EXCLUSIVE: Bishop Joseph Strickland - America's Bishop | Part 2
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
149.72546
Summary
Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas has the highest rate of seminarians and ordinations of any diocese in the country per capita. Why is this happening? And why not other dioceses?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Probably the list of reasons that I got the visitation. I mean, it's very long because
00:00:05.100
the truth is out there in so many different ways, and I try to support it in so many different ways.
00:00:12.300
Having a president who calls himself Catholic and pushing the atrocity of abortion,
00:00:18.560
that's wrong in so many ways. We should be roaring, stop this.
00:00:30.000
So, I hope you watched part one of our interview with Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas.
00:00:35.660
And again, we were so very blessed to be there. If you haven't watched part one, go do that right now.
00:00:40.420
But if you have, this second part of the interview is really interesting because the big question on
00:00:46.500
everyone's mind is, if this bishop is so successful such that he has the highest rate of seminarians
00:00:54.140
and ordinations of the whole country per capita, in fact, if you had some of the bigger dioceses
00:00:59.800
like Chicago, they should have tens of thousands of seminarians. Tens of thousands of ordinations
00:01:05.100
per year, but they don't, of course. So, there's a big problem here, a big disconnect.
00:01:11.220
Why is the Vatican doing a visitation, which is a disciplinary measure, meant to offer censure?
00:01:17.600
Why is that happening to Bishop Strickland? There's a letter from the faithful in the diocese
00:01:22.060
that was published at the Remnant and at LifeSite News and other places about the grave scandal that
00:01:27.900
this is causing. What is scandal? Scandal is being taken into a sin. And what is the problem here is
00:01:33.760
that Bishop Strickland is upholding the constant teaching of the church that we've had for 2,000
00:01:39.760
years. He's outspokenly defending it when many other bishops are flouting it, totally going against
00:01:47.180
it openly. Those same bishops are being named cardinals, are giving huge spots in the Vatican,
00:01:51.860
and huge clout in the church. And yet Bishop Strickland, for defending the faith with all of
00:01:59.760
the great things you might expect from a bishop, like their finances are doing well, their ordinations
00:02:04.960
are doing well, their religious life is doing well. Why is he getting a visitation and not the others?
00:02:11.940
Well, we've asked that question of Bishop Strickland himself. And on this second part of the interview
00:02:16.900
with Bishop Strickland, you'll hear it from the horse's own mouth. Stay tuned to this episode of
00:02:21.460
the John Henry Weston Show. Hey, my friends, now is the time to stand up and fight. We are just about
00:02:28.920
to have the Synod on Synodality, and everything that you've seen indicates that it's going to be an
00:02:35.240
absolute disaster. We have Father James Martin as a personal appointee of the Pope speaking at it.
00:02:42.080
We've got Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal Tobin. These picks of the Pope to engage in this Synod are
00:02:50.080
indicative of where we're going. We're going into heresy. And at these times of great crisis,
00:02:58.580
the church, especially those called in the laity to work for the glory of Christ and his church,
00:03:05.340
are called to gather and strategize. Back in 2014, LifeSite launched something called Rome Life
00:03:11.660
Forum. It was a gathering at that point of some 75 life and family leaders from all around the world
00:03:18.020
to strategize as to what we could do. And when we gathered, the majority of people were most concerned
00:03:23.940
about what? About Pope Francis, about what was going on in Rome. But this was 2014. But the life and
00:03:32.560
family leaders saw it first. Now, a decade on, we are confronted with some of the most severe
00:03:40.400
challenges the church has ever faced. And so, our tradition at LifeSite is to continue with Rome
00:03:45.820
Life Forum, which has continued every year until we had to take a break over COVID because we weren't
00:03:51.320
permitted. But we're starting it up again. Please come, if you feel so called, to Rome. October 31st and
00:03:59.420
November 1st, the very end of the Synod on Synodality. And we'll be there to strategize with
00:04:07.140
His Eminence, with His Excellency, and with many life and family leaders from around the world.
