The John-Henry Westen Show - John-Henry Westen explains how Catholics should act when Pope Francis contradicts Church teaching

00:00:00.000 Well, welcome back everyone to this week's episode of the Sustainer segment of the John

00:00:04.700 Henry Weston Show. I'm Danielle Zuccaro, the Sustaining Donor Coordinator with LifeSite News.

00:00:10.180 We are glad to be back in this new year and we have many wonderful questions to share with you

00:00:16.300 today. John Henry is excited to answer them for you. Just as a reminder, the Sustainer segment

00:00:21.760 is our bi-weekly exclusive where John Henry gets to answer questions from our Sustainer community,

00:00:29.380 our Sustainers are our LifeSite monthly donors who submit questions to be answered on the show.

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00:01:00.640 Sustainer segment. Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

00:01:10.900 and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, welcome John Henry to the Sustainer segment.

00:01:16.920 Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, Danielle. Good to be here and also a very happy

00:01:22.060 and holy Christmas to everybody. I hope it was really great for you and best wishes and prayers

00:01:26.580 for the new year. Well, we have a multitude of very interesting questions today. So we will begin

00:01:32.660 with our first, which comes to us from Janet in Ohio. Janet asks, what do you suggest we do as

00:01:40.980 faithful Catholics when we see sacrilegious abuses up on the altar or a lack of reverence toward the Holy

00:01:48.180 Eucharist? Thank you for the question, Janet. Yeah, it's a struggle because it actually is not

00:01:53.720 too unfrequent, unfortunately. There is a document of the Church out, I believe it was called Sacro

00:02:01.140 Sanctum Concilium or something like that, that actually told Catholics, lay Catholics, that they're

00:02:06.420 actually responsible to report Eucharistic abuses to the proper authority, which is in most cases your

00:02:13.580 bishop, you know, when you see a priest doing it. I think if we follow the advice of the Holy

00:02:19.940 Scriptures on how to deal with conflict, it's easy enough to do. First, you go to the individual,

00:02:26.260 then you go to the Church, and then—or you bring witnesses, and then you go to the Church.

00:02:32.620 And so really, it's if you feel that the pastor is someone that you can mention this to, I would

00:02:38.460 perhaps gather a document from the Church that spells out the teaching of what they should be

00:02:44.380 doing, for instance, and bring it to the pastor, if you think he's open to it. There's some who

00:02:49.780 won't, you know, won't be, but—and show it to him, and then pray. If that doesn't work, and there's

00:02:56.840 still the abuses going on, then it's your responsibility to go to the bishop. After that, of course, that's not

00:03:02.940 on you anymore. So, you know, for instance, one of the practices condemned by the Church is the

00:03:10.820 pouring of the precious blood into other vessels. Sometimes, horrifically, you will see the

00:03:18.160 consecration of the precious blood of our Lord Jesus in Mass into a kind of a pitcher, and then

00:03:24.080 it's poured out into different chalices, or even cups, and nonsense like that. That's a total abuse

00:03:29.760 of the Blessed Sacrament in Mass, and it should never happen. When it does, it's incumbent upon us

00:03:35.560 Catholics to report it in that method. So, one of the things, though, privately that we should be

00:03:42.940 doing when we see such things is to pray in reparation, just there at the Mass. Another thing,

00:03:48.840 though, is when we are exposed to that kind of abuse, or even worse, you know, we do have to think

00:03:56.240 seriously about moving parishes, particularly if you have young children who could be negatively

00:04:02.360 influenced by abuses of the Eucharist, of the Mass in general, both by externals, but also, you know,

00:04:12.080 by homilies that are off-kilter. So, sometimes we just need to get to a different parish.

00:04:19.240 Thank you, John Henry. Our next question comes to us from Diego in Montreal. Diego writes,

00:04:26.860 are the newly approved Pfizer and Merck's pills against COVID-19 tainted by abortion? Are they

00:04:33.300 morally acceptable? Diego, thanks for the question. We have in both the Pfizer and Merck pills is

00:04:41.120 something interesting. A, they're brand new. So, we haven't assessed or been able to get to yet

00:04:48.320 that particular determination. But with regard to the pills themselves, something's very fishy

00:04:55.660 because Pfizer and Merck come out with these pills, A, in record time. So, they're relatively

00:05:02.280 untested. One of the things we know for sure, and here's one of the things that should alarm you very

00:05:08.460 much, is that the treatment protocols that were established by various doctors and have been shown

00:05:16.240 to work. Particularly, I should mention Dr. Peter McCullough, who with Dr. Elizabeth Villit put out

00:05:21.700 the first of the, not authorized, but the treatment protocols, published them in medical journals so

00:05:29.660 that these are published in medical journals, peer-reviewed medical journals, so that you know

00:05:34.840 they work. Dr. Zelenko's protocol he published. These are all protocols that have worked, have been

00:05:41.160 very, very effective. The various medications they suggest other than the zinc, D, C, and so on,

00:05:48.660 vitamin protocols, including quercetin, but they also include ivermectin. And ivermectin, for instance,

00:05:56.320 compared to the Pfizer drug, Paxilivin or something like that that it's called, but it acts in the same

00:06:02.580 way. It's an antiviral. And interestingly, both the Merck pill and the Pfizer pill that have just been

00:06:11.120 given this authorization, emergency youth authorization, are both about over $530 per treatment course.

