll probably cut this comment out in post.
00:01:38.380 But also, his novels.
00:01:45.380 Probably, Michael is best known for his work called Father Elijah.
00:01:50.900 Father Elijah is a novel, part of a series he did, and it's out by Ignatius Press as well.
00:01:58.260 It was considered for a film.
00:02:00.120 It's been translated into a dozen languages, I believe.
00:02:02.820 And just an incredible work, which really speaks to what we're going to be speaking about today as well.
00:02:13.240 And probably my allusion to On the Edge of Darkness.
00:02:16.940 So, anyway.
00:02:19.120 But beyond that, Michael is a very well-respected and celebrated painter.
00:02:25.140 If you read his book, you'll realize how he got into that as well.
00:02:28.720 And his paintings adorn many churches throughout the world because it's a form of sacred art.
00:02:36.020 And really in the style of sort of a, what would you call it, a modern...
00:02:41.940 Kind of a neo-Byzantine, but some modern dimensions.
00:02:47.080 Right.
00:02:47.380 But in the style of icons, right?
00:02:49.300 Yes.
00:02:49.620 It's foundationally iconographic.
00:02:52.280 Right.
00:02:52.500 And so, Michael, like iconographers or writers, as they call it, right, prays with his painting as well.
00:03:02.020 So, there's a very rich element of Michael's life there as well.
00:03:07.800 But also, he has been, in addition to an author of novels, an essayist.
00:03:11.900 In fact, the latest two books that are coming out of the sort of 30 titles or so that have already been published by Mr. O'Brien include The Apocalypse and also The Family and the New Totalitarianism.
00:03:26.180 There's also a book coming out on the sexual abuse crisis, which Michael's authored with a famous German writer, Gabriele Kuby, as well as with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who was just previously the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in the Vatican.
00:03:44.620 So, Michael, as we begin, let me ask you about some of the, well, about your recent book.
00:03:53.480 You entitle it here The Apocalypse, and you have commented on the fact that we are at or have begun the dawn of the great apostasy.
00:04:06.660 First of all, if you can explain, what is the great apostasy, and why do you think that we are seeing it now?
00:04:16.420 Apostasy is distinct from heresy.
00:04:18.880 Apostasy is a rejection of the entirety of faith.
00:04:25.060 If you look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church or the Code of Canon Law, you will see the clear definitions of both heresy and apostasy.
00:04:34.160 But apostasy is a kind of turning away, a wholesale leaving of the Church.
00:04:42.900 And if we look at the condition of the Church, particularly in the Western nations, Western Europe, North America, parts of South America,
00:04:55.380 what we are seeing is an unprecedented falling away, an unprecedented rebellion.
00:05:04.180 Various translations of sacred scripture, I'm thinking here of St. Paul in Thessalonians, 2nd Thessalonians.
00:05:14.340 He has the word apostasy in various English terms.
00:05:21.020 One is rebellion.
00:05:24.440 But in essence, it's a falling away.
00:05:28.360 It's really, for sheer magnitude, unprecedented in the history of the Church.
00:05:35.940 One of the unique characteristics about the apostasy in our times, although there have been previous eras of a great falling away or a great laxity and weakening,
00:05:49.760 what is distinct about our times is that we are under no violent pressure in the developed nations, in the Western world, to betray the faith, to walk away from it.
00:06:03.940 It is more a condition, an interior psychological cosmos, if you will, a condition of interior losing of faith in the living Gospels
00:06:21.380 and in the reality of our Lord Jesus Christ working out salvation history of which we are a part.
00:06:29.380 The power of the world, the spiritus mundi, also the spiritus diabolus, the spirit of our ancestral enemy, the devil, Satan,
00:06:42.300 has been operative with a new kind of power.
00:06:50.180 The Lord has permitted this as a great testing of mankind.
00:06:54.380 By and large, we are being weighed in the balance and found wanting.
