The John-Henry Westen Show - How can the DEVIL be SO CLOSE to the POPE？

00:00:00.020 Don't you think the devil is going to be where the greatest good on earth is?

00:00:03.680 He would pitch his tent right across the hall.

00:00:08.680 In the midst of all of that insanity, you still become a priest.

00:00:16.080 Well, in the midst of all that insanity, there were times in my life that I thought I had a vocation to the priesthood.

00:00:23.080 Then I started seeing the craziness.

00:00:24.980 And you say, well, and people were saying, why would you why would you do that?

00:00:30.600 What a waste.

00:00:31.780 I heard that word a thousand times.

00:00:34.660 If I heard it once, I heard a thousand times.

00:00:36.600 What a waste.

00:00:37.660 A handsome and intelligent young man like you wasting his life on that.

00:00:41.600 Well, you begin to you hear that enough and you start thinking maybe they've got something there.

00:00:46.180 Right.

00:00:47.260 It's enough to put you into crisis.

00:00:50.160 You're already in an identity crisis in your teenage years.

00:00:53.160 Right.

00:00:54.980 And.

00:00:56.740 I guess.

00:00:59.240 To a degree, I was.

00:01:02.060 There are some personal reasons also.

00:01:08.220 I found the lives of some priests that I was knowing.

00:01:13.600 Not very attractive, let me put it that way.

00:01:16.480 I won't get into it.

00:01:19.060 Actually, scandalous.

00:01:20.360 And for a while, I just discarded the whole idea of even being Catholic.

00:01:28.160 Oh, wow.

00:01:28.680 Yeah.

00:01:29.000 It didn't last long.

00:01:31.140 How old are you at this time?

00:01:32.980 20.

00:01:33.880 Wow.

00:01:34.520 In college.

00:01:36.260 It's just.

00:01:36.680 I didn't realize it at the time, even, but it really their lives shook my faith.

00:01:43.840 It just did not going to get into all of it, but it did.

00:01:46.940 And I decided I was going to study law when I finished college.

00:01:52.420 I got a degree in romance languages in college.

00:01:56.400 And after that, I wanted to be a lawyer.

00:01:58.040 And as I've told many times, my father had many good friends who were lawyers.

00:02:05.680 And our house was a fantastic house.

00:02:09.540 We had people coming and going all the time.

00:02:11.900 There were people invited and uninvited in our home all the time.

00:02:16.400 And many times you'd come home from school and there'd be two lawyers sitting with my father, having a brandy, right, and talking business.

00:02:27.260 We had priests always there.

00:02:29.320 Great priests.

00:02:30.320 We were blessed with outstanding men.

00:02:34.740 Father Wittet, Father Schoenberger, Father Rohr, a Jesuit.

00:02:41.140 And we just, they were there.

00:02:44.120 And they were part of our family.

00:02:46.400 But I remember being impressed by one lawyer who was my father's, they were close friends.

00:02:56.940 His name was Arthur Gillen.

00:02:59.020 He was also our state senator.

00:03:01.680 And he would stop by the house often.

00:03:05.600 He had my father build things onto his house, a music room, a library, this, that, and the other thing.

00:03:10.920 And my dad loved these kind of projects.

00:03:12.900 But I told him that I was interested in law as a career.

00:03:22.240 At that time, every lawyer that I knew, let me put it this way, every Catholic lawyer that I knew, and I knew many of them, as I've just explained,

00:03:31.500 studied as pre-law philosophy, they had a philosophy degree.

00:03:40.520 Most of them knew Latin.

00:03:41.980 This is how old I am.

00:03:43.220 This is how old I am.

00:03:45.060 This is how old I am.

00:03:47.420 But they had a philosophy degree.

00:03:50.240 And I talked to Senator Gillen.

00:03:53.540 I said, what does that mean?

00:03:55.740 He said, well, you've got to understand and utilize logic.

00:03:59.200 If you can't understand or utilize logic, you're not going to be any good to anyone, at least of all yourself in life.

00:04:09.040 I said, oh, all right.

00:04:10.260 Where can you learn logic?

00:04:12.460 Well, he said, traditional logic is almost finished today.

00:04:16.800 This is 1970, right?

00:04:18.620 He said it's gone the way of all flesh.

00:04:20.580 However, he said, there is a school that I've heard of in Rome that still teaches classical philosophy.

00:04:30.320 I said, what is that?

00:04:31.380 And he said, the University of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum.

00:04:35.480 I had guests from my grade school days had heard of it.

00:04:41.340 I investigated, and yes, they taught Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and they taught logic.

00:04:48.520 They had courses on logic.

00:04:50.380 Well, I said, this is it.

00:04:52.220 So I went to Rome as a lay student to get a degree in philosophy.

00:04:58.000 So that you could become a lawyer.

00:04:59.060 So that I could become a lawyer, right?

00:05:01.060 And I wanted to be the best lawyer.

00:05:03.880 And if the best lawyer, my father's friend, Senator Gillen, is telling me, you've got to have logic and you've got to have philosophy.

00:05:10.340 This was the last place on earth that really had it, was uncorrupted, was unabashedly Aristotelian and of St. Thomas Aquinas, right?

00:05:23.940 This is where I wanted to go.

00:05:25.000 So I went there.

00:05:26.020 It's like a lot of things I do in life.

00:05:27.960 I was explaining this today, just being here.

00:05:30.720 Why would a 70-year-old come to start a new life in Spain?

00:05:35.300 Well, it's not a new life.

00:05:36.100 It's a continuation of a crazy life for the reasons that I gave you.

00:05:43.420 All of my life, I've done things without looking at the long-range consequences.

00:05:48.480 Let me put it that way.

00:05:49.440 I get an idea.

00:05:50.360 I mature the idea.

00:05:51.500 I study it.

00:05:52.180 I see it.

00:05:52.720 And then I do it.

00:05:55.140 But I'm not measuring.

00:05:56.860 Most people have a plan for their life.

00:05:59.180 I've never really had a plan for my life.

00:06:01.280 It's not day by day, make it up as you go along, but it's openness to different opportunities.

00:06:08.700 And life has been very good for me.

00:06:10.900 And you know yourself, when you let providence be providence, it's magnificent.

00:06:17.080 And you go with its program.

00:06:19.140 It doesn't go with yours, right?

00:06:20.660 And the people that I met along the way were doors opened just by letting God be God, by letting God in your life.

00:06:30.420 Well, I went to Rome.

00:06:32.120 I had no place to live.

00:06:34.000 I'll figure that out when I get to Rome, right?

00:06:36.660 Can you imagine?

00:06:37.700 I couldn't even imagine.

00:06:39.040 I wouldn't do that on a weekend trip.

00:06:41.180 I'll figure it out.

00:06:41.940 I'll find a place when I get there.

00:06:44.260 How times have changed.

00:06:45.520 Anyway, I started classes at the Angelicum, was enlisted there, inscribed there.

00:06:51.860 And I was staying with one of the students.

00:06:55.520 They had a convito, which was a small attachment for students, for lay students, usually for clergy, but non-Dominicans, right?

00:07:04.080 Anyway, I stayed with a friend there.

00:07:06.600 I made a friend quickly.

00:07:08.800 And he said that I could sleep on the floor, which I did.

00:07:11.800 And in those days, you could sleep on the floor and not be crippled the next day, right?

00:07:16.580 I'm looking for a place to stay.

00:07:18.360 And the student who I was boarding with, if you would call it that, he said, you know, there are places for the clergy in Rome.

00:07:29.100 Well, I didn't know Rome and I didn't know this setup.

00:07:31.900 He said, the Dutch college, the Dutch who were the first, the most advanced liberals in the whole thing, is empty.

00:07:41.800 Unsurprisingly, unsurprisingly, empty, quite empty.

00:07:46.400 He said, if I were you, I would go, I would start with the Dutch college and ask if you could take a room there and discuss the payment and everything else.

00:07:56.100 He said, the college is still functioning, but they have no students.

00:08:00.000 Wow.

00:08:00.300 All right.

00:08:01.620 He said, tomorrow we'll go have a coffee.

00:08:04.140 And tomorrow I'm going to talk to a friend of mine who's got a fantastic little book, a fat book.

00:08:09.520 And he said, it's got the address of the Dutch college.

00:08:12.580 And we'll get good.

00:08:13.240 So I met him at this coffee bar.

00:08:15.660 We're having coffee.

00:08:16.620 And he took out an Anuario Pontificio, which is about this thick, this big, right?

00:08:22.480 You know it.

00:08:23.080 The red cover.

00:08:24.160 Yeah.

00:08:25.040 He opened up to pontifical colleges.

00:08:27.400 And I was surprised.

00:08:28.700 You've got the North American College for Priests, the North American College for Seminaries, the Canadian College, the French College for Priests, the German College.

00:08:37.000 Every nationality that had a Catholic population, sizable Catholic population, had a college in Rome.

00:08:44.980 Now, these colleges are residences.

00:08:47.960 Nothing is taught in them.

00:08:49.420 Not necessarily.

00:08:50.140 I mean, you might have a seminar or something, but that was it.

00:08:53.120 They're residences for the clergy from those countries coming to Rome to go to the universities, the Gregorian, the Angelicum, the Antonianum, whatever, Alfonsianum for moral theology.

00:09:03.080 And so he looked it up.

00:09:04.120 And, of course, it's in Latin.

00:09:05.240 So it's not the Dutch college.

00:09:08.660 It is the Collegium Netherlandis.

00:09:13.300 Right?

00:09:14.120 Netherlandis.

00:09:15.060 There it is.

00:09:16.180 He said, here it is.

00:09:17.660 And he showed me the address.

00:09:20.840 And right above that, right above it, because it went in alphabetical order, is the Pontificio Collegium Mexicanum.

00:09:29.780 M-N.

00:09:31.240 Right?

00:09:31.640 Right before Netherlandis.

00:09:33.080 I took down the Dutch college's address and telephone number and everything else.

00:09:37.300 And then I saw the Mexican college.

00:09:39.640 And I said, you know, I went to Mexico when I was 15 years old.

00:09:42.660 And I worked with a group from our parish, and I loved everything about them.

00:09:48.280 I loved their religiosity.

00:09:49.640 I loved their philosophy of life.

00:09:51.100 I loved their food.

00:09:52.920 I loved the whole thing, the whole package.

00:09:55.960 I said, I wonder, I wonder.

00:09:57.840 He said, the Mexican college has got to be full.

00:10:02.040 He said, there are places that haven't given up the faith yet.

00:10:05.600 Right?

00:10:05.840 I said, but I took it down as a number two.

00:10:10.140 And I remember saying to him distinctly, if nothing else, maybe in December for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I would go to mass there.

00:10:20.200 Because they must have something extraordinary at the Mexican college for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 12th of December, right?

00:10:28.740 That much I knew the 12th of December.

00:10:31.140 Good.

00:10:31.840 Done.

00:10:32.360 I'm waiting for a bus to take me to the Dutch college.

00:10:36.200 And there's a priest standing waiting for the bus.

00:10:39.280 On Via Nationale.

00:10:40.280 The bar is, I think it was called Bar Silvio.

00:10:44.220 Not sure.

00:10:44.700 But anyway, right outside is the bus stop.

00:10:48.500 And this priest in a Saterno and Sotana and the cassock is waiting for a bus.

00:10:56.020 And I asked him, I pointed at this.

00:10:58.840 I knew a little bit of Spanish.

00:11:02.840 No Italian to speak of.

00:11:05.720 And some Latin we had to do for philology, right?

00:11:10.720 Anyway, I said, can you tell me?

00:11:12.700 I made myself understood.

00:11:13.700 Can you tell me where the Dutch college is, the Netherlands?

00:11:17.760 And he looked at it and he said, he answered from what I understood.

00:11:23.060 And I understood correctly.

00:11:25.100 No, I don't know where that is.

00:11:27.620 But I know where this one is, which was the Mexican college.

00:11:33.080 And then he said the verb to swim.

00:11:35.720 Well, later on, I discovered that the Mexican college had a pool and the clergy,

00:11:38.980 all of the clergy were invited to use it on Thursdays, free of charge.

00:11:43.100 And he went there swimming.

00:11:44.180 So he knew where it was, right?

00:11:46.100 And that's all he said and practically pushed me onto a bus that was arriving at that moment.

00:11:55.480 He said, get on.

00:11:57.040 And he got on with me, right?

00:11:59.300 So this was the bus 64.

00:12:01.340 Never forget it.

00:12:02.000 The one that went from Stasione Termini to the Vatican, right?

00:12:06.240 Constantly day and night, right?

00:12:08.280 We got to Piazza Argentina, which I didn't know where I was.

00:12:13.180 And he said, get off.

00:12:16.480 And he wrote down, took out a pen, just wrote down 44, bus number 44.

00:12:20.980 That'll take you there.

00:12:22.740 Well, I'm on bus 44 going to the Mexican college, which made no sense to me.

00:12:29.520 It really didn't.

00:12:31.160 But it did.

00:12:32.800 I don't know how to explain it.

00:12:33.960 It seemed to me that I was doing the right thing.

00:12:36.860 And I should get to know this place anyway, because for the 12th of December, I went, right?

00:12:40.600 I've got that.

00:12:41.460 I got to the Mexican college.

00:12:46.000 And I asked to speak to the rector.

00:12:50.800 Well, this man came downstairs.

00:12:54.000 His name was Father Carlos Torres.

00:12:57.180 Sort of roly poly, not very tall, with a beautiful smile.

00:13:04.740 And said, yes, what can I do for you?

00:13:06.460 I said, I'd like to have a word with you if I could.

00:13:09.600 Well, fine.

00:13:10.440 We went in and we started talking and he spoke English.

00:13:14.800 Yeah.

00:13:14.980 Okay.

00:13:15.800 Not very well, but better than my Spanish at the time.

00:13:23.040 And so I told him I was here studying philosophy, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:13:29.240 And he said, and you have no place to stay.

00:13:31.200 I said, well, no, not really.

00:13:32.400 I'm sleeping on a friend's floor.

00:13:36.320 And we got to talking more and more and more.

00:13:38.680 And we were talking about things that weren't pertinent to the idea of residency or of nothing.

