Michael Matt blows lid off German church, calls on Catholic to be 'militant'
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Summary
In this episode of The John Henry Weston Show, I speak with Michael M. Matt, a lay leader and member of the Archdiocese of Munich, Germany. We talk about the importance of prayer and resistance to silence, and how Catholics in Germany can join the fight.
Transcript
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Hello, this is John Henry Weston. Welcome to the John Henry Weston Show.
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And this week, I'm very pleased to bring you a guest you all know very well.
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We're going to talk about the Acce Zordonnade here in Munich, Germany.
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Some people were a little upset, a little sad, because they thought there should be, you
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But that's really not the idea of a large number.
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And I think with you, and I know you help out a lot with the organization, so correct me
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But I think what the idea is, we're not looking for, unless we could bring 10,000 people
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to Munich to really put out a display, it's more important to have representation from
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And so they bring in, it's more of an invitation-only kind of thing, mostly lay people.
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And they bring them all here to represent their various constituencies.
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And the idea is to not make a lot of noise, not to point at ourselves and bang drums and
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fly our flags and whatnot, but just to remind all the passersby of the importance of prayer
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And this really is very counter-cultural, counter-revolutionary, because people nowadays
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in the age of social media and everything else, this is a very strange spectacle.
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You see all these, you know, men, women standing and not trying to make a spectacle, but just
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the spectacle, the prayer itself, people who still believe in the modern world, create
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something of a spectacle, alas, with most of people, most modern people.
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So they stop and they ask questions, and then we're able to, you know, answer those questions
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and say, these people believe there's something very wrong in the church, and they're trying
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to draw attention to two things, the need to pray for what's happening in the church, because
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It doesn't just affect Catholics, as we see with the world going insane right now in every
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You know, this is this, no resistance can do anything, as Pope Pius X said, that doesn't
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start with prayer, but by the same token, you can't just say, we're going to let God
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You pray, you educate yourself, and then you go to war, and that's what the Acius Wodinata
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Okay, so Michael, in Germany, all citizens pay a church tax.
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That is, if they're Catholic, they pay the taxes that they have to pay.
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But Professor Roberto Di Mattei, among others, is calling on Germans, German Catholics, not
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Yeah, well, I think it's time, because there's a certain risk involved.
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If you decide you're not going to pay this tax anymore, you run the risk of excommunication.
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You run the risk of dying without the sacraments.
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And so there was a very clear clarion call at the press conference for people to say,
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People in Germany may have a different style or a different way of suffering.
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For example, if they stop paying this ridiculous tax, they may, as far as the world, part of the
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church is concerned, look like excommunicated Catholics all of a sudden.
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But it's really so important that that happens, that they take that risk and that they stand
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Because the synodal way, as they call it here in the German bishops' conference, this is
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This is, they fight, the German bishops financially back the Amazon Senate.
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And what they're talking about is the implementation of the errors and the heresies of the Amazon
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And so things like women priests, the abolition of celibacy, gay unions, all of these things
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are now sort of being disseminated throughout the church if the German bishops' conference
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And so the press conference was, I think, very, very important.
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I was so glad that you gave your presentation, your intervention in German.
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So we had a real sort of multinational, several languages up there.
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And the Germans, the Catholics that were here, I'm a German-American Catholic.
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So I really, I was so happy to see their response to this press conference.
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So they're saying, yes, we want to get, we want to get involved.
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They were so happy that the Axios Lodianate came here because then they had some pointers
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and then there was some networking on how they can start something similar here in Germany
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to try to do the same thing, to prevent what's happening to their, to the church that they
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Men and the women, the faithful Catholics of the time, in cooperation with God's grace,
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understood that as a soldier of Jesus Christ, as a member of the church militant, I mean,
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Mother Church gives us that category of church militant for a reason, because we must be not
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only militant to save our souls, but militant to save the souls of those around us, to save
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There's been a, as you know, a revolution's been going on against the church for a very,
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The church is so strong, but really it took hundreds of years to get the church to this
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And so it's up to all of us to understand what's happening.
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And that if right now with the, with the curia, the changes in the curia that are coming
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out in 2020, we're going to see a new face of the curia, the Roman curia within the next
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And it's going to be radically changed in the image and likeness of what Francis wants
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This is not the time therefore to sit back and relax.
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We have to make them, make the church leadership, the human element of the church, understand
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Lay Catholics are not going to be silent in the face of this.
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And it's not just that we want to, we don't want to be causing trouble, of course, but we
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As a baptized and confirmed Catholic, you have an obligation to stand, not for your opinion,
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but for the tradition of Holy Mother Church, which has been handed down to us.
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We have an obligation to practice the faith and then make sure it's still alive enough to
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The faith survives through us, through every generation.
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And we have an obligation to make sure it survives in its integrity.
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I'm a father too, of eight children, and I know you have seven kids.
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So tell me as a father, what does this fight mean?
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Well, I can even just check my own memory, you know, from when I was young, the availability
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of confession, for example, even when I was young, growing up in the 70s, priests all
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the time, over here in the week, Saturday, multiple confessions, that's changing.