00:07:04.180 The concept of the great apostasy, as opposed to other apostasies in history, has a sort of eschatological dimension to it.
00:07:16.100 What is that?
00:07:16.660 Yes, St. Paul says that, speaking of the question of when will the Lord return, when is he coming back as he said he would,
00:07:29.880 St. Paul cautions that we must not think that he has returned or that he is imminent,
00:07:36.760 that this will not happen until the great apostasy or falling away or rebellion.
00:07:45.460 There is a very prophetic dimension in this because he is looking past his own immediate times,
00:07:51.700 which is the initial evangelical period of the church, the building up of the church throughout the whole world
00:07:57.820 against seemingly impossible odds.
00:08:01.960 So what is he saying in Thessalonians and in other portions of his epistles?
00:08:09.700 He is basically looking beyond his own time to the period towards the end,
00:08:17.260 when the faith will have spread throughout the world, but then there will be a tremendous falling away.
00:08:35.940 St. Paul says that that is one of the signs that the Lord is near,
00:08:40.560 that the Lord is going to act definitively in history,
00:08:46.300 to reenter history in such a way that no man, no human being will be able to deny his existence.
00:08:57.840 They may reject him, they may turn their back away from him absolutely,
00:09:03.580 but they will know what they are rejecting.
00:09:06.020 For the moment, at this point in history,
00:09:10.300 a very large portion of those who have fallen into heresy and apostasy,
00:09:17.060 my sense is that they do not know what they are doing.
00:09:22.840 They don't know who our Lord is.
00:09:26.140 They don't know who they are turning away from.
00:09:29.420 But the time will come when they will know,
00:09:34.380 and that will be the moment of choice for mankind.
00:09:37.640 All of us.
00:09:39.020 One of the things that was said by Cardinal Ake recently,
00:09:44.120 he's from the Netherlands,
00:09:45.500 confronting the confusions that's present in the Church today,
00:09:50.400 particularly for him it was the Holy Father himself
00:09:54.600 for not clarifying the issue around communion for Protestants.
00:09:57.740 And he said it made him think of the Catechism at number 675,
00:10:03.640 which is kind of related to this.
00:10:05.180 It talks about a false deception,
00:10:09.320 which will overcome mankind in a religious deception.
00:10:13.480 How is that then related to this great apostasy?
00:10:16.500 And what do you see?
00:10:19.000 Not only this, yes, great falling away,
00:10:21.560 but also within the Church, a massive confusion.
00:10:24.300 Great confusion, yes.
00:10:26.000 That portion of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
00:10:30.060 is well worth reading by every generation of believers in Christ.
00:10:35.600 It's a great warning, building upon scriptures.
00:10:38.120 The Catechism calls it a, quotation marks,
00:10:46.240 perverse form of secular messianism,
00:10:50.540 which seeks to erect in the place of the throne of God
00:10:56.320 and the authority of the Holy Trinity
00:10:58.980 over the entire universe and over mankind,
00:11:02.100 a false religion.
00:11:06.160 What will be the actual nature of that religion?
00:11:09.940 It's hard to say at this point.
00:11:12.700 Will it be an outright New Age
00:11:15.780 sort of syncretism leading towards
00:11:20.200 worship of Satan in its end phase?
00:11:25.720 I think that's probably where it's going.
00:11:29.780 That is what St. John's great vision
00:11:32.300 in the book of Revelation tells us.
00:11:36.480 That is the objective of the Antichrist,
00:11:39.160 to lead us to worship Satan.
00:11:42.320 Most of us will fall into that.
00:11:45.160 Those who do fall into it
00:11:46.520 will arrive at that very dark condition,
00:11:51.700 interior condition,
00:11:54.580 not really understanding how they got there,
00:11:58.200 not really understanding what they're rejecting
00:12:00.880 and what they have begun to embrace.