00:13:45.680 Just general.

00:13:47.100 What I realized is he was picking my brain.

00:13:49.100 I didn't see it then because at that age, you know everything.

00:13:53.700 And if you don't know that, it wasn't happening, if that makes any sense.

00:13:57.600 So at the end, he said to me, he said, so you would be here for a year.

00:14:03.820 Is that right?

00:14:05.100 I said, yes, I already have a degree and I can get the bachelor's degree in philosophy in one year.

00:14:10.360 He was impressed that I wanted to know Aristotelian logic.

00:14:17.000 He had been a professor in the seminary himself, right?

00:14:20.000 So then he said to me, he said to me, would you be, he said, do you have any teaching experience?

00:14:28.240 Do I?

00:14:28.680 And I said, well, in college, we had to take two educational courses.

00:14:34.140 Don't get me started on my opinion of educational courses.

00:14:36.920 But we had to have them if we intended to teach high school.

00:14:40.420 If we wanted to have a license to teach high school in the United States, you had to have eight credits of these.

00:14:45.660 I said, I took those and I did some student teaching.

00:14:49.240 He said, he said, and your English is very good.

00:14:52.660 I said, yeah, I thought, but so far I found it.

00:14:56.400 It's gotten me through life, right?

00:14:58.020 He said, would you be willing to teach an English course here to the priests?

00:15:04.600 Because many of them are going to the Biblicum and it's required, English is required for their degree.

00:15:12.880 And many of them are having a hard time because they didn't come with that.

00:15:16.440 Would you be willing to do that?

00:15:18.980 I said, yes, of course.

00:15:21.660 He said, good, where are your things?

00:15:24.840 I said, well, they're back at the chateau.

00:15:28.020 He said, well, bring them and we'll get you a room here.

00:15:32.160 And he said, and you'd be willing to do things that need to be done around the house here?

00:15:37.260 It's a beautiful place.

00:15:38.660 I said, sure.

00:15:40.040 So I washed dishes.

00:15:42.140 There were 100 clerics in the house.

00:15:45.680 There was room for 100.

00:15:46.560 90 percent, 90 of them were priests and eight of them were seminarians.

00:15:53.080 Wow.

00:15:53.460 Right.

00:15:54.300 So they didn't.

00:15:55.480 The priests you sent for graduate degrees.

00:15:57.580 You didn't send seminarians to Rome.

00:15:59.260 Anyway, I worked with the other with the seminarians and we were in the kitchen cleaning plates and doing.

00:16:04.540 And we had a great time.

00:16:06.340 I mean, a great time.

00:16:07.460 I'm learning Spanish and Spanish expressions, as you can imagine.

00:16:11.840 You didn't you didn't start out with the nicest words in Spanish.

00:16:15.100 Right.

00:16:15.460 And we're having a great time.

00:16:17.640 I'm teaching a course to very serious minded men who wanted to know English.

00:16:22.880 And they put in the effort and the study, which was great.

00:16:28.580 I loved everybody.

00:16:30.020 Everybody loved me.

00:16:31.000 It was wonderful.

00:16:34.920 I asked the rector for another year to continue studying philosophy.

00:16:41.440 He said, yes, you can come back.

00:16:43.840 Sure.

00:16:44.960 Same arrangement, same arrangement.

00:16:46.700 So I did.

00:16:49.760 This is philosophy to become a lawyer.

00:16:52.260 Right.

00:16:52.880 But at the same time, remember, I told you about the priests who I found that scandalized me.

00:16:59.820 I found priests who were holy and great senses of humor and warm human beings and fraternity and friendship.

00:17:10.800 They were they were really.

00:17:12.440 Now, forget that this is the creme de la creme of Mexico.

00:17:15.360 Right.

00:17:15.820 Right.

00:17:16.080 I mean, I'm sure you can find some real losers also in Mexico.

00:17:19.340 But in the general population, clerical population.

00:17:23.260 But these were they were just great.

00:17:25.280 And I've got the idea at 20, 21 years old that this is going to just continue for the rest of my life.

00:17:31.840 I mean, these people are going to be here always.

00:17:34.340 They're not going to go back.

00:17:35.680 They're just this is marvelous.

00:17:37.340 It's sort of like St. Peter.

00:17:40.800 We had the transfiguration where he said, Lord, it is good for us to be here.

00:17:45.400 Let's build a tent.

00:17:47.120 Well, that's my mentality.

00:17:49.000 All right.

00:17:50.160 During that year, the second year, a monsignor.

00:17:54.520 Monsignor is coming.

00:17:56.340 And this is the talk of the whole college, the Mexican college.

00:18:00.940 The monsignor is an Italian who was coming, who was returning from Mexico.

00:18:07.220 He had been in Mexico for three years teaching theology and philosophy.

00:18:11.960 And he was returning to be a papal secretary in the secretary of state.

00:18:17.460 And believe me, a sense of dread came upon the college.

00:18:25.900 Now, I didn't.

00:18:26.880 Who is this?

00:18:27.580 This man is coming.

00:18:28.680 They knew him.

00:18:31.320 They knew him particularly from some priests who were studying there.

00:18:37.480 It's a long story, but during the Mexican persecution, everything was closed in Mexico to the church.

00:18:43.340 There were no seminaries.

00:18:44.460 There were no Catholic schools.

00:18:45.480 Nothing Catholic could exist.

00:18:47.680 From the Freemasons.

00:18:49.960 The Knights of Columbus of the United States built a seminary in New Mexico called Montezuma.

00:18:57.980 And that was the Catholic seminary for all of the Mexican vocations.

00:19:02.060 They came to the United States.

00:19:02.900 And the Jesuits ran it.

00:19:05.040 So anyone who was there, they were a club.

00:19:08.620 They were a clique.

00:19:10.040 The Montezumaites, they knew of this monsignor because he was teaching in the north.

00:19:15.160 He was teaching in Chihuahua.

00:19:16.880 And most of them came from Chihuahua.

00:19:18.560 Many of them came from Chihuahua.

00:19:20.040 So they knew him personally and didn't like him because he wasn't liberal minded.

00:19:26.180 And at that time, I'm swallowing the program of the college, which was they were beginning with theology of liberation.

00:19:36.020 And I remember having discussions.

00:19:38.440 All of a sudden, Marxism by another name, because they weren't calling it Marxism, but it was, of course, I found attractive.

00:19:47.800 Yeah, but the way you've got these people you esteem, you respect, they seem balanced in every other way, and they're pushing theology of liberation.

00:19:58.640 But I didn't know what it was, right?

00:20:01.860 But it sounded, well, it's like communism always sounds attractive.

00:20:06.320 It's what we were saying before.

00:20:08.100 Evil always presents itself as good, right?

00:20:11.440 Try this.

00:20:12.180 You'll love it.

00:20:12.680 It'll help you.

00:20:13.300 Steal that $100 bill.

00:20:15.980 It'll make you happy.

00:20:17.120 You can buy the pen and pencil.

00:20:20.000 You can buy the new computer.

00:20:21.580 You can put it on.

00:20:22.420 Everything presents itself as good, which is a lot of evil.

00:20:26.460 Well, this too presented itself as good.

00:20:29.680 And I'm listening to these men who I respect.

00:20:32.740 They're intelligent.

00:20:35.820 Talking about this new theology.

00:20:39.060 Now, I wasn't a theologian, nor was I really excited about theology.

00:20:42.340 However, and I went to daily mass with them.

00:20:45.860 Communion in the hand, absolutely.

00:20:48.460 It was forbidden.

00:20:50.500 It was forbidden in Rome.

00:20:51.580 It was forbidden universally.

00:20:53.180 We had it there.

00:20:55.440 Guitars.

00:20:57.280 The only difference between their guitar masses and the hootenanny things that I had experienced as a teenager, these actually knew how to play guitar.

00:21:06.980 They were very good.

00:21:09.020 They were very, very good.

00:21:10.220 So I sort of got sucked into this.

00:21:13.000 I shouldn't say that because I did it willingly, too.

00:21:15.520 I'm not not taking responsibility.

00:21:20.320 But this Monsignor, this priest arrived and he took residence in the Mexican college because of his Mexican history.

00:21:27.700 Right.

00:21:27.840 He's Italian from Ravenna, big man, six, two, something like that, and not fat, big, big, big, like a refrigerator, big.

00:21:42.120 Right.

00:21:42.620 And he had a deep, deep, deep bass voice.

00:21:47.000 For whatever reason, he and I became friends.

00:21:54.580 It wasn't because he wanted to learn English, which he said initially, because we never spoke in English.

00:22:03.540 It was always in Spanish.

00:22:04.620 But we became friends.

00:22:09.620 And about, I would say, at least four times a week after supper, after dinner, we would take a walk together to have a coffee and a Petrus.

00:22:21.720 Do you know what Petrus is?

00:22:22.840 The next time you get to Rome, you have to have a Petrus.

00:22:25.540 It's an after.

00:22:26.000 It's sort of like a Jägermeister.

00:22:29.360 Oh.

00:22:29.760 You know what a Jägermeister is?

00:22:31.140 It's like that, either Petrus or Chenterbe, a hundred herbs.

00:22:36.700 It's a digestive that you would have.

00:22:39.660 Well, we would go for a Petrus and a coffee.

00:22:44.160 And talk, and talk, and talk.

00:22:46.900 We got to be very, very, very, very good friends.

00:22:50.120 And it always surprised, it surprised me when I look back, I can see it better.

00:22:56.780 But the friendlier I became with him, the more withdrawn from the college community, from the Mexican college priests.

00:23:07.420 And they were careful what they said about him in my presence.

00:23:12.380 And I detected that.

00:23:13.820 So, again, this divide.

00:23:16.640 And these were the open ones.

00:23:18.540 These were the progressives.

00:23:20.600 These were except everyone.

00:23:22.200 These are the ones who wanted to have atheists and communists be part of the church.

00:23:26.360 But not him.

00:23:29.340 Because his name was Mario Marini.

00:23:32.560 And Mario Marini was incredibly clear.

00:23:37.340 Incredibly Catholic.

00:23:38.720 No nonsense.

00:23:39.800 Came from a communist background.

00:23:41.500 I won't get into all of that.

00:23:42.500 But his entire family was communist.

00:23:44.980 Anti-clerical.

00:23:45.900 Didn't talk to him when he went, right?

00:23:48.960 All of this, when he entered seminary.

00:23:51.160 He had no support from his family.

00:23:54.000 So he went, they sent him from Ravenna to the seminary of Milan.

00:23:59.520 And because he had no money, the archbishop of Milan paid his way.

00:24:04.900 There was a becca, what do you call that?

00:24:06.840 A grant, right?

00:24:08.060 That the archbishop had set up for seminarians.

00:24:10.260 Well, that archbishop was Giovanni Battista Montini, right?

00:24:14.540 And when he became pope, he called Marini.

00:24:18.120 Because every time he would come to the seminary, he wanted to meet, bring my seminary, the one I'm paying for.

00:24:25.040 Well, they got to know each other and they esteemed each other.

00:24:29.440 I became known as the friend of Marini.

00:24:32.640 And then, and then people were careful what they said around me.

00:24:37.200 And I knew that I could, you, you, you pick this up in the air, you know it.

00:24:41.220 You know, when somebody's saying, not in front of him.

00:24:46.140 Anyway, Mario Marini was undoubtedly the most powerful single influence I had in my life.

00:24:53.580 He was 13 years older than I was.

00:24:59.980 He had a doctorate in civil engineering and a doctorate in theology.

00:25:08.340 And I, I had a, I have a good sense of humor.

00:25:14.800 But with him, when we would start on different subjects, I could reduce him to tears laughing.

00:25:22.200 He would, he would, he would laugh so, so, so hard that he cried.

00:25:26.840 And, and of course, when you know that you've got somebody's funny bone, you continue.

00:25:31.640 And he would beg me to stop.

00:25:34.300 Anyway, we got along royally well.

00:25:37.500 And I really, I really loved him.

00:25:40.740 He was a father, a spiritual guide.

00:25:46.380 And little by little, he became my confessor.

00:25:52.200 I didn't have a confessor, a confessor.

00:25:55.700 And one day he invited me.

00:25:58.200 This is the next year.

00:25:59.260 I remained on.

00:26:00.540 And he convinced me to start studying theology.

00:26:03.460 He said, well, you're already here.

00:26:05.420 You know, Italian, you know, Latin.

00:26:07.560 Is it?

00:26:07.940 Why don't you just continue and study, study theology?

00:26:10.660 At least know the people you're living with.

00:26:12.940 They're all theologians.

00:26:13.940 And there are some interesting questions he said that only theology can answer.

00:26:18.220 Philosophy can't.

00:26:19.880 Philosophy will take you this far.

00:26:21.500 Theology will take you the rest.

00:26:22.980 So I did.

00:26:23.760 I started studying Thomistic theology.

00:26:26.080 I started at the Gregorian University for theology.

00:26:29.540 And I knew enough, I knew enough from Marini and from the experience of being there, that there was something wrong.

00:26:40.720 All we were studying in the first semester were Protestant theologians.

00:26:46.160 Protestant theologians, Coleman, Karl Barth, this one, that one, none of this was Catholic theology.

00:27:00.160 And the Jesuits credit themselves, well, they're so advanced.

00:27:04.740 And, you know, you have to understand this so that later on you can answer these things.

00:27:08.320 And it was the same thing that they did, they introduced when I was there, the Department of Sociology.

00:27:17.500 The Gregorian didn't have a Department of Sociology.

00:27:19.540 It was just philosophy and philosophy, theology, and psychology.

00:27:24.840 And the psychology was Catholic psychology.

00:27:26.940 It wasn't nonsense, right?

00:27:28.240 All of a sudden they have a Department of Sociology.

00:27:32.140 I said, where did this come from?

00:27:33.740 Well, it's to introduce Marxism.

00:27:35.800 But you don't call it that.

00:27:40.020 You're studying sociology, you see?

00:27:42.220 And this is, there were many priests and bishops that were beginning to create bishops with degrees in sociology.

00:27:49.400 Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:27:50.900 Anyway, the long and the short of it was, Marini and I became very, very good friends.