00:04:13.640
For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston. And may God bless you.
00:04:16.560
You have experienced something that's a great shock because there are, by what I've been told and can
00:04:26.480
see evidence of, there's been 400 or so families that have moved to Tyler because of Bishop Strickland
00:04:33.000
is here. Hopefully because of Jesus Christ. Yeah, but He kind of, our Lord kind of emanates from you in
00:04:39.240
a kind of a special way. And they're wanting to move here because they see a vibrancy of faith in
00:04:45.620
yourself and in those you have attracted to the diocese. We are here to cover the beautiful final
00:04:53.680
vows of Mother Miriam, a nun who formed her order with Cardinal Burke and then was restricted by several
00:05:00.300
bishops from being able even to complete her final vows. She had postulants who were there at the time
00:05:07.160
and they were told to leave. There was only one sister who had professed and been clothed and
00:05:13.800
she was able to stay. She stayed with her for the last decade or so, but also unable to make even
00:05:20.140
vows. And it's been a sad journey for her and, you know, she's an outspoken, does the daily show.
00:05:28.580
She's, in my estimation, she's the new Mother Angelica who, you know, really in a very similar way,
00:05:34.760
her show is Mother Miriam Live, right after Mother Angelica's. And so these kinds of things have
00:05:42.940
happened in the church at large where really, I want to say, holy Catholics have come for refuge here.
00:05:50.600
And that, in turn, has attracted others and made for a beautiful, a vibrant faith in the middle of,
00:05:58.120
what do you call it, the buckle of the Bible belt, you know, the Vatican of the kind of Protestant
00:06:07.800
movement here in America. And yet it's here. That's beautiful all by itself. But how come you see
00:06:14.420
this and there's many, many in the episcopacy who don't seem to? How come you can see what's going on
00:06:24.440
in the church at large and speak to it, whereas almost all your confreres are silent? Having,
00:06:32.520
basically, in the English-speaking world, there's only two bishops that I know of that are speaking
00:06:38.600
loudly to the culture, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who's already in, you know, in Siberia so they can't
00:06:45.960
send them any further away than yourself. How do you get it in that sense? And everybody doesn't.
00:06:55.080
Well, John Henry, I think that is the million-dollar question.
00:07:00.840
I don't know that I have the answer. I'm mystified that me, you know, a kid from,
00:07:07.640
you know, outside Atlanta, Texas. Why me and how me? But really, having said that,
00:07:18.920
the answer is very clear to why I know this truth. Because I know Him. I know Jesus Christ. And through
00:07:27.560
prayer, and it's not because of me at all. It really isn't. Part of my prayer at every Mass is,
00:07:38.280
I'm nothing. You're everything. And that's the reality. I don't have any super gift of anything. I'm
00:07:46.680
not sort of some, you know, special gift. He is. And I guess the gift that I have received is
00:07:58.360
knowing Christ. And, you know, really, it's interesting as we talk, the sanctity of the life
00:08:07.240
of the unborn is the human issue for us. I truly believe that everything leads back to that.
00:08:17.240
For the church, you could say the divine issue is the Eucharist, the Eucharistic presence of
00:08:25.480
Christ. He's here because He promised He would be. He's here to strengthen us as those who came
00:08:34.120
from God and need to keep that connection. I mean, better connected than an actual concrete, yes,
00:08:41.960
it's challenging for all of us to pray before what appears to the world and even to us. I mean,
00:08:50.120
it looks like just a flat, round piece of bread. Very uninteresting, you know, in terms of the world and
00:08:59.000
all the pizazz the world wants. But He's really there. He's really present. And that's the tragedy,
00:09:07.160
spiritually speaking, of the church. Both are, you know, it's hard to say which is more tragic,
00:09:13.000
the lack of respect for the sanctity of life or the lack of belief in the real presence.