00:12:04.840 So, at this stage of history,
00:12:08.840 there is an urgent call for the Church
00:12:13.000 to speak with great clarity,
00:12:16.060 with great love for mankind
00:12:17.860 and great love for the truth
00:12:20.400 because truth cannot be separated from love.
00:12:27.280 There is no love without truth.
00:12:30.980 So, a long way of answering your question.
00:12:35.240 Wherever there is confusion, ambiguity,
00:12:38.520 a cloud of vagueness
00:12:41.620 beginning to dissolve the actual clarity
00:12:44.400 of the living Gospels,
00:12:46.220 the living tradition
00:12:49.000 which imparts life to mankind,
00:12:51.680 wherever that cloud obscures and darkens,
00:12:55.600 we have at least a factor
00:12:59.420 that will contribute
00:13:00.420 to the ultimate delusion
00:13:04.300 which Satan and the Antichrist
00:13:05.940 will bring upon mankind.
00:13:08.360 I am not saying
00:13:10.900 that we can judge
00:13:14.540 the Pope
00:13:16.020 or the Kyria.
00:13:17.680 I think we have to assess
00:13:19.400 things that are said
00:13:20.440 and taught.
00:13:21.560 We have not only a right to do that,
00:13:23.760 we have a duty to do that.
00:13:25.900 Okay,
00:13:26.340 by the light of revelation,
00:13:27.640 by the light of tradition.
00:13:28.700 But we cannot judge motives.
00:13:33.020 We cannot judge,
00:13:34.760 ultimately judge,
00:13:36.320 what only Jesus Christ can judge.
00:13:40.400 However,
00:13:41.880 and I suppose if I could
00:13:43.100 condense all of this
00:13:44.540 into a simple phrase,
00:13:46.380 I would say,
00:13:47.780 in the words of our Lord,
00:13:50.620 stay awake,
00:13:52.140 stay awake and watch,
00:13:53.620 and pray and fast
00:13:57.280 for the Church
00:13:58.120 as we stay awake and watch.
00:14:03.260 One of the things
00:14:04.900 you mentioned here
00:14:05.660 about is the grave confusion,
00:14:09.160 vagueness and so on.
00:14:10.520 The truths of the Church
00:14:12.660 are really meant,
00:14:14.680 in a way for the simple,
00:14:15.500 for children,
00:14:16.580 such that, you know,
00:14:17.820 the clarity with which
00:14:19.340 we should be able to understand,
00:14:20.960 for instance,
00:14:21.520 our Lord's own warning,
00:14:22.520 that, you know,
00:14:23.720 if you leave your wife
00:14:25.300 and marry another,
00:14:25.880 you commit adultery.
00:14:26.740 And there's no,
00:14:27.620 you know,
00:14:27.920 there's no hard,
00:14:30.140 it's a very simple truth,
00:14:31.620 yet it's being clouded today
00:14:33.580 by even authority
00:14:36.620 in the Church.
00:14:38.240 And the clarity around,
00:14:40.620 for instance,
00:14:41.440 things that should be,
00:14:42.820 I think,
00:14:43.400 obvious,
00:14:44.080 but things like homosexuality
00:14:45.980 and the practice thereof.
00:14:47.180 Not that the inclination
00:14:48.620 itself is sinful.
00:14:50.060 Everybody knows
00:14:50.660 those are temptations.
00:14:51.600 Like, we have temptations
00:14:52.400 of every kind.
00:14:53.560 Our Lord said,
00:14:54.440 you know,
00:14:54.680 if you look at a woman
00:14:56.120 with lust,
00:14:56.900 you commit adultery
00:14:57.540 in your heart,
00:14:57.980 and we're all tempted
00:14:59.320 in those ways
00:15:00.260 to defile ourselves,
00:15:02.260 to harm ourselves,
00:15:03.500 and harm principally
00:15:04.360 our relationship
00:15:04.880 with the Lord.