00:06:20.460 That's ridiculous. If you look at India's price for the ivermectin treatment that they were basically

00:06:26.160 giving out, it was like $2.30. Compared to $530, something is really wrong there. So whatever's

00:06:38.040 going on, it is really nefarious. We know that the ivermectin was effective and worked. We know that

00:06:44.960 the treatment protocols were there. For them to now voice something on it to basically enrich the

00:06:51.740 pharmaceutical companies again, it smells of something really, really bad. So whatever is

00:06:59.700 going on here, it seems ridiculous. And I know that there will be many people who will wonder at this

00:07:06.240 because now that this protocol is open to us, approved, therefore it will likely be allowed for

00:07:16.360 in hospital treatments rather than basically denying them everything until they just go on a vent or

00:07:23.780 whatever. So there is that. There's one other concern because this is so new. We just learned the other

00:07:29.660 day that in 2017, the CDC gave approval to pills with trackers on them so that they could tell if you

00:07:41.300 ingested the pill and it dissolved in your stomach, it would send some kind of notification. So there's

00:07:47.580 all sorts of weird stuff. I don't put anything past the pharmaceuticals anymore because we have learned

00:07:52.740 such horrific truths about what they've done and what they're doing that unfortunately, the system of

00:08:01.260 trust there is really broken. And when you follow that financial motive, something smells and I would

00:08:08.440 avoid it. Our next question today comes from Jacqueline in Illinois. Jacqueline asks, how can we

00:08:15.940 understand Pope Francis, who on the one hand dedicated a year to divine mercy and another to St.

00:08:22.780 Joseph, yet wants to ostracize traditional Catholics who want to receive the Eucharist properly and attend

00:08:28.940 the Latin Mass? He challenges doctrine regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as other longstanding

00:08:35.100 proclamations made by previous popes. Jacqueline, thanks for the question. Very difficult one. It's

00:08:40.500 obviously something that we've been struggling with at LifeSite for the last seven years now. And it is a

00:08:47.540 very difficult thing to discern because you're right, this is very confusing. He seems to do some

00:08:56.480 really good things, right? You know, every once in a while. You have to remember, we at LifeSite, we pray for

00:09:01.640 Pope Francis every single day. As, you know, as staff, we pray for him, pray for his conversion,

00:09:09.500 actually, because that's truly what's needed. Very much like Saul was persecuting the Church.

00:09:19.420 Pope Francis right now is persecuting the Church. But one interesting thing about Saul, of course,

00:09:23.040 is that he became Paul, the great apostle. He went from harming the Church gravely to one of the

00:09:29.600 greatest heroes in the Church. And that's our real hope for Pope Francis. We, as Bishop Schneider

00:09:34.960 himself, actually advocated publicly, pray for the conversion of Pope Francis. And that's what we've

00:09:40.300 been doing. And it would be glorious if he did. Because imagine if that same attitude turned around,

00:09:47.180 the same attitude that would basically get rid of Cardinal Burke, just like that, that would get rid of

00:09:52.600 some of the best prelates in the Church would dare to go up against, meaning politically incorrect

00:09:58.720 things that he's done, like bring out Cardinal Daniels when he's known to be not only, you know,

00:10:04.280 rainbow stole type of a Catholic priest and bishop and cardinal, but also one who has even been

00:10:11.560 heterodox on abortion of all things. But even in terms of the world, he was so bad that he was caught

00:10:18.300 on tape, telling a fellow who was abused by a bishop friend of his, who happened to be the guy's

00:10:23.160 uncle, you know, not to go public with the abuse, not to go to the police with the abuse. Horrific stuff.

00:10:29.940 And yet Francis has the gall, has the chutzpah, to go forward with him on the stage during his

00:10:35.540 election, on the stage, I mean on the balcony for the papal election, and bring in Daniels over and

00:10:42.180 over again into the first, you know, synod on the families and things like this. So there's a real

00:10:47.560 chutzpah there, and if that chutzpah got turned around into a converted Francis, it'd be quite

00:10:52.320 something. But to get back to your question specifically, what are we to make of this?