00:09:20.520
But for us as Catholics, they're two linchpins of living our faith,
00:09:27.560
of living what God is calling us to do. And to answer your question, why me? You look at Scripture,
00:09:36.120
you look at so many examples, you look at the Twelve Apostles. I mean,
00:09:40.120
I mean, God chooses the unlikely, little, meaningless, forgotten of the world. God says,
00:09:50.520
I'm going to use this one. And, you know, that's sort of a scary acknowledgement. But,
00:09:58.280
you know, and I'm a very, you know, frail and broken and weak instrument, but I feel God using me.
00:10:05.960
And I qualify as nothing, you know. God takes nothing and makes something out of it through
00:10:14.040
His grace. But that's the reason. That's the strength I have, is spending time with Christ
00:10:22.440
in what I've come to call His Eucharistic face. That comes from various spiritual reading that I've
00:10:29.960
done that speaks in that way. And that's something that I didn't always have that. But
00:10:35.800
I think it speaks of an intimacy that we need to continue to try to deepen. A Eucharistic face
00:10:44.440
really starts to, for me, transform that time in prayer in His presence, to really believe and to know
00:10:56.200
that the same Christ that we read about in the Gospels, the same Jesus who died on the cross,
00:11:02.920
He's right there. And you can talk to Him about what was it really like in Gethsemane.
00:11:10.200
And, I mean, to me, praying the rosary and the Eucharistic adoration are, that's what the world
00:11:17.080
needs to do in this. I mean, we talk about issues in the church and they're devastating for us as people
00:11:23.240
of faith, that there's so much lack of faith. And the horizontal is just taken over. But for the world,
00:11:31.080
we need to recognize we come from God. And the best way to get reconnected to Him is through God,
00:11:41.560
through His Son. And He's with us. He's here. He's down the hall. And we're going to go spend some time
00:11:47.400
with Him after we talk. That is what, that's, you ask the question, how come, and I'm sure that
00:11:56.680
Bishop Athanasia Schneider would say the same thing. We've had a chance to talk a couple of times,
00:12:01.640
and we kind of laugh about it. I mean, God has a sense of humor, and He does choose the forgotten.
00:12:08.360
I mean, like you said, He's already in Siberia. I, you know, this would be the, it's a beautiful
00:12:16.440
place in Tyler, Texas. But as far as, you know, some place to, you know, if I need to be sent
00:12:24.120
somewhere as a punishment, I mean, this is where you'd be sent. So I'm already here. But why the two
00:12:32.120
of us? I don't know. But that is probably one of the most frequent questions that I get, is why
00:12:38.280
why are you speaking up? And, and there are plenty of people that say, I shouldn't be.
00:12:42.520
Even right here in Tyler, we wish he would just shut up. He's just so disruptive to things. But
00:12:49.160
I feel compelled. I mean, I read St. Paul in his writings, and I truly feel compelled to do this,
00:12:56.920
not because I'm worthy of it, not because I'm the best instrument, but because I know the truth. And it's
00:13:04.200
glorious, it's beautiful, it's joyful, it's life-giving. It's not some, the truth is spoken
00:13:10.760
of, I mean, at least if you think of dogma and doctrine and the solid teachings of our faith,
00:13:16.520
that truly does set us free. It's spoken of by people high in the church as, as if it was horrible
00:13:24.360
shackles and diminishing our abilities to, to live in the human community, get rid of this dogma,
00:13:32.040
this doctrine, these teachings. That's devastating. The beauty of who we are as people of God, as
00:13:38.840
children of God, has been defined and clarified and revealed to us through those teachings. Yes,
00:13:47.080
they're challenging. But as Pope Benedict XVI says, one of my favorite quotes of his,
00:13:53.960
we're not made for comfort, we're made for greatness. And to me, that speaks of everything
00:14:00.200
I've said about that newly conceived child, which both of us were not that long ago, really. I mean,
00:14:08.600
we've lived a life. I'm 64 years old. But 64 years ago, I started with a potential from God that,
00:14:16.760
you know, I'm a sinner. I've messed up certainly along the way, but I've done my best to fulfill
00:14:23.480
what is God's will. And that's what we all need to be looking for. Father, what is your will for me?