00:15:06.200 But these things,
00:15:07.380 on things that should be
00:15:08.260 so clear,
00:15:09.140 are becoming confused,
00:15:10.580 even for the faithful
00:15:11.900 who go to daily Mass,
00:15:13.900 who are so interested
00:15:14.640 in the faith.
00:15:15.980 What do you make
00:15:17.240 of those confusions,
00:15:18.620 this deep level
00:15:19.420 of confusion,
00:15:19.980 what should be so obvious
00:15:21.480 are simple for the faithful?
00:15:23.260 It seems to me
00:15:24.000 that an arbitrary decision
00:15:25.740 has been made
00:15:26.440 for a kind of pastoral approach
00:15:28.560 towards reaching out
00:15:30.140 beyond the Christian,
00:15:32.160 truly believing Christian community
00:15:34.060 to those who are very wounded
00:15:36.940 or are dealing with profound disorders
00:15:39.460 in their lives
00:15:40.240 or are locked into patterns
00:15:43.440 of grave sin.
00:15:44.920 How do we reach them?
00:15:45.940 Well, I think we cannot reach anyone
00:15:49.520 by giving them anything less
00:15:53.000 than caritas in veritate,
00:15:55.440 that is, love and truth.
00:15:57.400 The Lord Himself says,
00:16:00.140 the truth will set you free.
00:16:02.980 The truth will set you free.
00:16:05.360 But it is the truth
00:16:06.740 infused with the fire of divine love
00:16:09.360 which will set men free.
00:16:12.080 Not pastoral sentiment
00:16:16.720 or pastoral sensitivity
00:16:21.340 at the price of speaking the truth,
00:16:25.420 the truth that liberates.
00:16:30.460 What judgment can be made
00:16:32.200 on all of this,
00:16:33.140 it is not my part to judge it,
00:16:35.320 but I do not think
00:16:36.280 it will bear good fruit.
00:16:39.600 You mentioned in one of your essays
00:16:42.540 that we ran on Lifeset actually
00:16:44.860 about a new Pharisaism
00:16:49.140 that was actually opening
00:16:51.100 the way to Antichrist.
00:16:52.180 What do you mean by a new Pharisaism
00:16:54.240 and what do you see in it?
00:16:55.900 Well, living in Canada
00:16:58.560 and also traveling a great deal
00:17:00.940 around the Western world,
00:17:02.400 the unceasing pattern
00:17:09.700 in homilies,
00:17:13.620 in writings,
00:17:16.440 in many places,
00:17:18.160 I'm thinking particularly
00:17:19.160 of my own country, Canada,
00:17:21.300 but also in America
00:17:22.460 and Britain
00:17:23.860 and Western Europe,
00:17:25.840 is to equate
00:17:28.200 the defense of the truth
00:17:31.040 or the promulgation
00:17:32.300 or the promulgation
00:17:32.320 of the truth,
00:17:34.160 caritas in veritate,
00:17:36.680 with Pharisaism.
00:17:39.960 What is really being communicated
00:17:42.800 from pastors
00:17:44.700 who take this approach
00:17:46.220 is their own personal ambiguity
00:17:52.160 or ecclesial ambiguity
00:17:53.880 regarding moral issues.
00:17:56.540 In other words,
00:17:57.520 sexual behavior,
00:17:59.400 sexual inclinations.
00:18:01.040 they do not want
00:18:05.160 a judgmental church
00:18:07.100 and therefore,
00:18:09.580 any voice which arises
00:18:11.060 that says,
00:18:12.620 sin destroys us,
00:18:15.800 sin degrades us,
00:18:17.500 any form of sin
00:18:18.820 that does that
00:18:21.900 is on some level,
00:18:25.000 usually subconscious,
00:18:25.960 a denial of our humanity
00:18:28.200 and it's also
00:18:30.020 a veiled insult.
00:18:32.880 Pastors who take
00:18:34.060 this approach
00:18:34.800 are basically saying,
00:18:37.880 without words,
00:18:39.280 that you are not
00:18:40.680 capable of living
00:18:42.480 the Gospels.