00:27:56.340 He was my confessor.

00:27:57.740 I trusted him implicitly.

00:27:59.920 He really, truly was like a father to me and I, a son to him.

00:28:03.300 And he had written his theology, his theology dissertation on friendship.

00:28:09.820 Okay.

00:28:10.620 So it was almost a cult of friendship.

00:28:14.640 And I remember discussing with him different philosophers, modern, ancient, didn't matter, on the subject of human love.

00:28:23.140 And we got into Trinitarian love and into the discussions that we had were, they were phenomenal.

00:28:32.080 They were courses themselves.

00:28:33.980 You couldn't pay to take a course in philosophy or theology that would be better than that.

00:28:37.940 Right.

00:28:38.460 And I had this man to myself, to any questions I wanted to ask, he was there.

00:28:43.080 And he was a secretary to the Pope.

00:28:45.180 He worked in the secretary of state.

00:28:46.740 And it was fantastic.

00:28:48.860 One night he invited me to go, to go downtown, to go into Rome.

00:28:53.920 It was weird.

00:28:54.520 The college was a little bit on the, on the outskirts.

00:28:58.560 We parked the car.

00:29:01.420 I'm thinking to go for a coffee and, and, and, and a Patris.

00:29:05.260 He loved Patris because it was Peter.

00:29:07.180 That's the, I'm sure that's what attracted him to the taste, but we're walking down and you know where it is.

00:29:14.460 It's right before the Vittorio, the Ponte, Ponte Vittorio Manuel, right before that, there's a church.

00:29:20.440 I should know the name of the church.

00:29:21.800 I don't.

00:29:22.880 The backside.

00:29:24.740 And we're on the Lungo Tevere.

00:29:26.540 We're walking on the, on the sidewalk there.

00:29:28.380 And we walked past a group.

00:29:32.600 I thought of, I already knew about the prostitutes in Rome.

00:29:37.020 Benito Mussolini had canned houses of prostitution.

00:29:40.720 They were illegal.

00:29:41.860 So you had groups of prostitutes who would meet on street corners in this, and they would always have a bonfire, like a campfire.

00:29:49.120 And that's how you knew that was that.

00:29:51.080 Well, we're walking and I see the, the, the fire.

00:29:53.620 And I'm thinking it's a group of prostitutes, right, which, which you were already, you already knew.

00:29:59.020 When we walked by, these male voices start mocking Marini because he's wearing a Roman collar.

00:30:08.100 I looked, they're transvestites.

00:30:10.280 That's what we called them in those days.

00:30:12.700 They're laughing and mocking him.

00:30:14.600 Catcalls, right?

00:30:15.840 This doesn't faze Mario Marini in the least.

00:30:19.640 Not in the least.

00:30:20.600 And he looks at me and he said, what's the matter with you?

00:30:25.320 I said, did you hear what these, these, I used an expletive, called you?

00:30:31.660 He said, yeah, what about it?

00:30:34.940 I said, it's a disgrace.

00:30:37.200 And I said, and I remember saying, and right in the shadow of St. Peter's Basilica,

00:30:43.300 it was right across the river.

00:30:44.900 You could see the dome.

00:30:45.620 And he started laughing.

00:30:49.380 He said, that bothers you?

00:30:51.900 That bothers you?

00:30:54.020 What a group of transvestites think of you?

00:30:57.400 Are you serious?

00:31:00.400 He said, let me just tell you something.

00:31:02.140 And it, and it bothers you because it's in the, it's in the shadow of St. Peter's Basilica?

00:31:05.860 He said, many of the men I work with underneath that dome, not in its shadow,

00:31:15.020 have a less chance of gaining heaven than those transvestites.

00:31:20.460 They have a better chance of gaining heaven with some, than some of the men that I work with

00:31:24.560 in the Secretary of State in the Vatican.

00:31:27.640 Well, that hit me like a ton of bricks.

00:31:30.120 He had said certain things over the years that made me understand that not everyone was a deep believer

00:31:38.900 that he worked with.

00:31:41.120 And some of them were, a lot of them were career men.

00:31:44.260 They were looking out for a career much more than they were in serving God or the church.

00:31:48.180 Right?

00:31:48.720 That I already knew.

00:31:49.860 But when he, when he said something as drastic and he meant it, it was perfectly serious.

00:31:54.680 And I said, and this question was, was very important in my life.

00:32:01.560 It's actually guided me for the rest of my life.

00:32:04.880 I said, how can that be?

00:32:10.540 So close to the successor of St. Peter, to the vicar of Christ on earth,

00:32:17.520 that there are men as evil or as corrupt as you're saying.

00:32:21.780 And he stopped and he looked at me, he said, he always considered me naive, always considered,

00:32:30.800 and told me so.

00:32:32.500 He said, it comes with being American.

00:32:35.780 It's part of being American, your naivete.

00:32:39.000 And he said, why doesn't that make perfect sense to you?

00:32:44.600 Where do you think the devil is going to be?

00:32:47.000 Don't you think the devil is going to be where the greatest good on earth is?

00:32:53.820 Or why would, why would he be far away from that?

00:32:57.160 He would make, he would pitch his tent right across the hall from the vicar of Christ.

00:33:04.080 And he has representatives who are very close to the Pope because that's as close as he can get.

00:33:09.580 Well, all of a sudden that made sense to me.

00:33:13.740 Of course, where there's the greatest good, there's also going to be the greatest evil.

00:33:17.980 And he said something that I never forgot also.

00:33:20.020 He said, build, begin construction on a cathedral.

00:33:26.320 And the next day, look across the street and you'll see that the devil has already pitched his tent.

00:33:31.140 Well, this is it.

00:33:35.760 And I look at so many things that are wrong with the church.

00:33:38.280 And there are many things that are wrong with the church.

00:33:40.100 You know that, I know that.

00:33:41.620 Anybody with the eyes and ears knows that.

00:33:45.520 To me, it makes sense that there are sinful men in powers, in positions of power and authority.

00:33:55.360 It makes sense.

00:33:56.060 I don't like it and I'll combat it until I die.

00:33:58.760 But it makes sense.

00:34:00.020 It doesn't scandalize me anymore because that's where the devil needs to be.

00:34:06.020 That's what makes him up.

00:34:07.600 That's where his spot is.

00:34:09.140 He's not going to be 15 miles to the west of that.

00:34:13.060 He won't be right in the center.

00:34:14.880 When I see that, when I confront it, I know what I'm dealing with.

00:34:19.860 I'm careful because he's smarter than I am.

00:34:24.860 I'll give that to the devil.

00:34:26.100 Quite light years ahead of me.

00:34:28.760 But if you confront him, often he backs down.

00:34:33.640 That to me was a moment of enlightenment.

00:34:36.860 It really was.

00:34:38.320 And the more I thought about it, the more I integrated it.

00:34:44.500 We kept walking.

00:34:45.940 We walked across the Bridge of the Holy Angels to the Castel San Angelo.

00:34:49.500 Of course, I'm walking with an engineer and an architect.

00:34:53.220 So every place that we walked in Rome, he would stop to explain this corner and that corner and what happened here.

00:34:59.340 And he knew all of this.

00:35:00.460 It was incredible.

00:35:01.620 You couldn't have gotten a better education than the one I got.

00:35:04.320 It's impossible.

00:35:05.320 Just impossible.

00:35:06.600 About everything.

00:35:07.480 But on the Ponte San Angelo, he said, said to me something quite boldly and a matter of factly.

00:35:15.180 He said, why don't you give me your confession?

00:35:20.120 A general confession.

00:35:22.360 He said, have you ever made a general confession of your life?

00:35:24.860 And I said, no, I haven't.

00:35:27.980 No, I never did.

00:35:29.280 He said, why don't you give that to me?

00:35:31.600 He said, do you trust me?

00:35:33.480 I said, certainly I trust you.

00:35:34.760 And I said, I certainly trust you as a priest.

00:35:36.580 He said, good.

00:35:37.240 I'm asking you as a priest for your confession.

00:35:40.960 You're free to say no.

00:35:42.920 I said, no, yes, yes.

00:35:46.240 And I felt totally comfortable with him.

00:35:49.380 He already knew most of my defects anyway.

00:35:52.040 It wouldn't be a major secret.

00:35:53.560 But we walked up to St. Peter's Square.

00:35:59.620 And at that time, I'm giving him a bit.

00:36:01.200 Now it's dark out.

00:36:04.120 Just the lantern lights were on in the square.

00:36:08.520 And I don't recall anyone being in St. Peter's Square.

00:36:11.720 Maybe there were a couple people, but no one, just the two of us.

00:36:15.100 We walked around the square.

00:36:19.060 And we finished.

00:36:20.340 I finished.

00:36:20.960 And he said, he said, you did a very good job.

00:36:27.920 He said, I've heard general confessions that go every which direction you can.

00:36:31.840 Right?

00:36:32.180 He said, you did a very good job.

00:36:34.260 And he said to me, did you ever think really about being a priest?

00:36:40.800 Did you ever really consider being a priest?

00:36:46.580 And my answer to him was, from what I understand, you have to have a calling.

00:36:53.440 You have to have a vocation.

00:36:54.820 I haven't heard a calling.

00:36:59.720 I haven't experienced a calling to that.

00:37:02.440 So I would say no.

00:37:04.280 And he turned and made a megaphone out of his hands and shouted with this deep voice, this deep bass voice in my ear.

00:37:12.160 He said, Charlie Moore.

00:37:15.460 He said, Charlie Moore, I want you to be a priest.

00:37:20.080 And he said, did you hear that?

00:37:24.140 He was a delight.

00:37:25.340 He was a delight.

00:37:26.000 I said, yeah, I heard that.

00:37:27.160 And he said, well, then you can no longer say that you haven't had a vocation.

00:37:30.680 You're going to have a calling.

00:37:31.780 You heard it.

00:37:32.740 Well, that was the beginning of it.

00:37:34.920 And he became my spiritual director completely, and I loved every moment that we were together.

00:37:40.760 It was just fantastic.

00:37:41.660 I waited for him to come home from work to accompany him at late lunch, and it was just great.

00:37:47.060 He introduced me to some people in the Secretary of State.

00:37:49.660 Among the many people that he introduced me to in the Secretary of State was one Archbishop Benelli, Giovanni Benelli, who was the subsecretary of State.

00:37:58.100 You understand this, but so that those who are listening get a clearer idea.

00:38:01.720 The Vatican had congregations.

00:38:05.160 It was always headed by a prefect who was a cardinal, a secretary, and a subsecretary.

00:38:10.840 Well, the subsecretary was the man who did all the work, right?

00:38:13.900 The prefect was for ornamentation.

00:38:18.100 You had a cardinal.

00:38:18.980 Good.

00:38:20.100 But Benelli had been Paul VI's private secretary for years, and he was a sharp, sharp man.

00:38:28.560 I mean, when he was talking to you and looked at you, you knew that he was seeing clear through you.

00:38:35.780 I admired him, and I admired a lot about him.

00:38:40.300 Benelli is often accused of being this private liberal who sabotaged things.

00:38:46.960 It was all the contrary.

00:38:48.400 He held things together as best he could.

00:38:51.200 Who was secretary of state was Villot, Cardinal Jean Villot, the Frenchman.

00:38:58.300 That man was not particularly good.

00:39:01.440 I won't get into that, but not at all.

00:39:04.600 And Villot and Benelli were at odds constantly, right?

00:39:08.420 And Benelli held his own.

00:39:10.060 And he had the friendship of the Pope and the trust of the Pope, almost, I would say, even more than Cardinal Villot.

00:39:19.300 Paul VI had a curious psychology.

00:39:23.260 He loved everything French.

00:39:26.320 Everything French.

00:39:27.080 The fleur-de-lis.

00:39:28.060 Remember his coat of arms?

00:39:29.360 Fleur-de-lis.

00:39:30.400 Everything French was fascinating.

00:39:32.820 He spoke French beautifully.

00:39:33.940 He translated Jacques Maritain.

00:39:37.820 Oh, really?

00:39:38.460 Yeah.

00:39:39.020 Montini did as a Monsignor.

00:39:41.640 But anyway, I was introduced to Benelli.

00:39:45.500 Zanini was the head of priest personnel.

00:39:48.740 Was impressive about, not priest personnel, personnel of the secretary of state.

00:39:52.980 Guillermo Zanini.

00:39:56.340 A great man.

00:39:57.600 A saint.

00:39:58.740 A quiet man.

00:39:59.940 A saint.

00:40:00.300 And probably the best Latinist in the world at that time.

00:40:04.780 He was the one responsible for all the documents being in Latin and perfect Latin.

00:40:08.960 And he was the one who hired and fired for the secretary of state.

00:40:13.300 Anyway, Marini introduced me to him.

00:40:15.160 They were good friends.

00:40:17.440 And he said, I don't even know.

00:40:22.220 I don't even think I was a seminarian.

00:40:24.640 I was just studying theology.

00:40:26.440 He said, do you think one day there'll be a place for this young man?

00:40:30.300 And Zanini answered him.

00:40:33.580 He said, from what you tell me, yes.

00:40:38.100 Well, I'm saying, wow, my career is being planned.

00:40:41.460 And I have nothing to do with it.

00:40:43.780 I'm just watching.

00:40:45.560 Well, Marini then got me the Archbishop of Guadalajara.

00:40:50.800 Marini came for the holy years in 1975.

00:40:54.800 And he was staying at the Mexican college.

00:40:56.840 Of course, all the bishops would stay there as guests.

00:40:59.220 Marini, when he was in Mexico, gave a retreat to the clergy of Guadalajara,

00:41:04.240 invited by the archbishop.

00:41:05.820 So he knew the archbishop well enough.

00:41:08.080 He spoke to him about me.

00:41:09.880 And the archbishop asked to meet me.

00:41:11.580 We met, and he invited me to study for his new diocese.

00:41:17.660 He had just been, just so you can understand the connivory

00:41:21.700 and the connivings of politics in the church.

00:41:25.400 This is the coadjutor Archbishop of Guadalajara.

00:41:30.600 Coadjutor means he has the right of succession.