00:14:29.800
Christ models that for us. And we're so far away from that in our culture. And sadly,
00:14:35.000
even in the church, you know, I can't quit speaking of the beauty of what God calls us to.
00:14:43.080
With all that's going on in the world and the church today, it's actually critical for us to
00:14:49.160
devote time to prayer and retreat as our Lord did in the Gospels. Now, there are perhaps few better
00:14:54.920
ways to do so than to take a pilgrimage and follow in the very footsteps of Jesus Christ himself on a
00:15:01.080
journey through the Holy Land. Life State News is proudly sponsored by the Franciscan Foundation of the
00:15:07.240
Holy Land, which is now offering a rare opportunity to elevate your faith. Join Father Peter F. Vasco,
00:15:14.680
a Franciscan priest and native to the region for nearly 40 years, as he guides you through the heart
00:15:20.600
of the Holy Land on a 10-day tour through Israel. Watch the Bible come to life as you visit sacred
00:15:27.400
holy sites, walk the ancient streets of Jerusalem, visit the Nativity Church built over the grotto of
00:15:33.080
Jesus' birth, pray in the upper room at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and much, much more. For
00:15:39.960
information on this outstanding opportunity, visit the Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land at
00:15:44.920
www.ffhl.org. That's www.ffhl.org. Or call 855-500-3345. That's 855-500-3345. And now, back to the program.
00:16:05.560
When I was speaking with a friend of yours who helps you a lot, Rich, he was talking to me about you and
00:16:11.720
about, I asked him the question too, and he told me something that, for me, totally answered the
00:16:19.000
question. He talked about your adorations before Mass that sometimes last like up to two hours,
00:16:26.200
and you just kneel there before our Lord exposed in the Blessed Sacrament. And I was like, oh, of course.
00:16:33.080
That's why you soak in Him and you're before Him. How in the world did you think to do that?
00:16:42.520
As a layman, if I dream of being a priest, you administer to people, you do all sorts of things,
00:16:50.440
and you offer the Holy Sacrifice, which is unthinkably beautiful. But that ability to
00:16:56.760
reach our Lord in the tabernacle and bring Him out and talk to Him literally face-to-face, that's
00:17:03.640
incredible. But you're one of the few people I know who take real huge advantage of that. How did you
00:17:12.120
get to that? That's a beautiful thing. I really don't know the total answer,
00:17:18.360
but I do know very clearly, just chronologically and just spiritually,
00:17:27.400
and it's not going to surprise you at all, it started with His mother. It started with Mary.
00:17:33.320
And as a Catholic kid, I was born into and raised in a Catholic family. I call myself a deep vert,
00:17:42.120
if anything. I didn't revert. I'm not a convert. I've always been Catholic, but I've gone deeper
00:17:47.240
and deeper, especially since I've been a bishop. So I always prayed the rosary, but really, and I'm
00:17:55.480
not, I know it's been since I've been a bishop. I really believe that anointing, I mean, which
00:18:04.440
we believe. I mean, that's the fullness of holy orders. We have all this beautiful theology, and I
00:18:10.040
feel like I'm living it, you know, that it changed me. It deepened the faith in me. And one of the
00:18:19.480
first signs of that, you could say, was a deeper engagement in praying the rosary. You know, as a
00:18:26.200
Catholic kid, I didn't know how to pray the rosary, and I prayed the rosary. And, you know, as rector of
00:18:31.000
the cathedral for 16 years, countless funerals, you know, pray a rosary. That's the tradition here,
00:18:37.240
is a rosary the night before. And it's interesting, even as we're talking, you know, because, you know,
00:18:44.760
this doesn't happen overnight. I mean, you know, unlike St. Paul, I didn't get knocked down by a bolt
00:18:52.040
of light, but it's just a gradual process. And even talking about the rosary, I hadn't really even
00:18:59.160
thought of this before, but praying the rosary, which is our tradition, the night before a funeral,
00:19:05.000
which I've done countless funerals for wonderful people through 16 years as assistant and then as
00:19:11.640