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You know, we're getting fewer and fewer priests, not only because there are more modern-minded
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priests that don't want to have confession, but make it that available, but the number of
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Like, what happens if 25, 30 years from now, our children either don't have a place to go
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to confession, or they have to drive 50 miles, I mean, it's happened before, it's happened
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in France, it's happened in Mexico, where revolutions came, and access to the sacraments
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I've got a 23-year-old son who just had a very serious accident back home, and, you know,
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he had the accident, he had to go to the hospital, and in the middle of the night, a friend of
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mine, and he wasn't where he grew up, he was at school, a friend of mine called a priest
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of the Institute of Christ the King, this priest doesn't know my son, but he got up in the
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middle of the night, went to the hospital, and he's pretty much been with him off and
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on ever since, because, I mean, it comes to him in the passage, he clears away the tray
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where my son's, you know, foods and medications were, in order to set up for the Eucharist,
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in the middle of the night, he had this confession, promises to come in, this is the old Catholic,
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this is Holy Mother Church in the lives of all of us, and it's made such a difference
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to my son, who's going through an ordeal right now, to have the church come to him like
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this, in manly fashion, with young priests, dressed as priests, willing to sacrifice
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everything in order to administer to us and to our children.
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We have to preserve that, because it's not about having a good, jolly time and sing at
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Mass or whatever, it's about that, it's about the sacramental grace of the church being
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available to, made available to us by priests who are willing to sacrifice, not only sacrifice
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getting up in the middle of the night, but as we're here with the Eucharist, to sacrifice
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celibacy, I mean, to be celibate men, to show other young people, to show all of our families,
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all of our children, that they're willing to die for this, and they're willing to sacrifice
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for this, and give the gift of their own celibacy to God, you know, and that's what's at stake
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here, they're trying to get rid of that idea, and politicize and put ideology into it, let's
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get women priests, let's get married priests, let's just mess with the whole thing, and what
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we risk as fathers is having our future generations not have access to not only the beauty of Mother
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Church, but the grace of the sacraments, literally that's what's at stake here, and we have to make sure
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that we fight against what's happening, encourage vocations, and make people understand the
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importance of the old established traditions of the church, because these are 2,000 years old,
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the priesthood developed over 2,000 years to where it is now, and yet a conference like the German
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Catholic bishops, they think they've got a better idea, that they're going to change this, and
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they'll abolish and bring women in, it's not going to work, but these are the errors that were already
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compensated for a long time ago with the celibacy and so forth of the priesthood, so I think it's
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really, really important that, especially as fathers with children, that we understand our
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role to stand and resist what they're doing, because they're politicizing the church, and
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they're taking chances, not only with their own souls, but with the souls of our children,
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who may not have access to the sacraments in the years to come.
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Michael, you came to this event just days after your own son was involved in a very serious accident.
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That must have been very difficult. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
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Yeah, it's a really major accident, and beautifully enough, and I wouldn't call this a brag, I would
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call this, this is what the church, when you live the faith, authentically, this is what it instills
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in me, even in young people. My son's no saint, but I, of course, said I'm not going to go. He's in the
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hospital right now, and I said, I can't go to Germany, I can't do this. He was supposed to come with me on
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this trip to do some video work, and he said, he said, he said, Dad, this is war. We're at war for the faith,
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and I need to, I need to do what, this is what happened to me. I, you know, it's my issue. I'll
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take care of this, but you need to go and do that, because it's good, because souls are at stake,
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and you need to make sure that, you know, you don't abandon this, this particular battle that's
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a very important battle. 22-year-old kid, you know, and he's, he's been a, he's studied the Vendée,
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he's gone to the Vendée in France, and they've seen that militancy of our forefathers in the past,
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in the France, in the other countries, and young people, it resonates with them. They're ready to
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die for it, but what we have to do is give them something, tell them the true stories, give them
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something to die for, and as far as I'm concerned, the German bishops are doing, they're trying to
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take it all away, and they can do the political nonsense that young people are so totally disinterested
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in. You have images of German bishops running around churches with balloons, you know, like this
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is going to be somehow meaningful to young people, that they're so woke to doing goofy things in
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church, especially the German bishops. Well, young people are hemorrhaging out of the church,
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they want no part of this, but you tell them the old stories, you raise them in the traditional
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faith, traditional Latin mass, you tell them what their forefathers did in defense of the faith,
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young people are waiting for this, they want their orders, they want to be told, live the faith,
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here's what it is, and here's the beauty of the faith, the honor, the honor of standing in defense
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of the faith under attack, that forms a crusade mentality, and these kids are ready to die for it,
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as long as they know that their fathers are ready to die for it, and that their priests are ready to
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die for it, and that it really is just that important. Yeah, and what a kind of a, if you
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will, a sacrifice, a kind of a mortifying death sacrifice that your son gives, and telling you
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to go while he's had a serious accident, you have to go dead anyway, I don't get to go with you,
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that's okay on me, but you go anyway. So he then misses your presence there, he's already sacrificing,
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having not to go, and having a serious accident. It's an amazing thing, let's pray that many,
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many, many young Catholic youth are like your son. Well, thanks, I hope so, I hope so, yeah.
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Michael, thank you again for being with us on the John Henry Weston Show. God bless you.