00:41:33.720 When the archbishop dies, he's the next archbishop.

00:41:38.600 You know that.

00:41:39.280 That's what a coadjutor is, okay?

00:41:43.320 The papal nuncio, who didn't like him because he was very conservative

00:41:46.920 and very traditional, actually broke up the Archdiocese of Guadalajara

00:41:54.080 into three dioceses and named him Bishop of San Juan de los Lagos

00:41:59.280 to remove him from there.

00:42:01.240 It was prestigious because he was going to be the first bishop there.

00:42:05.840 And it was San Juan de los Lagos was that area of Guadalajara

00:42:10.240 that gave a humongous portion of vocations to the priesthood

00:42:15.400 and religious life, just colossal.

00:42:18.480 He built, he accepted, he could have not accepted

00:42:24.780 and become the archbishop and cardinal of Guadalajara.

00:42:28.240 He accepted, very humble man, truly humble and accepted that.

00:42:32.800 His first task was to build a seminary and the seminary was filled.

00:42:36.900 They had 300 seminarians, like the first year.

00:42:41.660 There wasn't a family in that diocese that didn't have at least a cousin

00:42:46.180 who was a priest, either a brother or a cousin or an uncle, right?

00:42:50.200 He invited me to be part of the clergy with the idea that I would be ordained in Rome

00:43:00.020 and wouldn't go to Mexico.

00:43:03.600 He was going to gift me.

00:43:05.760 I didn't particularly like that term because I don't like being gifted.

00:43:10.580 He was going to gift me to the Holy See and I was going to work with Monsignor Marini

00:43:14.820 in the Secretary of State.

00:43:16.840 Did I understand that?

00:43:18.620 Well, this was the first time.

00:43:20.000 Marini had never said this to me.

00:43:22.020 I knew I suspected this and everybody else suspected it.

00:43:25.760 That's why they stopped talking to me so readily, right?

00:43:28.920 Okay, I accepted.

00:43:32.120 And in 1977, I'd finished a licentiate in theology

00:43:36.140 and was going on for a licentiate in philosophy.

00:43:40.020 In 1977, I was ordained a priest in Rome,

00:43:44.240 in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul.

00:43:47.140 Cardinal Felici ordained me.

00:43:50.180 Then to be Cardinal Gagnon, then Archbishop Gagnon,

00:43:55.600 preached the thing.

00:43:57.720 There were about 70 concelebrating priests

00:44:01.100 and Mother Pasqualina, Pius XII's secretary,

00:44:07.180 who was my godmother.

00:44:09.020 I asked her to be my godmother for ordination.

00:44:11.360 It's an Italian, an old Italian custom.

00:44:14.500 You know, if you talk to some very old priests,

00:44:19.320 they will tell you that at their first mass,

00:44:22.380 there was a bride present,

00:44:25.600 usually their sister, usually a sister of the priest,

00:44:28.680 who dressed as a bride,

00:44:30.420 and it was part of the first mass ceremony,

00:44:33.660 that his relationship to the church,

00:44:37.940 the priest really.

00:44:39.760 And I think it had to do more with,

00:44:42.500 it wasn't a Catholic universal custom.

00:44:45.040 It was more a national.

00:44:46.860 Maybe the Germans had it,

00:44:48.120 maybe the Irish or something like that.

00:44:50.540 But it was in the United States.

00:44:52.040 I remember priests telling me that.

00:44:55.020 Anyway, there was an Italian custom

00:44:58.020 and a Spanish custom

00:45:00.780 to have godparents for everything.

00:45:04.980 You might have godparents for your baptism.

00:45:07.620 The Italians and the Spaniards

00:45:10.920 and on all of the Hispanic world

00:45:13.260 have godparents for everything.

00:45:15.940 When you're married, you have godparents.

00:45:18.200 Your confirmation, you have godparents.

00:45:20.380 Everything, you have godparents.

00:45:21.860 When you're civilly married, you have godparents.

00:45:25.000 When you're religiously married,

00:45:26.140 you've heard the expression compadre and comadre, right?

00:45:30.780 Like a father, like a mother.

00:45:33.500 Yeah.

00:45:33.720 I've got a few godchildren who are godchildren by confirmation.

00:45:38.620 So I know what you mean.

00:45:39.460 And they're Latin American too.

00:45:40.440 And the crazy thing is that you establish a relationship

00:45:43.960 with their parents.

00:45:44.900 Not just with the, you're sponsoring these children.

00:45:49.680 No, no, no.

00:45:50.300 You and the parents are almost like brothers.

00:45:53.820 It's amazing.

00:45:55.020 Anyway, I knew of this custom

00:45:57.520 with the Italian clergy, especially from the South.

00:46:00.800 And I asked Mother Pasqualina,

00:46:02.940 who I'd been friends with for years,

00:46:05.260 if she would be my godmother for ordination.

00:46:08.080 She agreed.

00:46:09.260 She was, she was, you would have loved this woman.

00:46:12.720 Fantastic.

00:46:14.080 And her gift to my ordination were two things.

00:46:19.840 I'm forgetting right now the name of it.

00:46:21.660 I should remember.

00:46:22.300 It begins with an M, the cloth that goes around

00:46:24.920 a priest's hands when he's anointed.

00:46:27.200 Oh, it's when you become a priest, they wrap.

00:46:28.860 They anoint your, they anoint your hands

00:46:30.680 and then they wrap them together, right?

00:46:32.880 Well, her gifts to me were that.

00:46:36.480 I think, I think she made it.

00:46:38.600 It's a very long piece that, that binds your,

00:46:40.960 your hands together for that part

00:46:42.720 of the ceremony of ordination.

00:46:44.380 And she, she gave me as a gift.

00:46:47.660 This sounds phenomenal.

00:46:49.180 It sounds impossible, but she gave me

00:46:51.000 the Sistine Chapel Choir with,

00:46:55.660 with Monsignor Bartolucci directing

00:46:59.100 as a, as an ordination gift.

00:47:02.040 The Sistine Choir Chapel sang at my ordination.

00:47:04.720 Oh my God.

00:47:05.920 And I was, and I was the only priest ordained.

00:47:09.160 So it all, it all of a sudden,

00:47:11.280 I didn't calculate it so much like this,

00:47:13.840 but all of a sudden it seemed like a coronation

00:47:15.700 rather than an ordination.

00:47:17.180 But anyway, my parents were there.

00:47:19.380 My family members were there.

00:47:20.680 They came home from the United States.

00:47:22.460 The church was packed.

00:47:23.960 It was, it was, it was beautiful.

00:47:26.020 And it's one of the most beautiful churches.

00:47:27.480 If you get to Rome, Saints John and Paul,

00:47:29.940 where, where Saints John and Paul were martyred

00:47:32.580 and buried, the two brothers,

00:47:35.420 the two brothers that are in the Roman canon,

00:47:37.680 John and Paul, Cosmos and Damian, right?

00:47:39.880 Anyway, that was that.

00:47:42.240 And everything was going along fine

00:47:44.880 until my archbishop turned 74.

00:47:51.800 And I got a letter from him saying,

00:47:54.540 some of the clergy here, the local clergy,

00:47:58.800 have expressed their concern.

00:48:02.320 I love that.

00:48:03.220 Not that they're complaining.

00:48:04.320 No, they've expressed their concern

00:48:05.960 that I ordained you

00:48:08.780 and that you're a member of this clergy,

00:48:11.120 of San Juan de los Lagos,

00:48:12.100 but you've never been here.

00:48:13.320 I actually had been there.

00:48:16.600 I had actually had been there,

00:48:17.860 but, and I knew it a little bit.

00:48:19.180 He said, I want you to come and spend one year

00:48:22.440 of pastoral experience here.

00:48:25.700 My last year as, as archbishop,

00:48:28.600 as you're 74,

00:48:29.760 said, I have to resign when I'm 75.

00:48:31.560 My last year we'll spend together.

00:48:33.500 And then you can return to Rome

00:48:34.960 and continue your studies.

00:48:36.400 And he wrote it and he said,

00:48:38.040 I wish I had that letter.

00:48:39.220 It's gotta be somewhere.

00:48:40.380 He said, I've already informed Monsignor Marini

00:48:42.920 of my decision.

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00:49:18.160 This was the first experience I had of obedience,

00:49:21.980 which I had vowed to this archbishop

00:49:24.880 and his successors forever, right?

00:49:26.800 And it was the first test that I had of anything, really,

00:49:31.980 because everything was just

00:49:33.120 dippity-doo-dah going my way in life, you know.

00:49:36.820 I had no complaints about it.

00:49:37.900 Everything was wonderful.

00:49:42.060 We were not,

00:49:42.800 Marini wasn't happy,

00:49:43.860 but he was trying to give me the positive side.

00:49:45.740 Yes, it's important that you have

00:49:47.040 some pastoral experience,

00:49:48.480 that you know what a confessional is,

00:49:50.360 that you know how to say Mass

00:49:52.160 at the Basilica of San Juan de los Lagos,

00:49:54.880 that you talk to people,

00:49:56.020 that you, okay, good.

00:49:58.860 Begrudgingly, I returned to Mexico.

00:50:00.820 I went to Mexico.

00:50:02.740 And I spent one year,

00:50:04.580 the first thing I did,

00:50:06.300 God forgive me,

00:50:07.060 was I bought a calendar

00:50:08.640 and started X-ing off the days.

00:50:12.360 I've got to tell you to be truthful,

00:50:15.540 I arrived hating everything about Mexico.

00:50:18.780 I hated the fact that I was there.

00:50:22.880 I wasn't taken with the people.

00:50:27.500 Construction was inferior quality.

00:50:29.880 Everything was wrong.

00:50:32.580 I was complaining about a lot of things.

00:50:34.420 I don't know how anyone supported me,

00:50:37.280 tolerated me,

00:50:38.320 because it was just,

00:50:39.260 I was in an interiorly miserable state

00:50:42.640 and everyone around me

00:50:44.920 was being very charitable.

00:50:46.700 I'll give them that.

00:50:47.380 They tolerated me.

00:50:52.320 Little by little,

00:50:53.660 but I did everything.

00:50:55.260 I performed all of the duties

00:50:56.600 that I had to do

00:50:57.300 and I did them to the utmost.

00:50:59.060 I would hear,

00:51:00.400 for the Feast of Our Lady

00:51:01.540 of the Assumption,

00:51:03.560 the 15th of August,

00:51:05.260 I was in a confessional

00:51:07.180 for days

00:51:09.000 from 6 o'clock in the morning

00:51:12.180 until 10 o'clock at night,

00:51:14.620 just taking off

00:51:16.300 an hour for lunch.

00:51:19.080 Seriously,

00:51:19.760 seriously.

00:51:20.580 There was non-stop confession.

00:51:22.500 When did you do mass?

00:51:23.740 Oh,

00:51:24.000 I did mass too,

00:51:25.360 sometime.

00:51:27.140 Sometime before or after

00:51:28.340 in the afternoon,

00:51:29.160 it would depend.

00:51:30.160 But it was constant.

00:51:32.560 And we were six or eight confessors.

00:51:35.280 Three million people

00:51:37.740 showed up to San Juan

00:51:39.560 de los Lagos

00:51:40.100 on the Feast of the Assumption.

00:51:41.240 Three million

00:51:42.200 walked from Mexico City.

00:51:45.380 Twenty-eight days

00:51:46.680 walked from Mexico City

00:51:48.940 to get to the sanctuary

00:51:50.460 of Our Lady of San Juan.

00:51:51.460 After Guadalupe,

00:51:54.440 it's the largest

00:51:55.540 Marian shrine,

00:51:57.620 certainly in Mexico,

00:51:58.720 but I think

00:51:59.200 it would almost rival

00:52:00.860 Lourdes and Fatima.

00:52:02.240 Wow.

00:52:02.720 It's incredible.

00:52:04.080 And people are very serious.

00:52:05.720 They go to pay

00:52:06.380 a thank you

00:52:08.100 for a miracle

00:52:10.120 or a favor received.

00:52:11.580 It's not to ask anything.

00:52:12.900 You don't ask.

00:52:13.620 You ask Our Lady of Guadalupe,

00:52:15.020 but you pay

00:52:15.560 Our Lady of San Juan

00:52:16.520 de los Lagos.

00:52:17.780 And your payment

00:52:19.140 is the pilgrimage,

00:52:20.100 is walking 28 days.

00:52:22.820 And when I tell you

00:52:24.140 that pilgrims

00:52:25.340 who have walked 28 days,

00:52:27.640 when I tell you

00:52:28.280 the odor

00:52:28.820 that was constantly

00:52:29.940 in the basilica,

00:52:30.580 you understand why

00:52:31.660 in San Juan de Compostelo,

00:52:34.020 Santiago's Compostelo,

00:52:36.180 they had that huge

00:52:37.320 incense thing.

00:52:39.140 That's the reason.

00:52:40.860 Part of it is glory to God,

00:52:42.440 but another part

00:52:43.040 is to be able to breathe.

00:52:45.120 Anyway,

00:52:45.580 I just hated

00:52:46.320 the whole thing

00:52:47.020 and I was,

00:52:48.580 somebody should have

00:52:49.240 shot me.

00:52:50.100 I mean,

00:52:50.500 I should have really

00:52:51.640 just been taken out

00:52:52.540 right then.

00:52:53.480 I don't know how

00:52:53.960 they tolerated me,

00:52:54.820 but they did.

00:52:55.820 And then I was sent

00:52:56.500 to a parish

00:52:57.300 in the town of

00:52:58.220 Tepatidlan,

00:52:59.140 Jalisco.

00:53:00.700 Again,

00:53:01.440 disliking everything there.

00:53:03.400 There were a couple

00:53:03.800 of priests.

00:53:04.260 I enjoyed their company.

00:53:05.820 And then I got to,

00:53:07.300 I started meeting people

00:53:08.820 little by little

00:53:10.240 and they weren't so bad

00:53:12.080 and they were good

00:53:14.400 and they were very kind.

00:53:16.560 And this is a very long story,

00:53:20.660 but we had two altar boys.

00:53:23.540 I arrived in the summertime,

00:53:25.540 so there was no school.