00:10:56.920 Well, I'm going to be very honest with you. I have found a pattern in Pope Francis. When he does

00:11:03.080 something good, it usually is a prelude to something really alarming. So I'll give you a couple of

00:11:10.060 examples. Pope Francis actually contravened the Church's teaching on contraception, and that's huge.

00:11:17.340 You have to understand, we went through, you know, the whole debate in the 60s. And when we finally

00:11:23.200 came to Humanae Vitae, remember, that was a sort of compromise. Because at first, it seemed in the

00:11:30.980 debate during the, which led up to Humanae Vitae, it really did seem like the Church's teaching was

00:11:37.640 going to change. In fact, the majority of those cardinals that looked into the question for Paul VI

00:11:43.160 actually were on the other side. And then we know that it was the intervention of Carol Baitiwa,

00:11:49.080 who later became Pope John Paul II, that actually brought Humanae Vitae back to its senses, if you

00:11:56.760 will, brought the Church teaching, made it solid again. And people were already being told in

00:12:03.220 confession, yeah, you can go ahead, the Church is now approved for contraception, it's no problem,

00:12:07.820 and so on and so forth. So when it finally came out, Humanae Vitae came out, and the Church was

00:12:13.900 solid in her teaching and affirmed the teaching against contraception for 2,000 years, it was a

00:12:20.080 massive blow. In fact, there was a ton of consternation in the Church. Whole countries,

00:12:26.060 bishops from the whole, you know, the whole of the country, the United States, Canada, other countries,

00:12:33.580 rejected Humanae Vitae originally. So just horrific stuff happened. And yet Francis, in a plain interview,

00:12:41.680 said that it was okay to use contraception. He was talking about Zika virus, when there's a possibility

00:12:45.920 of, you know, transmission of Zika, could you use contraception? He said, yes. Well, that was really

00:12:51.040 weird. And so we thought, oh, that can't be. So we went for clarification to the Vatican Press

00:12:56.620 Secretary at the time, and he told us, yes. Pope Francis said that, you know, in grave circumstances,

00:13:02.460 he made even more broad, you can use the pill and the condom. So that's totally outside of Catholic

00:13:09.820 Church teaching. In fact, it's the opposite. And so how can this ever be? But here's how the statement

00:13:17.140 started from Pope Francis. In fact, if you look at pro-life reporting the next day after he made the

00:13:26.320 comments, the pro-life reporting was all about one thing. It was all about how Francis said that

00:13:33.520 abortion is not only wrong, it's a crime. And so like, it was a really good, really strong statement

00:13:44.260 and tons of Catholic news services, including the Catholic news service and many others. Go look,

00:13:50.440 ran with the story. Pope Francis says abortion is a crime. And yet that was just the prelude

00:13:57.980 to going against the Church's teaching on contraception. Actually, over the years, I've noticed

00:14:02.940 that very frequently there is a really good, strong statement, and then comes something really,

00:14:11.020 really weird. You know what? I'll go really, really recent. So very recently, in the past week

00:14:17.760 or so, there was the statement from Pope Francis about why are people just adopting pets? They

00:14:24.520 should be having children. Very Catholic sounding concept. And yet what happened in the same week?

00:14:30.400 So in the same week, we just saw Pope Francis double down massively on the obligation for COVID

00:14:38.980 injections for these abortion tainted jabs that we're all supposed to get them morally obliged to

00:14:43.740 somehow. He also, in the same week, gives a letter of appreciation for Sister Gramic, who really was

00:14:51.880 basically kicked out of all public appearance for the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict and JP too,

00:14:59.720 because of her basically being pro-LGBT in a way that contravenes Church teaching. And yet Pope Francis

00:15:07.620 not only praised her, we heard about a month and a half ago that he praised New Ways Ministries,

00:15:12.580 which was the ministries that, you know, she founded with Father Nugent. And they were both ostracized

00:15:20.160 by the Popes because of their infidelity, because of their leading to harm those people who are same-sex

00:15:27.060 attracted. So you have all...and same week, by the way, Francis tells traditional Catholics again,

00:15:34.300 you know, really maligns them, puts them to the back of the bus by saying that they are seeking

00:15:40.040 a dead language. And so, you know, these kind of pejorative things that come out, these kind of

00:15:45.740 hugely alarming things, they come very often after some kind of positive statement. So as sad as that

00:15:55.640 sounds, when I hear a statement of Pope Francis that's very positive, I'm like, I'm cowering already

00:16:01.800 thinking, uh-oh, what's coming now? So we really do need to pray. We need to pray for the conversion

00:16:07.800 of Pope Francis. And just imagine if he does. It would be a glorious thing. And God knows if I were

00:16:14.400 a liberal bishop and saw him convert, I would be quaking in my boots because from what we've seen

00:16:20.100 him do on the other side, it's unreal. So we'll see what comes.