rector of the cathedral. But I developed a rosary prayer that really, it's very interesting because I
00:19:21.000
hadn't put it all together until right now. But because the way I look at the rosary, the way I pray
00:19:26.680
the rosary is the journey through Christ's life. And I'm sure it's not rocket science. A lot of
00:19:31.720
people do that, but it's become a deep part of the rosary for me. The first, you know, joyful mystery,
00:19:39.720
the conception, the annunciation of what's being announced is Jesus is conceived in the womb,
00:19:46.440
all the way through to the last glorious mystery where the woman whose womb he was conceived in is
00:19:52.680
what we're celebrating today. The fifth glorious mystery, the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary,
00:19:57.560
or the fourth glorious mystery, the assumption of Mary, that I began praying those rosaries
00:20:05.560
before, you know, the night before a funeral, just five decades. But I would take
00:20:12.680
a joyful mystery, a sorrowful mystery, a luminous mystery of glorious, because that's life. We have
00:20:18.600
joyful, we have sorrowful, we have glorious, we have luminous, and we have a lot of just ordinary,
00:20:24.040
you know. But that's what I began to do. And I realize now, just as we're talking, that that's what
00:20:31.000
really just expanded, you know, exponentially in my own spiritual journey as I pray the rosary.
00:20:38.760
I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, and I pray the rosary in a lot of different ways.
00:20:43.800
Now, sometimes I can, you know, it just sort of wherever the spirit moves me. And I pray the rosary
00:20:51.240
a lot of times in the presence of the Eucharist and Eucharistic adoration. But sometimes I'll just
00:21:00.440
continue to reflect on just one mystery and just keep, you know, praying the decades, but just stay
00:21:06.120
with the one mystery. And it's gone so far beyond, you know, the typical when you do a rosary together.
00:21:12.040
I mean, I'm sure I'd drive people crazy if I started going off into my own reflections. But
00:21:17.240
you just say, the Annunciation, and then you pray the Our Father. I can stay with the Annunciation
00:21:23.640
for a whole rosary or beyond. And I love to also weave in, I mean, the devotion to the Sacred Heart is
00:21:32.840
deeply significant to me ever since, you know, as a child. And it's just continued to grow as well.
00:21:39.480
I love to think of where is Christ's Sacred Heart in each of those mysteries. So those kind of things.
00:21:45.640
And I think that the conversation, you know, continues because as I grow closer to Him,
00:21:53.080
then I see Him more clearly. And then as I see Him more clearly, I grow closer. So it's just a beautiful
00:22:00.200
sort of conversation with the Lord that it all is. I mean, reading the Gospels. I'm going through the
00:22:09.320
Bible in a year right now that's actually published by the Augustine Institute, the version that's,
00:22:15.080
you know, not recorded, but just an actual book you read. I'm a couple of days behind right now
00:22:20.280
because it's been busy. But, you know, there's a free, like today is the 15th of August. There are
00:22:26.600
readings for the 15th of August. And I've loved to, you know, the way this is put together,
00:22:32.680
Old Testament readings and New Testament. I just started the book of Judith, and we're reading
00:22:37.400
through the letters of Paul. And it, you know, there are just so many connections there. And you
00:22:42.360
see so much more clearly how the journey of the people of Israel is our ancestry. And we are the
00:22:49.800
new Israel continuing to live that. So it just sort of keeps growing from there. And honestly,
00:22:57.480
I forget what your question was, but hopefully I'm answering it.
00:23:03.160
Hello, friends. To celebrate the momentous overturning of Roe v. Wade, we at LifeSite have
00:23:07.960
minted just under 10,000 of these brand new limited edition pro-life silver rounds. Now,
00:23:12.600
each round is stamped with the image of the Supreme Court of the United States,
00:23:17.240
featuring the date that the High Court delivered this historic victory. And on the front of our pure
00:23:21.720
silver rounds, LifeSite's logo surrounded by a brilliant sunburst and draped with olive branches.