00:53:27.180 And there were two boys

00:53:28.400 who were there,

00:53:30.580 Luis Fernando

00:53:31.420 and Jorge.

00:53:33.320 They were there for everything

00:53:34.500 at the parish.

00:53:35.840 The parish was alive with,

00:53:37.740 there were children,

00:53:38.660 there were adults,

00:53:40.500 there were old people.

00:53:41.780 It was a hub

00:53:42.740 of activity constantly.

00:53:44.420 Anyway,

00:53:44.700 these two boys

00:53:45.480 were there always.

00:53:47.000 And I said,

00:53:48.000 well,

00:53:48.100 if you're here all the time,

00:53:48.960 I'll make altar boys of you.

00:53:50.480 Right?

00:53:51.040 So I did.

00:53:51.740 And they became fantastic.

00:53:52.940 They knew everything

00:53:54.680 and they did it very well.

00:53:56.280 Very respectful

00:53:57.100 and everything else.

00:53:58.060 But they're about ages,

00:54:01.300 maybe nine,

00:54:02.500 nine years old.

00:54:05.180 And finally I asked them,

00:54:06.580 where do you live?

00:54:08.500 How is it you're here

00:54:09.600 every day, right?

00:54:10.560 Where do you live?

00:54:11.320 Well,

00:54:11.660 we live in an orphanage

00:54:13.740 down the street.

00:54:15.480 For all practical purposes,

00:54:17.420 it was an orphanage.

00:54:18.560 It was called

00:54:19.060 a boarding school.

00:54:20.140 People had just abandoned

00:54:21.180 children for whatever reason

00:54:22.600 and they hated it

00:54:23.640 and they were being mistreated

00:54:24.800 and everything else.

00:54:26.660 See,

00:54:27.180 I used to have the masses

00:54:28.300 also out in the country

00:54:29.400 and hear confessions

00:54:30.900 for two hours

00:54:31.600 and then say mass

00:54:32.440 and they would come along

00:54:33.760 with me.

00:54:34.720 They were great

00:54:35.500 because they had no school.

00:54:37.700 Well,

00:54:39.480 finally one day,

00:54:40.920 I had to open up

00:54:42.840 the church

00:54:43.360 at,

00:54:44.620 I don't know,

00:54:45.600 545,

00:54:46.440 6 o'clock in the morning,

00:54:48.080 just before 6 o'clock

00:54:49.820 when it officially opened.

00:54:52.140 And I opened

00:54:53.120 the metal doors

00:54:54.540 to what were

00:54:56.300 the offices

00:54:57.040 of the parish offices

00:54:58.220 and these two boys

00:55:01.720 were inside.

00:55:05.000 I said,

00:55:06.180 how did you get inside?

00:55:07.200 What are you doing here?

00:55:08.740 Right?

00:55:09.940 Well,

00:55:11.220 after severe Soviet-style

00:55:13.440 interrogation,

00:55:14.620 I understood

00:55:16.260 that every night

00:55:17.740 they were in there.

00:55:19.920 Every night

00:55:20.600 when I would drop them off

00:55:22.020 at the boarding school,

00:55:24.140 which is only a few blocks away,

00:55:25.380 they would come back,

00:55:26.900 go up a drain pipe

00:55:28.160 to the second floor,

00:55:29.980 sleep in the community room,

00:55:32.120 and that's it.

00:55:32.960 So they had been absent

00:55:34.060 from the boarding school

00:55:35.700 for weeks

00:55:36.380 without me knowing it.

00:55:39.740 I took them home with me

00:55:41.520 at a retreat house

00:55:42.320 I was staying at

00:55:43.000 and asked the sisters,

00:55:44.640 could I rent a room?

00:55:46.180 They had hundreds of rooms.

00:55:47.820 This retreat house

00:55:48.580 was spacious,

00:55:50.060 glorious.

00:55:51.260 For these two boys,

00:55:52.680 I said,

00:55:52.900 absolutely,

00:55:53.560 absolutely,

00:55:54.000 I called the archbishop

00:55:55.880 and told him,

00:55:57.580 I've got these two kids,

00:55:59.200 street urchins,

00:56:00.260 they don't want to go back

00:56:01.520 and the bishop,

00:56:02.560 the archbishop,

00:56:03.200 already knew

00:56:03.860 the fame of this

00:56:05.720 boarding school

00:56:06.600 and he didn't like it.

00:56:08.240 But there was no way

00:56:09.100 to be able to help it

00:56:09.860 because they had an old man

00:56:10.960 who was belligerent

00:56:11.860 who would not be helped.

00:56:13.800 Right?

00:56:14.320 That was that.

00:56:15.420 So, yes,

00:56:16.340 that's where it started.

00:56:17.860 All of the sudden,

00:56:19.780 I had a purpose

00:56:21.220 for being there.

00:56:22.120 A few days later,

00:56:25.820 a few weeks later,

00:56:26.720 I should say,

00:56:28.020 the police show up

00:56:29.640 and I get one of the sisters,

00:56:32.480 Sister Petra,

00:56:33.420 another saint,

00:56:34.920 how she tolerated me

00:56:36.160 as beyond me,

00:56:38.680 a saint.

00:56:39.680 She came and said,

00:56:40.540 the police are here,

00:56:41.640 but not just the police,

00:56:43.320 the federal police.

00:56:44.860 I went down

00:56:45.860 and I'm thinking to myself,

00:56:47.420 I'm a foreigner.

00:56:49.140 I've got two kids

00:56:51.580 that are not mine.

00:56:53.380 I'm in trouble.

00:56:54.240 I'll probably be deported.

00:56:56.260 I went down.

00:56:57.660 The police were,

00:56:59.300 they looked severe.

00:57:01.400 They started talking to them.

00:57:02.700 They seemed like normal people.

00:57:05.000 And the reason they were there

00:57:06.400 was the man in charge said,

00:57:10.240 we hear you've got two boys.

00:57:12.280 That kind of struck a nerve.

00:57:15.660 Right?

00:57:15.900 I said, here we go.

00:57:16.760 He said, and we thought

00:57:18.420 since you've already got two,

00:57:19.620 if you would take a third,

00:57:21.380 there's a boy that we have in jail,

00:57:24.400 at the jail,

00:57:25.100 and he doesn't belong in the jail

00:57:26.440 and we want him out of the jail,

00:57:27.840 but we don't,

00:57:28.560 there's no place to put him.

00:57:30.580 And he also escaped

00:57:32.240 from the other one.

00:57:34.740 So I took a third

00:57:36.040 and then I took a family of five

00:57:38.600 whose father had killed their mother

00:57:40.760 and escaped to the United States.

00:57:43.320 Right?

00:57:43.760 And, and anyway,

00:57:46.160 took them,

00:57:46.740 took them up.

00:57:47.620 All of a sudden I've got,

00:57:49.200 I don't know,

00:57:50.960 15,

00:57:51.900 15 kids,

00:57:53.720 boys and girls,

00:57:55.380 because some of the brothers,

00:57:56.360 some of the boys came with,

00:57:57.340 with their,

00:57:57.780 with their sisters.

00:57:58.740 Right?

00:58:00.300 And they're all living

00:58:01.060 at the retreat house.

00:58:02.400 And of course,

00:58:03.660 the sisters are saints,

00:58:05.220 but that's not what

00:58:06.040 the retreat house is for.

00:58:07.460 It's not an orphanage.

00:58:09.020 I went back to Rome

00:58:10.520 and talked to a group of nuns

00:58:12.340 that I knew

00:58:12.720 when I was working

00:58:13.380 in the,

00:58:13.780 in the Vatican.

00:58:14.560 Doing all of this

00:58:15.240 when I was with Marina,

00:58:16.280 you know,

00:58:16.580 I was working in the information

00:58:17.800 office of the Vatican.

00:58:19.920 And I knew,

00:58:20.780 I knew some of the sisters

00:58:22.240 from there.

00:58:22.740 I asked their community

00:58:23.840 to consider coming to Mexico

00:58:25.460 and helping me run

00:58:27.440 an orphanage.

00:58:30.100 I said,

00:58:31.460 we can,

00:58:32.160 I told you I'm impractical.

00:58:34.140 There's not a,

00:58:34.860 there's not a practical

00:58:35.640 ball to my body

00:58:36.460 or hair on my head

00:58:38.500 for that matter.

00:58:40.580 But I said,

00:58:41.680 we can,

00:58:42.100 we,

00:58:42.440 we can build this place

00:58:43.940 in about six months.

00:58:45.240 Now,

00:58:45.500 my father is,

00:58:46.200 as a construction company,

00:58:47.260 I know it could have been done.

00:58:50.100 It may have been done.

00:58:51.520 It might have been,

00:58:52.560 you might be able to have done it

00:58:54.000 in the United States

00:58:54.980 with machinery.

00:58:56.700 I mean,

00:58:56.980 I live in La La Land

00:58:58.420 as,

00:58:59.460 and what we started it.

00:59:02.300 And of course,

00:59:03.180 at the end of the year,

00:59:04.720 the archbishop was going

00:59:06.480 to retire,

00:59:07.200 was going to resign.

00:59:08.140 He had his 75th birthday.

00:59:10.160 I actually asked him

00:59:11.660 for another year.

00:59:12.920 I said,

00:59:13.180 would you talk to

00:59:13.960 the new bishop

00:59:15.100 who's coming in

00:59:15.780 and say,

00:59:16.280 this is our plan

00:59:17.040 and see if,

00:59:17.660 you know,

00:59:17.880 if he follows it.

00:59:19.000 He said,

00:59:19.400 you want to stay,

00:59:20.320 you're asking me to stay

00:59:21.240 for another year?

00:59:24.140 He said,

00:59:24.640 I thought you were having

00:59:25.260 a horrible time.

00:59:26.960 You were displeased.

00:59:28.080 He said,

00:59:28.280 I saw your attitude

00:59:29.100 when you,

00:59:29.620 when you came here.

00:59:30.840 He said,

00:59:31.440 it seems to have changed.

00:59:32.580 Anyway,

00:59:34.520 I asked him

00:59:35.320 for another year.

00:59:35.960 Well,

00:59:36.120 that,

00:59:36.340 that turned it

00:59:37.340 because we didn't

00:59:38.140 finish the orphanage.

00:59:39.980 Started building

00:59:40.860 and there were people

00:59:41.900 so good

00:59:42.500 from all over the world.

00:59:43.640 So generous,

00:59:44.520 so generous.

00:59:45.820 And,

00:59:46.340 and they contributed

00:59:47.180 and we built,

00:59:48.520 but it didn't take

00:59:49.360 six months to build.

00:59:50.700 It took

00:59:51.500 1979

00:59:52.780 to

00:59:54.520 1980,

00:59:56.400 85

00:59:57.260 was the dedication.

00:59:59.060 It took all those years

01:00:00.460 to build.

01:00:01.060 One month per year.

01:00:02.020 I think at that time,

01:00:04.740 the time of the dedication,

01:00:06.160 all of these marvelous people

01:00:08.480 who were so,

01:00:09.820 they were key

01:00:10.720 to getting it done

01:00:11.620 from New York,

01:00:12.560 from Chicago,

01:00:13.280 from St. Paul,

01:00:14.040 my family,

01:00:15.340 from Beirut,

01:00:18.400 from,

01:00:18.980 from Rome.

01:00:20.600 All of these people

01:00:21.480 who had contributed

01:00:22.160 to this

01:00:22.820 showed up

01:00:23.520 for the dedication.

01:00:24.660 Oh, wow.

01:00:24.920 It was fantastic.

01:00:26.160 It was fantastic.

01:00:27.160 And I think

01:00:31.180 at that time

01:00:31.660 we had

01:00:32.000 something like

01:00:32.920 72 children,

01:00:34.760 right?

01:00:37.060 That's why

01:00:37.640 these sisters

01:00:38.300 were incredible.

01:00:39.880 People kept,

01:00:40.520 it's called

01:00:41.160 Father Charlie's

01:00:42.280 Orphanage,

01:00:42.940 right?

01:00:43.600 Locally.

01:00:44.420 Well,

01:00:44.620 Father Charlie

01:00:45.500 had something

01:00:46.500 to do with it,

01:00:47.280 but those women,

01:00:48.260 for God's sake,

01:00:48.940 I mean,

01:00:49.180 they made it run.

01:00:50.700 They were good.

01:00:52.680 Anyway,

01:00:53.220 at the end of it,

01:00:54.080 that's a whole

01:00:54.520 other story,

01:00:55.140 which you can get

01:00:55.680 in a book

01:00:56.360 that I wrote

01:00:56.840 called

01:00:57.140 And It Was Night,

01:00:58.320 my recent masterpiece.

01:01:01.280 And It Was Night,

01:01:02.380 the rest of that story,

01:01:03.500 because it gets complicated.

01:01:04.940 And that's the

01:01:05.500 And It Was Night

01:01:06.420 that Malick and Martin

01:01:08.360 wanted to write for you.

01:01:09.680 Well, yeah,

01:01:10.000 because in 1994,

01:01:15.120 1994,

01:01:16.160 I was in New York.

01:01:18.980 Again,

01:01:19.260 you have to read the book

01:01:19.940 to find out

01:01:20.420 why I was in New York.

01:01:21.820 But I was in New York

01:01:24.060 and I met Malicky Martin

01:01:25.420 for the first time

01:01:26.340 at the Capri restaurant

01:01:29.400 on Lexington

01:01:30.100 and I think it's 62nd.

01:01:31.680 Not sure exactly

01:01:32.480 on the street.

01:01:33.180 That was his place.

01:01:34.140 And then he called me

01:01:34.720 the next week.

01:01:35.480 Can we have lunch again?

01:01:36.820 Or can we have dinner

01:01:37.560 or whatever it was?

01:01:38.520 And we met often.

01:01:40.940 And he was fascinated

01:01:42.080 with this story of Mexico

01:01:43.700 and how it is

01:01:44.720 that I ended up in New York.

01:01:46.080 I told him,

01:01:47.380 just like I'm telling you,

01:01:48.440 boredom stiff,

01:01:49.900 I'm sure.

01:01:50.880 No, I don't think so.

01:01:51.580 He was interesting.