00:18:44.060 Even with Christ,
00:18:45.220 you're not capable
00:18:46.080 of living the Gospels.
00:18:47.820 I don't know if they even
00:18:48.900 ponder what they're
00:18:50.640 communicating,
00:18:51.740 but the equation
00:18:52.600 of the bearing
00:18:54.600 of the good news
00:18:55.580 out there
00:18:56.160 into the world,
00:18:57.820 the equation of that
00:18:59.080 with the hardness
00:19:00.800 of heart
00:19:01.420 of the Pharisees
00:19:02.340 is clearly
00:19:03.300 a terrible fallacy
00:19:05.200 and I would think
00:19:06.520 a new kind of myth.
00:19:08.460 If you look
00:19:09.200 at the Gospels,
00:19:10.040 every time the Lord
00:19:13.220 confronts the actual
00:19:14.680 Pharisees
00:19:15.620 of his times,
00:19:17.980 he is
00:19:20.480 chiding them
00:19:21.900 for their hypocrisy
00:19:23.780 and their lack
00:19:25.340 of love.
00:19:27.760 Unless your
00:19:28.640 virtue exceeds
00:19:32.300 that of the Pharisees,
00:19:33.980 you will not enter
00:19:35.100 the kingdom of heaven.
00:19:37.000 Elsewhere he says,
00:19:38.140 unless you have
00:19:41.320 the heart of a child,
00:19:42.280 you will not enter
00:19:43.360 the kingdom of heaven.
00:19:46.080 So is he,
00:19:47.900 Jesus,
00:19:48.680 the Savior of the world,
00:19:50.680 positing
00:19:51.300 love
00:19:53.280 in conflict
00:19:54.160 with truth?
00:19:56.120 No.
00:19:57.820 He is saying,
00:19:59.360 I believe,
00:20:00.640 throughout the entire
00:20:01.580 unfolding of his
00:20:02.500 teachings
00:20:02.920 in the Gospels,
00:20:04.760 that love and truth
00:20:05.940 must be lived
00:20:07.060 in totality
00:20:08.820 as a single
00:20:10.500 unified
00:20:11.420 phenomenon.
00:20:14.320 What is the greatest
00:20:15.500 of the commandments?
00:20:17.980 To love the Lord
00:20:18.920 with your whole heart,
00:20:20.640 to obey him
00:20:21.960 with your whole heart,
00:20:23.800 and
00:20:24.460 to love your neighbor
00:20:26.420 as yourself.
00:20:28.160 The problem
00:20:28.880 in the Western churches,
00:20:30.140 the churches of the
00:20:30.900 Western world,
00:20:32.040 primarily the developed world,
00:20:33.620 is an attempt
00:20:34.760 to separate
00:20:35.800 these two commandments
00:20:37.040 which Jesus
00:20:38.740 does not
00:20:39.460 separate.
00:20:43.500 Therein,
00:20:44.480 through that
00:20:45.100 crack,
00:20:46.520 so much of the
00:20:47.260 evils that now
00:20:48.200 afflict us in the
00:20:49.120 modern age,
00:20:49.940 in the modern church,
00:20:51.680 have poured.
00:20:52.720 together.
00:20:53.980 Therein
00:20:54.720 is one
00:20:59.100 of the
00:21:00.080 which
00:21:01.380 becomes
00:21:02.460 appropriate and
00:21:04.080 offensive.
00:21:05.160 In
00:21:09.160 Therein
00:21:11.800 therein
00:21:12.880 is
00:21:13.180 going
00:21:13.480 to
00:21:13.980 meaning
00:21:15.100 from
00:21:15.400 to
00:21:15.860 the
00:21:15.980 ì—¬x
00:21:16.700 is
00:21:17.380 going
00:21:17.540 to
00:21:17.700 send
00:21:19.640 to