00:23:26.040
They, of course, commemorate our 25 year anniversary of LifeSite News. We began in 1997 in September. So
00:23:32.600
September of 2022 was 25 years. These one ounce silver rounds are available from our partners at
00:23:38.760
stjosephspartners.com, where you can fulfill all of your silver and gold needs in this perilous time.
00:23:44.200
May God bless you. One of the things where we started talking was about the visitation that happened
00:23:51.720
to you. And it was shocking to a lot of people in that the powers that be, you might say, would dare to
00:23:58.680
do that because you are a beloved bishop. And not only by your diocese, there are, because you've been
00:24:06.680
given the gift by our Lord, as you say, and I totally believe that, to speak the truth in a time of real,
00:24:13.000
real silence. Not only even in America, actually in almost all the world. It's a very strange time of
00:24:20.200
silence from the voices that should speak. You know, the one who should have spoken remains silent is one of
00:24:26.360
the passages that I've read over and over again. And so your visitation was kind of expected by some,
00:24:33.560
like, yeah, that figures. And there was a great concern. Oh, will he be canceled? Two questions for
00:24:40.040
you. Why do you think there was a visitation to you? And what would that mean? You haven't stopped
00:24:50.200
speaking since the visitation? And what are your thoughts about being canceled? Why did it happen?
00:25:00.200
I think it goes back to what we, one of the earlier things we've talked about just now is
00:25:07.560
I'm looking up. I'm looking, I'm looking up and I'm looking to the, the deposit of faith, the, the,
00:25:19.160
the beautiful and ancient truth that stretches back for 2000 years, really. I mean, you know,
00:25:26.440
not fully formed and I, you know, people throw, you know, rocks at me saying, oh, this has only been for
00:25:33.400
this century. But all of that is just noise. We have a beautiful treasure of truth. And I keep pointing
00:25:41.320
to it. Um, that sadly is in conflict with the, the tone of the horizontal look at things. I mean,
00:25:53.480
frankly, I mean, there are probably many reasons. I mean, you could sort of, I mean, the, the strong
00:25:59.960
sort of, um, being so outspoken about the sanctity of life. I mean, which, you know, I mean, the church
00:26:07.480
thankfully still says life from conception to natural death, but politically speaking, I mean,
00:26:14.360
everything's politicized these days, but speaking out too much on that and saying things like having
00:26:21.160
a president who calls himself Catholic and pushing the atrocity of abortion, that's just, that's wrong in so
00:26:29.560
many ways. We should be roaring. Stop this. Either, you know, something's got to be, I mean, I pray for
00:26:37.640
the man, but there needs to be a conversion or there needs to be a clean statement that he's,
00:26:45.160
he's not Catholic. He's not of the Catholic spirit or mindset. You know, so, I mean, probably the list of
00:26:53.800
reasons that I got the visitation. I mean, it's very long because the truth is out there in so
00:27:00.840
many different ways. And I try to support it in so many different ways. I mean, the things with
00:27:06.360
mandating the vaccine, I'm sure that that was a, another check marks. Oh, we got to check on this guy.
00:27:12.680
How can we mandate erasing people's free will? Talk about forgetting who we're connected to. I mean,
00:27:19.720
that is one of the deepest connections that, and thankfully, you know, even our society hasn't
00:27:27.000
developed a way to get into your heart and mind and tell you, no, you can't believe that. I'm sure
00:27:33.880
there, there are many that would love to develop that ability to tell it, to take away our free will,
00:27:39.160
but mandates to me, we can't mandate things against people's free will. And that was going on.
00:27:46.280
You know, I mean, there were people that were very upset with me for speaking out against,
00:27:53.320
you know, vaccines and medical treatments that are being proven and people aren't paying much
00:27:59.560
attention that I can see, but they're being proven to be not very helpful, if not deeply damaging to
00:28:07.800
human life. And so, like I said, I think there are many reasons because I do speak out and I feel
00:28:15.160
compelled to, as I said earlier. I think that in many ways, it's like I'm the opposite of what
00:28:25.080
is the accepted norm. Stay quiet, keep your head down, just be part of this conference of bishops or
00:28:32.680
this group, and don't say anything individually. And I'm, yeah, I'm Bishop of Tyler. Where's that? Who is he?