01:01:52.880 He's like you.

01:01:53.580 He pretended to be interesting.

01:01:55.860 No.

01:01:56.200 One of the meetings,

01:01:56.940 he called me

01:01:57.420 to have dinner

01:01:58.740 and he was very serious.

01:02:00.420 He had something to propose.

01:02:02.100 I said, good.

01:02:02.760 And he said,

01:02:04.620 he kept calling me Chuck,

01:02:06.260 which I said,

01:02:07.480 Malicky,

01:02:07.880 I hate being called Chuck.

01:02:09.260 I hate it.

01:02:11.320 So he finally got into

01:02:12.480 calling me Charlie.

01:02:13.600 That was good.

01:02:14.760 But he said,

01:02:16.240 let me say something.

01:02:17.600 You have to write this.

01:02:19.940 You have to write this down.

01:02:21.900 It's got to be

01:02:22.500 in black and white.

01:02:23.580 I said,

01:02:24.240 I've never written,

01:02:25.200 I've written thesis,

01:02:26.620 right?

01:02:27.420 I'm not going to write a,

01:02:28.600 I'm going to write a novel.

01:02:30.240 He said, yes.

01:02:31.240 And it has to be

01:02:32.160 in novel form.

01:02:33.420 You have to write a novel.

01:02:35.760 I said,

01:02:36.380 I'm no good at that.

01:02:37.360 I'll never be.

01:02:38.080 He said,

01:02:38.600 all right,

01:02:39.560 if you don't

01:02:41.100 write this,

01:02:42.820 I want you to give me

01:02:44.260 permission

01:02:44.700 to write it myself.

01:02:45.760 when he said that

01:02:49.680 and then later on

01:02:51.860 musing over this,

01:02:53.660 this,

01:02:54.060 the conversation we had,

01:02:55.760 I said to myself,

01:02:58.360 I must have something

01:02:59.340 good here.

01:03:01.160 That Malicky Martin

01:03:02.480 asked my permission

01:03:04.160 to write this story

01:03:05.300 himself.

01:03:06.180 It must be good.

01:03:07.600 Well,

01:03:08.440 with his assistance,

01:03:09.900 and I mean that,

01:03:10.700 he was with me

01:03:11.360 every step of the way.

01:03:12.840 I wrote a novel.

01:03:15.300 The original one

01:03:16.540 was called

01:03:17.780 The Society of Judas.

01:03:20.060 Right?

01:03:20.540 But we were,

01:03:22.800 and then I went to Austria.

01:03:24.140 I was in Austria

01:03:24.700 for two years.

01:03:25.480 Right?

01:03:26.020 And we're back and forth

01:03:27.380 with floppy disks

01:03:28.600 and things getting lost

01:03:30.600 in the mail.

01:03:31.200 It was horrible.

01:03:31.940 He was advising me this.

01:03:33.180 He would read over

01:03:34.080 every chapter

01:03:34.780 and,

01:03:35.920 you know,

01:03:37.040 correct mistakes

01:03:38.040 or suggestions.

01:03:39.580 And he also had

01:03:40.560 another priest with him

01:03:41.720 who was a professor

01:03:42.940 of mine

01:03:43.480 at the Angelicum.

01:03:45.260 Father Charles Fiore.

01:03:48.220 Great man.

01:03:49.580 Great man.

01:03:50.520 Great teacher.

01:03:51.680 Great professor.

01:03:52.640 Great preacher.

01:03:53.840 Marvelous sense of humor.

01:03:55.900 And sharp as a tack.

01:03:58.700 He was Malachi's editor

01:04:01.360 for all of Malachi's books.

01:04:03.860 Wow.

01:04:04.680 So,

01:04:05.220 I mean,

01:04:05.680 you've got Malachi Martin

01:04:07.460 who's a genius

01:04:08.660 in writing himself.

01:04:10.260 And you've got

01:04:11.040 Charles Fiore

01:04:11.780 who's a genius

01:04:12.520 on top of that

01:04:13.280 correcting the genius.

01:04:14.480 All right?

01:04:14.960 So,

01:04:15.480 I said,

01:04:15.820 I'm in good hands.

01:04:17.040 I'm in good hands.

01:04:18.560 And the two of them

01:04:19.700 worked.

01:04:20.340 On this book.

01:04:22.880 And

01:04:23.360 the only concern

01:04:24.900 that I had

01:04:25.600 with it

01:04:26.100 was that there was

01:04:27.580 this is the author.

01:04:30.800 I found that there was

01:04:31.960 too much violence.

01:04:34.360 I'm writing it

01:04:35.320 and there's too much violence.

01:04:37.740 The language

01:04:38.640 was very harsh

01:04:40.240 and some of it

01:04:41.340 a lot of swearing,

01:04:42.300 a lot of cursing.

01:04:43.860 But again,

01:04:45.260 I wrote as it happened

01:04:47.520 and I wrote

01:04:48.820 as people talked.

01:04:50.400 Well,

01:04:51.860 my readership,

01:04:53.060 let me just put it there.

01:04:53.920 I'd never published anything.

01:04:55.300 All right?

01:04:55.980 People didn't like it.

01:04:58.500 Many people said,

01:04:59.540 I couldn't get past

01:05:00.440 the second chapter

01:05:01.380 where rats are eating

01:05:03.040 the head

01:05:03.540 of an infant.

01:05:04.960 Right?

01:05:05.380 That's one of the situations

01:05:06.540 I came across.

01:05:08.300 Well,

01:05:09.840 I said,

01:05:10.080 if that's too,

01:05:10.780 you'd never make it

01:05:11.960 to the end

01:05:12.440 because it gets better.

01:05:14.580 It gets better.

01:05:16.220 But

01:05:16.340 I took that off.

01:05:18.740 I self-published

01:05:19.440 on Amazon.

01:05:20.160 This is my first

01:05:20.840 attempt at writing.

01:05:21.800 I took it off

01:05:22.520 and started writing

01:05:23.440 other things.

01:05:23.920 I wrote

01:05:24.260 The Godmother

01:05:25.280 about Mother Pasqualina.

01:05:29.260 And then I said,

01:05:31.320 Cardinal Gagnon,

01:05:32.100 Cardinal Gagnon

01:05:32.780 and I vacationed

01:05:33.780 still all throughout this.

01:05:35.880 We spoke once a week

01:05:37.380 on the phone.

01:05:38.180 We were best buddies.

01:05:39.940 I said,

01:05:40.820 his story should be told.

01:05:42.400 His investigation

01:05:43.160 of the Roman Curia,

01:05:44.320 his investigation

01:05:45.060 of Freemasons

01:05:46.140 in the Roman Curia

01:05:47.320 for three years,

01:05:48.200 that's what he dedicated.

01:05:49.300 It should be told.

01:05:51.120 So I wrote that book,

01:05:52.700 Murder in the 33rd

01:05:53.820 degree,

01:05:54.960 I never dreamt

01:05:56.220 that it was going

01:05:56.780 to have the,

01:05:58.200 enjoy the success

01:06:00.620 that it's enjoyed.

01:06:01.880 It's incredible.

01:06:02.820 It's still selling

01:06:03.640 very well.

01:06:06.660 And the most incredible

01:06:07.940 thing about it,

01:06:09.140 John Henry,

01:06:09.800 I didn't have to

01:06:10.660 invent anything.

01:06:11.880 And I really,

01:06:13.140 I didn't have to

01:06:14.020 exaggerate anything.

01:06:15.820 It's there.

01:06:16.900 It's in the characters.

01:06:17.920 It's what they did.

01:06:18.980 It's how things

01:06:19.740 turned out.

01:06:21.280 Anyway,

01:06:21.840 that's the story.

01:06:24.480 I ended up

01:06:25.340 in New York.

01:06:27.580 I was pastor

01:06:28.660 of three different

01:06:29.780 parishes in New York.

01:06:32.560 It was in New York

01:06:33.940 in those pastoral

01:06:35.060 situations,

01:06:36.740 and I made good friends

01:06:37.600 with some of the,

01:06:38.840 there are some

01:06:39.300 fine priests

01:06:40.140 in New York.

01:06:40.920 Father Jerry Murray

01:06:41.720 was one,

01:06:42.620 is one.

01:06:43.580 Father Kowalski,

01:06:45.120 quite a number

01:06:46.540 of priests.

01:06:47.020 we used to gather

01:06:49.040 together for holidays

01:06:50.100 and things

01:06:51.340 to,

01:06:52.860 just to be together

01:06:54.440 sort of as family.

01:06:55.680 There were always

01:06:56.160 about 15,

01:06:57.800 maybe 20 of us,

01:06:59.580 like-minded clergy,

01:07:01.280 but all frustrated

01:07:03.180 because we couldn't

01:07:05.160 advance any of our

01:07:06.860 causes

01:07:07.820 openly.

01:07:09.460 It was very frustrating

01:07:12.800 because

01:07:13.480 there were liturgical,

01:07:16.840 there was a liturgical

01:07:17.620 committee.

01:07:18.260 Again,

01:07:18.900 why Cardinal O'Connor

01:07:20.220 did this,

01:07:20.760 Cardinal O'Connor

01:07:21.300 I loved.

01:07:22.200 He was just a great,

01:07:23.180 great,

01:07:23.400 great man,

01:07:23.860 really.

01:07:24.660 He appointed a nun

01:07:25.640 to be head of the

01:07:26.580 liturgical committee.

01:07:29.300 It's at that time

01:07:30.680 a man and progressive

01:07:31.660 nun.

01:07:32.080 Of course,

01:07:33.000 of course.

01:07:33.940 I would love it

01:07:34.680 if Mother Pasqualina

01:07:36.040 was part of the

01:07:37.280 liturgical committee.

01:07:38.520 Oh my gosh,

01:07:40.720 yes,

01:07:42.640 that would be fine.

01:07:43.700 I think all the

01:07:45.280 bishops who are

01:07:47.000 conservative,

01:07:47.880 but want to like,

01:07:49.520 like,

01:07:49.880 nudge,

01:07:50.140 nudge,

01:07:50.420 wink,

01:07:50.620 wink,

01:07:50.840 I'm there with you,

01:07:52.040 with all the

01:07:52.440 progressives,

01:07:53.200 should always appoint

01:07:54.100 Mother Pasqualina

01:07:55.780 who will force all

01:07:56.860 the priests to do

01:07:57.500 only the TLM.

01:07:58.580 And they're still

01:07:59.040 out there.

01:08:00.600 They're few and

01:08:01.580 far between,

01:08:02.120 but you can find

01:08:02.700 them.

01:08:03.280 When I was made

01:08:03.900 pastor of Our Lady

01:08:04.640 of Guadalupe Church

01:08:05.380 on 14th Street,

01:08:06.500 Manhattan,

01:08:07.160 I walked into this

01:08:08.100 place.

01:08:08.380 I'm not going to

01:08:08.760 get into the

01:08:09.220 details of it,

01:08:10.380 but people were

01:08:12.520 incredibly devout.

01:08:14.380 It was always full

01:08:15.660 of people during

01:08:16.700 the day.

01:08:17.480 People would stop

01:08:18.340 in to pray for,

01:08:19.540 I had two masses,

01:08:20.580 one in the early

01:08:21.160 morning and then

01:08:21.800 at noon,

01:08:22.540 right?

01:08:24.040 Good attendance.

01:08:26.820 Weekends was

01:08:27.620 incredible.

01:08:29.740 I had alone,

01:08:30.940 I was the only

01:08:31.800 priest.

01:08:32.160 I had a deacon,

01:08:33.300 Deacon René,

01:08:34.500 a great guy.

01:08:36.100 We worked well

01:08:37.540 together.

01:08:39.580 Puerto Rican.

01:08:42.560 We had five

01:08:43.760 masses.

01:08:44.240 I had five

01:08:44.880 masses alone on

01:08:45.960 the weekend.

01:08:46.820 It was Saturday

01:08:47.420 and four on Sunday.

01:08:49.060 And the church

01:08:49.540 was packed.

01:08:51.000 The community

01:08:51.660 room was packed

01:08:52.480 where we televised

01:08:53.400 the mass.

01:08:54.400 And loudspeakers

01:08:55.740 were put onto

01:08:56.320 14th Street for

01:08:57.880 people standing on

01:08:58.720 the street hearing

01:08:59.620 mass.

01:09:00.440 We didn't fit.

01:09:02.180 Well, it was a

01:09:03.200 small church to

01:09:03.940 begin with.

01:09:04.480 It was a gift

01:09:07.700 from the king of

01:09:10.020 Spain to New York

01:09:11.300 to Spaniards

01:09:12.140 originally.

01:09:12.940 And it was named

01:09:13.860 Our Lady of Guadalupe.

01:09:15.920 But the church

01:09:17.360 itself would hold

01:09:18.380 about maybe 250

01:09:21.540 inside.

01:09:23.200 But we always

01:09:25.320 had 600 for

01:09:27.060 every mass.

01:09:27.860 I mean, and you

01:09:28.960 just couldn't get

01:09:29.580 into mass.

01:09:30.340 Finally, I petitioned

01:09:31.640 for a larger church

01:09:32.980 right down the

01:09:33.860 street, two blocks

01:09:34.520 away, which was

01:09:35.660 almost empty.

01:09:37.360 The demographics

01:09:38.240 in New York

01:09:38.860 changed constantly.

01:09:40.100 And this was an

01:09:40.940 old Irish parish.

01:09:42.460 Everybody had

01:09:42.980 moved out.

01:09:45.440 St. Bernard's

01:09:46.200 was.

01:09:47.820 And I said to

01:09:49.920 Archbishop

01:09:50.940 Cardinal Egan

01:09:54.320 at that time.

01:09:56.740 We don't fit.

01:09:58.420 We just, I

01:09:59.060 can't.

01:10:00.120 And if this is

01:10:01.680 what you're going

01:10:02.100 to do, send me

01:10:02.820 two other priests

01:10:03.700 because it's not

01:10:05.320 working.

01:10:06.020 I can't do this.

01:10:07.260 They finally gave

01:10:08.120 that parish there.