00:16:23.260 And our final question comes to us from Kirby today. He begins with a little anecdote by writing,

00:16:31.500 yesterday I was called by my pastor and asked not to come to mass because I don't wear a mask

00:16:37.380 due to my discernment of my conscience. I don't have any real experience in theology and didn't

00:16:43.800 see any resources about assistance in this regard. I was wondering if you might know of any person or

00:16:50.160 resource that could help me appropriately defend my ability to follow my own discernment?

00:16:55.780 Kirby, thank you for the question. It is a very, very difficult one. And this is one that

00:17:00.800 people have been struggling with, well, obviously over the past couple of years. We've been

00:17:05.300 trying to figure out what is the right thing to do here. And the answer on the part of Orthodox

00:17:12.480 Catholics really does vary. In a way, it's so sad. It's endemic of our time that we don't have clear

00:17:21.240 teaching in the church, almost period. Because, you know, the Pope, there's something up with the

00:17:29.100 Pope. And in the scriptures we read, you know, they will strike, the shepherd and the sheep will

00:17:34.280 scatter. It's so true. Finding clear teaching today on the specific issues that are most pertinent to

00:17:42.420 us is very difficult. With regard to masking, it is a massive challenge to know what to do. But you're

00:17:50.000 well within not only your rights as a Catholic, but your own personal conscience to discern. So it's

00:17:58.640 your conscientious decision. And they can't deny you the sacraments for that. So that's something

00:18:06.200 that's very clear. So they might say, oh, it's a health issue, and so on and so forth. Well, let's

00:18:11.960 take it up as a health issue. During SARS-CoV-1, there was this same, not same, but similar question

00:18:19.880 that went to the, I think it was the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline and Sacraments.

00:18:26.400 It might have been the CDF. And the question was asked by an English bishop, I believe it was,

00:18:32.120 should, do I have to give Holy Communion on the tongue to the faithful who want it, even though

00:18:38.840 it's a health concern right now? And that's, by the way, a health concern that could be argued is

00:18:44.040 much more concerning than a mask, because there you're actually touching someone's tongue or close

00:18:49.620 to someone's tongue. And that's much more dangerous, you could say, than being like six foot apart from

00:18:54.960 someone and still needing a mask on. Nonetheless, but interestingly, the congregation came back,

00:19:02.920 and by the way, you can find this letter right on lifesitenews.com. My blog post on the issue of

00:19:08.780 reception of Holy Communion on the tongue has this letter within it. So please do avail yourself of

00:19:15.020 that, and you can have the original letter. The congregation comes back and tells the bishop that

00:19:20.120 he is not able to deny the faithful, who are in a state of grace, obviously, from receiving sacraments

00:19:27.640 because of this desire to want to only give communion on the hand. So there's a health concern that seems

00:19:35.220 above that of the mask, and yet the congregation rules, nope, you can't deny the faithful the sacraments.

00:19:43.900 And so everything that I can understand on the question is that we cannot be denied for reasons

00:19:52.380 of following our conscience on masking. And many people have decided different ways. A lot of people

00:19:59.420 have decided to go along with it so that we can have the church open, because there's those concerns

00:20:05.420 too. Sometimes the health authority says, well, if you mask and follow the regular protocol for

00:20:10.720 everybody else, then you can have your churches open. If you don't, you can't. People make all sorts

00:20:16.100 of decisions within that. And we don't want to condemn people for wearing a mask in church or not

00:20:24.820 wearing a mask in church. We should be able to defend the conscientious decisions of our brothers and

00:20:30.700 sisters. But definitely, we're not allowed to be denied the sacraments for following our conscience

00:20:37.700 in that way. But Kirby, thanks for the question. And really something that we all need to pray about

00:20:44.820 and discern with the best resources we can. Very good. Well, thank you so much, John Henry,

00:20:50.180 for your time. And thank you all for staying tuned to this week's Sustainer segment. We look forward to

00:20:57.420 getting your questions. And again, if you would like to become a monthly donor or a Sustainer,

00:21:03.220 please sign up below or go to lifesitenews.com and you can sign up in the right-hand corner of our

00:21:09.460 webpage. We look forward to receiving your questions and look forward to seeing you next time

00:21:14.660 on the Sustainer segment of the John Henry Weston Show. Thank you so much and God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - January 14, 2022

John-Henry Westen explains how Catholics should act when Pope Francis contradicts Church teaching

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