00:28:41.000
I'm sure that question is asked all the time, but I'm a successor of the apostles. And, and I think
00:28:47.960
that that is a disconnect that, you know, I don't want to judge anyone else. I mean, I'm concerned
00:28:54.920
about my own judgment and doing my best to live out a mandate that I've been given. But when you think
00:29:02.760
about being a successor of the apostles, it's very different than being part of a conference of
00:29:09.640
bishops or being part of this group or, you know, sort of operating in the more corporate structure
00:29:15.720
that the church has. A successor of the apostles, you look back to the original apostles, for one thing,
00:29:21.720
they died, but they died joyfully and clearly proclaiming the truth. And so if that's what gets
00:29:32.280
you an investigation or a visitation, okay, then yeah, I'll be, I'll be visited because
00:29:43.000
I feel compelled to speak out. And as far as actually being canceled, as I've said before,
00:29:53.560
I don't know. I mean, I know very little, really. I know the conversation I had with the two bishops
00:30:00.680
that came and spoke to a lot of people here. But I don't know what happens next, when, what happens
00:30:08.840
next? If something happens? I don't know. But I try to just continue to do my job and to teach the truth.
00:30:18.680
And no, I haven't been silenced. I can't see any way that I can cease to speak the truth
00:30:29.640
as Bishop of Tyler or not as Bishop of Tyler. It's just a man of faith. If you know the truth,
00:30:37.080
I believe you have to share it and certainly with respect and everything. But one thing that has been
00:30:43.800
clear for me, I pray for the day when I fade back into obscurity because I'm just saying what every
00:30:56.360
bishop is saying and everyone's saying it very clearly. And so, you know, I don't have the greatest,
00:31:03.080
clearest voice, but when no one's saying it, people pay attention. I pray for the day when,
00:31:12.200
you know, people forget who Bishop Strickland was because every bishop in the world is saying,
00:31:19.800
look to the heavens, look to God, be your highest self, believe this truth that's been revealed to us.
00:31:26.040
But as long as others aren't speaking, okay, people are going to listen that want the truth
00:31:33.560
because I'm going to keep speaking. And, you know, I don't know what comes next, but, you know,
00:31:40.680
the, because people are worried about me. My family's worried about me. It's one of the most peaceful
00:31:46.680
times in my life in 64 years. I have a lot of questions, but in the strength and the peace,
00:31:59.000
the only thing I can point to, of course, is Christ and spending time with Him. But knowing you're
00:32:05.880
speaking the truth, it really does set you free. I don't have to remember what I said a month ago and
00:32:13.000
say, okay, you got to keep the story straight. You just speak the truth. It's always the truth.
00:32:18.840
It doesn't change. I don't care who tells us it changes. That's ridiculous, really. We deepen our
00:32:26.600
understanding of the truth, but God is truth in being. I mean, God is the great I am. He is truth.
00:32:35.160
His son is truth incarnate. It doesn't change. We are the ones that need to change. And I think
00:32:42.840
that that's sadly where the church is. We're trying to, we, I say, as a church,
00:32:50.200
there's a real movement to make the church, make ourselves in our own image instead of realizing
00:32:57.160
we're made in the image and likeness of God. And that is a dangerous path. And a lot of what the
00:33:03.960
turmoil and the fracturing and the brokenness you see in families and individuals with young,
00:33:10.120
I mean, just across society, it's rooted in forgetting who we are, forgetting that we are of
00:33:17.080
God and trying to play God ourselves. We really mess it up. Amen to that. Thank you. Thank you so much for this.
00:33:25.800
Hi, everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,
00:33:37.720
be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News. Check
00:33:42.680
the links in the description to read more and connect with us on social media so that you can stay up to
00:33:47.400
date with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news. Thanks for watching and may God bless you.