01:10:09.540 But in the

01:10:10.120 meantime, let me

01:10:10.760 just get back to

01:10:11.360 this point that I

01:10:11.920 was telling you

01:10:12.320 about liturgical

01:10:12.900 commissions.

01:10:14.060 I knew there was

01:10:15.220 a point to this.

01:10:17.900 See, this is very

01:10:18.720 dangerous, sitting

01:10:19.420 down to me and

01:10:19.980 say, talk.

01:10:20.940 As soon as I

01:10:22.200 walked into the

01:10:23.180 church for the

01:10:23.600 first time, I'd

01:10:24.280 already been assigned

01:10:25.060 and I accepted

01:10:26.260 under obedience.

01:10:27.540 I said, yes.

01:10:28.940 I walked in and

01:10:31.340 there was a

01:10:31.980 religious community

01:10:32.720 there who had

01:10:33.520 completely left.

01:10:34.860 So there was

01:10:35.220 nothing, even in

01:10:36.040 the rectory, there

01:10:36.600 was, there were no

01:10:37.500 furniture, there was

01:10:38.600 nothing.

01:10:39.560 But the church, it

01:10:42.220 struck me, the

01:10:43.620 blessed sacrament in

01:10:45.160 a tabernacle, which

01:10:46.820 used to be on the

01:10:47.740 main altar, was

01:10:50.920 sitting in a bird

01:10:52.040 bath, you know, a

01:10:54.200 bird bath, to one

01:10:56.460 side, where people

01:10:58.740 were coming up and

01:10:59.460 touching the tabernacle

01:11:01.040 and putting flowers on

01:11:02.920 top of the tabernacle,

01:11:04.060 but it was off to the

01:11:05.040 side.

01:11:06.500 Well, I said to our

01:11:09.900 Lord, as soon as I

01:11:10.860 walked in, I said, the

01:11:12.440 day, the moment that I

01:11:13.820 take charge of this

01:11:15.080 place, you will be back

01:11:16.820 in the center of your

01:11:18.980 church, where you

01:11:20.180 belong.

01:11:23.300 The priests just

01:11:24.720 left the community,

01:11:26.460 they left to return to

01:11:27.500 Massachusetts.

01:11:29.080 Goodbye.

01:11:29.900 I saw the station

01:11:30.640 wagon pulling away.

01:11:31.740 I walked in,

01:11:32.780 cassock, surplus, put

01:11:34.080 on surplus, and

01:11:34.880 moved the tabernacle,

01:11:37.240 which was quite heavy,

01:11:38.620 and put it back in the

01:11:42.260 center where it

01:11:43.060 belonged.

01:11:43.420 Within a week, I

01:11:48.820 got a letter from

01:11:50.460 Sister Mary Relevant,

01:11:51.940 who was running the

01:11:53.200 liturgical office.

01:11:55.600 We used to call her

01:11:56.540 battle axe.

01:11:57.680 But anyway, I got a

01:11:58.760 letter from her.

01:12:00.160 It has come to my

01:12:01.000 attention, so it has

01:12:02.000 come to my attention

01:12:02.820 that you displaced the

01:12:07.120 tabernacle.

01:12:08.640 Yeah.

01:12:09.140 This, that, and the

01:12:09.660 other thing.

01:12:10.200 And you have upset

01:12:11.180 many, many, many

01:12:11.940 people.

01:12:12.280 Well, I didn't see

01:12:13.840 anyone upset.

01:12:14.820 As a matter of fact,

01:12:15.660 many people congratulated

01:12:17.020 me, right?

01:12:19.920 You did this without

01:12:21.180 our permission, right?

01:12:25.000 And bop, bop, bop,

01:12:26.260 bop, and on and on.

01:12:27.160 It was, it was, it was

01:12:28.760 almost threatening in

01:12:30.020 tone.

01:12:31.780 So I took my sweet

01:12:33.640 time, I took a couple

01:12:34.780 days to look through

01:12:35.620 past records of the

01:12:37.260 parish.

01:12:39.560 And I wrote back to

01:12:41.160 her and I said,

01:12:41.820 dear sister, whatever.

01:12:45.120 Battle axe.

01:12:45.700 Battle axe.

01:12:47.600 I've gone through all

01:12:48.580 of our records,

01:12:49.360 correspondence with the

01:12:50.240 archdiocese, not sent,

01:12:52.840 but I didn't say since

01:12:53.640 Vatican II, but, right?

01:12:55.760 And I come across no

01:12:57.600 letter from anyone here

01:13:00.220 in authority asking your

01:13:02.320 permission to have

01:13:03.540 moved the tabernacle in

01:13:05.520 the first place.

01:13:06.300 There's no permission.

01:13:10.180 I said, I've scoured the

01:13:11.880 place looking for it.

01:13:13.560 Do you have a copy of

01:13:15.060 that letter?

01:13:16.020 Right?

01:13:16.660 Of course, it doesn't,

01:13:17.860 it didn't exist.

01:13:18.520 Nobody did anything like

01:13:19.340 that to begin with.

01:13:20.600 And, and, and I said,

01:13:22.300 the only thing that I was

01:13:23.700 left with was to move

01:13:26.500 the tabernacle where,

01:13:27.720 where it belonged, where

01:13:29.300 it was before, because

01:13:31.960 nobody had asked your

01:13:32.840 permission to move it.

01:13:33.920 Never heard from her

01:13:36.040 again.

01:13:36.420 Never heard from her

01:13:37.120 again.

01:13:37.780 Never heard from her

01:13:38.400 again.

01:13:38.800 You've got to, you've

01:13:39.480 got to play these people

01:13:40.260 with their own games.

01:13:41.120 And it's, it's also fun.

01:13:42.560 It's also fun.

01:13:43.420 Find, find fun in it.

01:13:44.880 A spoonful of sugar makes

01:13:46.360 the medicine go down,

01:13:47.220 right?

01:13:47.660 Amen.

01:13:48.100 Anyway.

01:13:48.800 You're in New York for a

01:13:49.940 while.

01:13:51.700 How are you from New York

01:13:53.820 and now living in Spain?

01:13:56.820 That's my next book.

01:13:59.240 That I haven't written

01:14:00.220 yet, but it's an

01:14:00.900 interesting, it's an

01:14:01.860 interesting story.

01:14:02.960 It's an interesting story.

01:14:03.920 It has to do with

01:14:04.620 the, with actually the

01:14:05.980 last, uh, the last

01:14:07.920 parish, uh, that I had

01:14:10.400 in New York.

01:14:11.900 I was named pastor.

01:14:14.020 And all I can tell you

01:14:16.680 is this, and I do intend

01:14:18.260 to write a book because

01:14:20.260 it, it needs a book.

01:14:22.240 The parish was such a

01:14:24.060 disaster that it defies

01:14:26.800 description.

01:14:27.540 It defies description.

01:14:30.300 Uh, it had, for all

01:14:33.720 practical purposes, been, I'm

01:14:37.340 going to get in trouble

01:14:37.960 with, with, with those in

01:14:39.460 New York, but it had really

01:14:40.780 been abandoned to the whims

01:14:43.060 of a pastor who is very much

01:14:44.780 into social change, uh, building

01:14:49.100 homes for the poor, apartments

01:14:50.620 in New York for the poor.

01:14:52.120 Nothing wrong with that, but you

01:14:56.080 see, it's the same thing that's

01:14:58.300 wrong with Jesuit professors

01:15:00.420 giving up professorships to work

01:15:03.940 in soup, soup, soup kitchens.

01:15:05.860 Giving up a professorship or a

01:15:10.960 position of power and influence

01:15:14.040 over others to work in a soup

01:15:16.720 kitchen.

01:15:17.660 Why is that wrong?

01:15:18.920 Well, there's nothing wrong with

01:15:19.780 it.

01:15:19.860 It's good.

01:15:20.420 You're an act of mercy.

01:15:22.540 What leaders are supposed to do,

01:15:24.860 and I would call Jesuits

01:15:25.920 formerly, anyway, leaders, they

01:15:29.700 were to educate and create

01:15:32.120 tomorrow's leaders.

01:15:34.200 That was their purpose.

01:15:35.860 They weren't to go out and do

01:15:38.060 these things.

01:15:39.440 They were to educate men who

01:15:41.140 were going to be in industry and

01:15:42.920 in, uh, uh, positions of power

01:15:45.180 that they would do that, that

01:15:47.600 they would supply these things

01:15:49.100 that it would be their

01:15:50.060 apostolates.

01:15:50.880 Instead, they gave up

01:15:52.560 influencing other people and

01:15:54.400 went right to serving the poor,

01:15:56.520 which is fine.

01:15:57.860 But most of those who I know who

01:15:59.920 gave that up to serve the poor

01:16:02.620 stopped serving the poor after

01:16:04.900 about two years and found

01:16:07.340 themselves, instead of, uh, uh,

01:16:09.740 promulgating the faith,

01:16:12.500 propagating the faithful.

01:16:14.920 They married and got, and that

01:16:16.540 was it.

01:16:16.820 That's the end of everything.

01:16:17.660 I inherited such a parish.

01:16:23.140 I'm, I'm not judging the man, his

01:16:26.060 character, his morals, nothing.

01:16:28.260 Simply saying that the parish in

01:16:31.160 itself was practically abandoned.

01:16:34.200 If I'm not mistaken, it was either

01:16:36.600 62 or 64 were the numbers of

01:16:40.020 parishioners that we had in a

01:16:41.580 Manhattan parish.

01:16:42.440 And it's a big parish that it had

01:16:45.000 come down to that.

01:16:46.540 All of the pews were removed from

01:16:48.220 the church.

01:16:49.500 Uh, yes.

01:16:50.720 A fountain was put in, uh, uh, this,

01:16:53.080 that, and the other.

01:16:53.520 You didn't know how to say mass.

01:16:55.080 I didn't know how to say mass and

01:16:56.520 where, how, who went, when, where,

01:16:58.740 why you had lay people running

01:17:00.820 everything.

01:17:01.380 The priest was completely absent.

01:17:03.500 It was a mess.

01:17:06.040 I'll get into, and some of it was,

01:17:07.740 was, uh, was a colossal mess, right?

01:17:13.080 I'm not going to get into that whole

01:17:14.420 story, but I had a conflict with the

01:17:17.080 archdiocese when a parish council that

01:17:23.680 I created of lay people, of course, and

01:17:27.760 myself, we wanted a renovation of the

01:17:30.420 parish, we wanted to renew it.

01:17:32.460 We wanted to have a school that was

01:17:34.280 Catholic.

01:17:34.720 We had a Catholic, we had a school,

01:17:36.780 the, the, the, the church, St. Francis

01:17:38.500 de Sales on 96 and between Lexington

01:17:41.800 and, uh, and Park Avenue, there was a

01:17:44.520 school, kids were the greatest.

01:17:47.220 The kids were fantastic.

01:17:48.980 Many blacks, many Hispanics, uh, whites

01:17:52.540 also, but, but especially because it,

01:17:55.440 it had become part of Spanish Harlem until

01:17:58.880 I love this word.

01:17:59.980 I hadn't heard it really applied properly

01:18:02.120 or in this sense until it became

01:18:03.980 gentrified.

01:18:05.280 And I said, well, gentrified, that comes

01:18:06.960 from the Latin gen, gentis, uh, people.

01:18:09.480 Didn't you have people before?

01:18:11.340 Well, they meant whites.

01:18:13.620 That's what gentrification is, right?

01:18:16.240 The whites are taking over these, these

01:18:18.040 things and making them posh again, these

01:18:19.840 areas, right?

01:18:21.100 Anyway, the school was a disaster as far

01:18:24.320 as religious education was concerned.

01:18:27.080 Uh, nobody had gone, ever gone to confession.

01:18:30.000 Uh, nobody was going to mass.

01:18:32.660 That wasn't, the sacraments weren't offered.

01:18:34.720 The religious instruction, I can't tell you

01:18:37.100 on what level that was.

01:18:40.140 Null.

01:18:41.120 As a matter of fact, it would have been

01:18:42.540 better if it were null.

01:18:45.200 Okay.

01:18:46.020 So we decided to change, first of all, the, the

01:18:49.720 teaching body, the teachers.

01:18:51.980 I'm not going to get into that story, but we all

01:18:55.340 came, the parish council, which were 12 good, good, uh, lay,

01:18:59.440 lay men and women.

01:19:00.720 And myself came to the conclusion, you can't change

01:19:03.240 anything.

01:19:04.040 They don't want change.

01:19:05.420 They didn't, they didn't want things to be

01:19:07.520 Catholic.

01:19:09.460 I'm saying, let's get a Catholic school going.

01:19:12.140 If they're going to, we're going to teach

01:19:13.640 religion, let it be the Catholic religion.

01:19:16.940 They were fine with the, with, with, with how

01:19:19.220 things were.

01:19:20.720 Uh, that was another major realization in my

01:19:24.460 life.

01:19:26.480 I'm bucking a system that refuses that.

01:19:29.940 No, they're, they're, they're not, they're not at

01:19:31.840 all questioning what they're doing.

01:19:34.820 This is their direction.

01:19:35.800 And they're going through like a bulldozer and

01:19:38.400 you're up against the impossible.

01:19:41.720 That frustration, uh, I, I, I resigned, I

01:19:45.160 resigned as pastor when I said there was nothing

01:19:47.180 that could be done, just nothing that could be

01:19:49.040 done.

01:19:49.280 And it was a terrible frustration.

01:19:51.200 The rest, we leave to history.

01:19:52.900 The rest you'll, you'll read about in a, in an

01:19:54.760 upcoming novel.

01:19:56.660 It'll be good.

01:19:57.460 Believe me, it'll be good.

01:19:58.340 In Mexico, I built and directed the orphanage for

01:20:02.580 about 15 years.

01:20:05.560 Greatest 15 years of my life.

01:20:07.400 I've got to tell you the truth though, except

01:20:09.440 these last five years of my life.

01:20:12.320 I shouldn't say that the last 20 years of my

01:20:14.600 life, the older I get, the better life seems.

01:20:18.480 That's, doesn't that sound crazy?

01:20:19.680 I was getting, I was getting used to the idea

01:20:22.780 that the older you would get, the more depressing

01:20:24.860 life would become the, you know, you're getting

01:20:26.960 toward the end.

01:20:29.480 I'm fascinated with life and it's offered all

01:20:32.480 sorts of opportunities.

01:20:33.260 Look at, I know you, I know this one.

01:20:36.680 I've met that one.

01:20:37.460 Uh, fantastic things have happened.

01:20:41.360 I would have never dreamt that I would be one

01:20:43.020 day giving a conference in Rio de Janeiro in

01:20:45.000 Brazil.

01:20:46.480 That happened last year, right?

01:20:48.080 There's an explosion of, of, of, uh, of real

01:20:52.980 life because people generally are waking up to

01:20:58.020 the reality.

01:20:58.840 They are waking up.

01:21:00.300 This is a great sign.

01:21:01.800 It's a great sign of hope.

01:21:03.760 And I want to be part of that.

01:21:05.660 I want to be part of that waking up.

01:21:07.760 I don't have all the answers far from it, but

01:21:10.800 I got a few, I've got a few and people are

01:21:14.540 looking for those answers.

01:21:15.700 They already know the, the answers to, and we

01:21:19.020 find each other and we work together.

01:21:20.800 This is working with you and LifeSite, uh, and,

01:21:24.340 and with, with Terry Barber, uh, and Virgo

01:21:27.780 Potens radio station and with Moynihan in

01:21:31.380 Virginia, this is fantastic.

01:21:33.840 And it's given, you know, we complain so much

01:21:36.740 about the, the, the internet being such a, a

01:21:39.240 sewage deposit.

01:21:42.200 Yes.

01:21:42.720 If you're looking for sewage, you'll find it

01:21:44.320 readily.

01:21:44.720 But it, what a miracle it's been for

01:21:48.820 enlightenment, for people to share ideas, for, uh, to

01:21:52.620 find information.

01:21:54.200 It's fantastic.

01:21:55.620 And these are exciting times.

01:21:57.280 These are not, I'm not lamenting these times like

01:22:00.000 an old man would, you would expect.

01:22:01.800 No, I find them exciting.

01:22:03.300 I find, I find them emboldening, emboldening and, and, and,

01:22:06.420 and just exciting.

01:22:07.800 Um, if you were to take that trajectory from when you saw the council, the changes in the mass,

01:22:17.020 the really, the, the, the, the ruckus times, the improvement under Benedict and then the crush under

01:22:24.920 Francis and then now taking that all, that whole sweep into consideration, do you find anything, um, new or different about the last five or so years, six, seven, eight years?

01:22:40.500 What's new and, and why and where do you see it going?

01:22:44.600 I would say this is new.

01:22:45.540 The promises that were made in the 1960s and seventies and even eighties, even during the pontificate of John Paul II, he was a refreshing figure.

01:22:55.920 But the complaint, he never stayed home long enough to take care of business, where business needed to be taken care of.

01:23:03.820 He was out, as my grandmother used to say, gallivanting.

01:23:07.180 Well, not gallivanting.

01:23:08.800 These were serious trips.

01:23:10.020 I'm sure that he did a lot of good, a lot.

01:23:15.540 But he didn't address a number of problems.

01:23:20.520 I think what happened during, during the Pope Benedict, he was an amazing figure because he was one of the most liberal voices in the council.

01:23:33.320 You know that.

01:23:33.840 That's no surprise to you.

01:23:34.780 You know that very well.

01:23:37.120 He had a conversion when he was named Archbishop of Munich.

01:23:42.260 He had to leave the ivory tower of university, lectures and what have you, and all of a sudden deal with the real.

01:23:54.740 All of a sudden he had problem priests, nuns, lay people, parishes, this and the other.

01:24:01.980 And this helped him tremendously because he understood, in his own flesh, he understood what we were so hopeful about is not working.

01:24:15.920 Something's wrong.

01:24:16.780 And he started investigating, as the intellectual that he was, he started investigating what was wrong, what went wrong.

01:24:25.480 And he started coming up with solutions to that.

01:24:28.140 He didn't get there completely.

01:24:30.340 But he made giant steps in saying, just a minute.

01:24:34.600 Whoa.

01:24:35.740 Stop.

01:24:37.000 Let us stop and consider.

01:24:39.440 Attendite et videte.

01:24:40.940 Stop and consider.

01:24:41.980 This has been done.

01:24:44.500 This is failing.

01:24:45.420 It's failing.

01:24:45.980 It's failing.

01:24:46.560 What do we have to do?

01:24:47.500 And he started addressing those concerns.

01:24:51.060 And he did it very nobly.

01:24:53.000 He did it very well.

01:24:54.920 He did it so well that a man by the name of Jorge Bergoglio, who came along later, for all practical purposes, was intent on destroying everything that he had accomplished.

01:25:08.740 And undid all of the positive steps toward getting things, I won't say back in order, but getting things ordered, right?

01:25:21.220 We're still in that process.

01:25:22.520 I think the best thing that happened during the pontificate of Papa Bergoglio was to educate Catholics and to make us realize that, first of all, what the powers of the Pope really are and also how they are limited.

01:25:38.820 Secondly, and actually in first place, it's much more in first place, we all got the sense that the one who's directing this church is Jesus Christ, not the Pope.

01:25:54.160 If you will, the Pope is his vice president, if you will.

01:25:57.740 But it's Christ.

01:25:58.720 This is Christ's church.

01:26:00.600 And Christ was and is acting.

01:26:03.400 It's just going to take time.

01:26:06.880 But I believe we're on our way to solutions.

01:26:13.300 Either one of two things is going to happen.

01:26:15.360 We are going to find a solution to the chaos that's been going on for 60 years, the majority of my life.

01:26:23.880 The uncertainty, the chaos, in a word.

01:26:26.660 We're either going to find a solution to that and put it in to practice, or we're at the end of the world.

01:26:36.520 I don't see three alternatives.

01:26:39.680 I see two.

01:26:41.080 It's either the very end of everything, and it will end like this.

01:26:44.640 The apostasy will come from on high in our church hierarchy, which it has.

01:26:50.100 It's already begun.

01:26:51.040 I've told the story that Mother Pasqualina herself told me about Pius XII after the apparition of the Fatima son dancing in the Vatican Gardens.

01:27:01.540 He came back home shaken.

01:27:04.660 She asked him what had happened.

01:27:06.020 He told her what had happened.

01:27:07.720 And she asked a very important question, a question I never remember asking her.

01:27:13.180 Tell me about Fatima.

01:27:14.780 All I had to do is I've got this woman who's a fount of information, who loves me and I love her.

01:27:19.620 I never asked that.

01:27:21.760 And I was ordained on the Feast of Fatima on 13th of May.

01:27:25.320 Right?

01:27:25.620 Anyway, incredible.

01:27:27.480 I guess I supposed nobody knew because it was still a secret.

01:27:31.240 It hadn't been opened yet.

01:27:32.140 Maybe that was it.

01:27:33.320 But when he returned after that vision that he had in the Vatican Gardens, shaken, she made him some sort of a tea and calmed him down.

01:27:42.600 She asked him this question.

01:27:45.660 Was there any message in it?

01:27:47.520 You saw the sun dancing as described in Fatima.

01:27:53.400 The sun coming, moving, dancing in the sky was the way.

01:27:56.620 He said he saw that and he knew that it was Fatima.

01:28:00.240 He knew that this was being done for his benefit as Pope.

01:28:04.820 And the message, he said, only one word.

01:28:11.000 Apostasy.

01:28:11.520 From where, when, how?

01:28:16.800 Apostasy.

01:28:18.180 Apostasy.

01:28:19.480 And that's exactly what she and I and you and everyone who's alive today is seeing.

01:28:26.180 That's exactly what he's seeing.

01:28:27.900 And that's also, this indicates the end.

01:28:30.520 Yeah, exactly the words of Padre Pio as well.

01:28:34.840 When, because there's a famous interview with Father Gabriel Amorth.

01:28:40.120 Oh, great man.

01:28:41.180 With the Zavala, it was the interviewer.

01:28:44.140 Amorth is recounting, because he was of course a student of Padre Pio's, and Amorth is recounting a conversation between he and Pio.

01:28:51.180 And about the third Fatima secret, because Pio knew it, and Amorth is asking him, so, you know, what was it?

01:29:01.780 He says, you know, Gabriele, it's apostasy.

01:29:06.280 And the interviewer's like, wow, he got, he knew the Fatima secret?

01:29:14.420 Yes.

01:29:15.440 Did he say anything about like earthquakes or like floods?

01:29:18.760 And what more do you need?

01:29:21.300 Gabriele responds, he didn't care at all about those things.

01:29:23.920 He sacrificed himself all for that, the apostasy.

01:29:28.260 So, yeah, I mean, we are living through it, yet at the same time we've seen a wake up.

01:29:33.360 But, and weirdly, I feel it too, I'm somewhat younger obviously, but I do feel, despite the fact that it's Bergoglio and El Leo and it's the same trajectory, and for a lot of people it's an absolute disaster, and some are getting depressed.

01:29:54.560 I look at Pope Leo as Pope Francis with a better tailor.

01:29:58.500 And the thing is, at the same time, it's the most exciting time to be Catholic.

01:30:06.580 It's exactly what I'm trying to say.

01:30:08.120 It's incredible.

01:30:09.080 And what exactly, why exactly?

01:30:11.860 What you said is so true.

01:30:13.440 There's more people awake now than ever before.

01:30:16.500 They're seeing, and I'm seeing, realities that were there but unnoticed, and people have stepped up to fight for the one true faith, or at least to defend that faith so that their children can have it, because it literally is being taken away.

01:30:34.280 So, yeah, Ratzinger's old prediction when he was still a priest, you know, it'll be a much smaller, a much purer church, I think, is coming true.

01:30:43.400 It is, and you're absolutely correct.

01:30:46.600 These truly are exciting, marvelous times to be alive.

01:30:50.440 And we have our Lord and the apostles' assurance, he who holds up to the end, all right, well, this is it.

01:31:02.040 What we're being asked to do right now is to hold true to the true faith until the end.

01:31:09.680 And not, many people write me, and they write you, I know, too.

01:31:14.480 They're concerned, they're worried about what to, don't worry, don't worry.

01:31:20.440 Live the life you were called to live.

01:31:22.760 Be a saint the way you were called to be a saint.

01:31:26.100 And let the rest of the world go by, as the old song says.

01:31:30.220 Don't worry about it.

01:31:31.840 Do what you can do.

01:31:33.880 Old Chinese saying, everyone wants to convert the world, but nobody wants to start with himself, right?

01:31:40.360 Well, start with yourself, and people are starting with themselves.

01:31:44.200 I get letters, and so do you, and so I began to say, reverts.

01:31:50.400 People who have been away from the church for 40 and 50 years, all of a sudden coming back, and they're not just coming back because they're old and they're afraid of death.

01:31:58.400 That's not the, that's really not it.

01:32:01.480 They're older, but they're seeing clearer.

01:32:04.640 They're, they're now putting all of these pieces together, and they're seeing what, what has been happening all of their lives.

01:32:11.480 They understand things more.

01:32:14.020 That's it.

01:32:14.800 But these are marvelous times.

01:32:15.960 Again, either what has been perpetrated for the last 60 years is going to, which it already has failed, but it will colossally fail.

01:32:26.780 It will announce the surrender.

01:32:28.400 It will, it will beg for a surrender because it's going nowhere.

01:32:31.860 We know that the Synodal Church is going nowhere real fast.

01:32:38.520 We know that either that will take place and we'll say, let's get, let's get to our roots.

01:32:45.760 Let's really, let's do what the Second Vatican Council asked us to do, to get to the spirit of the founders of these communities, the spirit of this, the spirit of the apostles, to really rediscover.

01:32:56.800 When you, when you rediscover the mass, for example, when you rediscover, I, as a priest, now, recently, the last 10 years, since I've offered the Tridentine mass, I get it.

01:33:11.880 I knew there was something missing.

01:33:14.160 There always was.

01:33:15.160 Now I see what it was.

01:33:17.120 The whole idea of sacrifice, it's there.

01:33:19.840 It makes sense.

01:33:20.940 It always made sense.

01:33:22.580 It was taken away from us.

01:33:24.180 Many people in the church, and they have this to, to answer before God.

01:33:29.860 I've got my own sins.

01:33:30.900 You've got your own sins before God that we have to answer for.

01:33:34.000 They have the sins of leading countless souls off the path.

01:33:39.620 They have to answer for that.

01:33:41.260 I hope God can do with me what he wants, but I want to be around long enough to hear the answers.

01:33:46.860 I want to hear some of the, some of their attempts at justification.

01:33:49.860 It's, so we've either got, the church is going to make that conversion and announce itself as, as the Council of Trent said, just a minute here.

01:34:01.220 Let's clarify.

01:34:02.800 Let's get rid of the ambiguity.

01:34:05.140 Let's clarify.

01:34:06.020 That's either going to happen or the end of, the, the end of all of this is coming.

01:34:12.200 It's, it's that simple.

01:34:13.840 And in either case, you should be prepared and excited.

01:34:18.780 I think.

01:34:19.940 Indeed.

01:34:20.700 Indeed.

01:34:21.460 I have one last thing for you, Father.

01:34:23.440 Sure.

01:34:24.120 Dominus Vobiscum.

01:34:25.260 Et cum Spiritu Tu.

01:34:26.500 Benedictio de Omnipotentes Patris et Filii et Spiritu Sancti deschendet super Vos et manet semper.

01:34:33.360 Amen.

01:34:33.820 Amen.

01:34:35.040 Thank you, my friend.

01:34:35.980 Thank you, John Henry.

01:34:37.080 Thank you.

01:34:37.400 Pleasure having you.

01:34:38.540 God bless all of you.

01:34:40.740 From Sevilla in Spain, this is John Henry Weston with Fr. Charles Myrrh.

01:34:46.360 I'll see you next time.

01:34:47.200 Hello, it's Fr. David Nix.

01:34:52.400 If you like this content, please click the link in the description for more like this.

01:34:57.220 Thank you all for watching and God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - January 30, 2026

How can the DEVIL be SO CLOSE to the POPE？

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