The John-Henry Westen Show - July 29, 2022


Pope Francis is fulfilling a long-planned agenda to alter the Church’s teaching on life


Summary

Pro-abortion politicians in the United States are no longer allowed to receive Holy Communion in the Catholic Church. What does this mean for the pro-life movement and its efforts to win support from Pope Francis and the laic Catholic Church?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is John Henry Weston for LifeSite News. We are here in Quebec City with my cameraman Miles
00:00:04.600 Vassilius. We've hooked up with Campagne Quebec Vie, Georges Bouchemi, the leader there, doing
00:00:09.800 some amazing things. We were outside of Notre Dame Basilica here in Quebec City last night
00:00:15.520 where Pope Francis was doing Vespers. We prayed with a very holy priest, the rosary, all 15
00:00:24.440 decades of the full rosary, mostly in Latin, for the conversion of Pope Francis while Pope
00:00:30.400 Francis was right there. It was a very beautiful gathering of very faithful Catholics praying
00:00:37.640 for the conversion of Pope Francis in reparation for what Catholic prelates who have really
00:00:44.240 abandoned the faith have done to the faith, to our children. Right after the rosary and
00:00:51.680 remarks that we did there after the Vespers, we went over and I gave a talk, a talk actually
00:00:57.500 in French, to those in Quebec City. I wanted to share those remarks with you. They're about
00:01:03.320 Pope Francis and particularly his agenda when it comes to life. This is John Henry Weston
00:01:10.240 Show. Stay tuned. The biggest victory for the pro-life movement in the past 50 years was the
00:01:34.060 overturning of Roe v. Wade last month. You know, imagine with me for a moment the reaction of
00:01:40.160 Pope St. John Paul II, had he still been with us. He would have rejoiced with tears, embracing
00:01:47.220 even from faraway Rome, all the pro-life warriors in America. His joy would have been exuberant. He
00:01:54.700 would call on all the church to offer thanksgiving and to redouble their efforts to fight for the
00:02:00.100 protection of those lives of the weakest and most helpless brothers and sisters in their mother's
00:02:06.280 wombs. Now, what did take place only last month was a stony silence from Pope Francis.
00:02:15.740 But days later, we actually got our answer, our response from the Pope when U.S. Speaker of the
00:02:21.700 House Nancy Pelosi, one of the world's leading proponents of abortion, of the killing of innocent
00:02:27.380 children in the womb, arrived in the Vatican. She was greeted by Pope Francis. At a mass in the Pope's
00:02:34.600 presence, she was actually sacrilegiously given Holy Communion. The blow to the church and the
00:02:41.600 pro-life movement was particularly egregious because after a decade of trying to convince Nancy Pelosi of
00:02:49.480 the error of her ways, Nancy Pelosi's bishop, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordrione,
00:02:55.840 finally announced that she was to be denied Holy Communion. Not only did Pope Francis, by his
00:03:03.220 welcome of Nancy Pelosi and permission for her to receive Holy Communion, symbolically slap down
00:03:09.580 Archbishop Cordrione, but the Pope actually made sure his message was received with a public rebuke
00:03:17.100 of the San Francisco bishop as well. In a Reuters interview just after Pelosi's visit, Pope Francis
00:03:24.420 was asked about communion for Catholic politicians who support the right to choose, of course the
00:03:30.960 right to choose abortion, and Pope Francis attacked Archbishop Cordrione, but of course without using
00:03:37.080 his name. The Pope said, and I quote, when a bishop loses his pastoral nature, it causes a political
00:03:44.720 problem, end quote. And you know, only a week later, the Pope was asked by a Spanish-language TV station
00:03:51.680 about communion for U.S. President Joe Biden, the most pro-abortion U.S. president in history,
00:03:58.220 who along with other pro-abortion politicians over the decades, is responsible for more innocent deaths
00:04:03.660 than Hitler and Stalin combined. Pope Francis said he would leave such a decision, the decision about
00:04:11.080 holy communion reception for pro-abortion politicians for Joe Biden, to Biden's conscience. And then he
00:04:17.400 repeated again the castigation of holy priests and bishops who, for the good of the pro-abortion
00:04:23.740 Catholic politician himself, would follow the direction of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI
00:04:30.000 and forbid such Catholic politicians from holy communion. Remember, it was under John Paul II in 2004
00:04:38.160 that the bishops of the United States discussed the matter of communion for pro-abortion politicians
00:04:42.640 and at the direction of Pope John Paul, Cardinal Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for
00:04:48.440 Doctrine of Faith, who was obviously to become later Pope Benedict XVI, he wrote to the bishops of the
00:04:54.000 United States telling them holy communion must be denied to pro-abortion politicians after they've been
00:05:01.180 warned of their wrongdoing. Pope Francis is directly opposed to his predecessors, is now really answered.
00:05:11.460 Because this is not only the first time Pope Francis has gone counter to the Church's teaching on life.
00:05:18.720 You actually may have heard recently of rumors that Pope Francis may be releasing an encyclical
00:05:23.820 countering Humanae Vitae, the great encyclical on life which defended the Church's teaching on
00:05:28.860 contraception. But that shouldn't come as a surprise. Pope Francis himself indicated already in 2014
00:05:35.220 that he intended a reinterpretation of Humanae Vitae. It was in an interview with the Italian
00:05:41.720 newspaper Corriere della Serra. Pope Francis was specifically asked about taking up again the
00:05:47.460 topic of birth control half a century after the publication of Humanae Vitae. The reporter actually
00:05:53.340 said, your Cronfrere Cardinal Martini, that was Carlo Maria Martini, the late Archbishop of Milan,
00:06:00.060 he said, Pope Francis responded, it all depends on how the text of Humanae Vitae is interpreted.
00:06:06.920 It's very typical for Pope Francis to respond with ambiguity. However, his unrehearsed statements,
00:06:13.840 specifically on papal flights, are much more candid. In February of 2016, while on the papal plane,
00:06:20.420 the Pope was asked about the dangers of the Zika virus, which had been blamed for a rash of fetal
00:06:26.720 deformity cases in Latin America, here's what the Pope was asked. As regards avoiding pregnancy on
00:06:32.980 this issue, can the Church take into consideration the concept of the lesser of two evils? So Pope
00:06:39.180 Francis responded by insisting that abortion can never be justified, but he added these words, and I
00:06:45.320 quote, on the lesser evil of avoiding pregnancy, we are speaking in terms of the conflict between the
00:06:52.720 Fifth and the Sixth Commandments. Avoiding pregnancy, he said, is not an absolute evil. In certain cases,
00:07:00.780 as in this one, it was clear. Now, of course, the statements from Pope Francis were of great interest
00:07:07.560 to journalists, since they seemed to contradict former Church teaching, which of course they did.
00:07:12.860 journalists, including LifeSite News, sought clarification from the Vatican Press Office,
00:07:17.280 which actually confirmed the statement. And this was the response to reporters from Father Lombardi,
00:07:24.960 who then was the head of the Vatican Press Office. He said, the contraceptive, or condom,
00:07:30.480 in particular cases of emergency or gravity, could be the object of discernment in a serious case of
00:07:36.060 conscience. He told that to Vatican Radio. He continued, he said, this is what the Pope said.
00:07:41.180 So Father Lombardi added that the Pope was speaking of, and I quote,
00:07:45.760 the possibility of taking recourse to contraception or condoms in cases of emergency or special
00:07:52.120 situations. He is not saying that the possibility is accepted without discernment. Indeed, he said
00:07:57.760 clearly that it can be considered in cases of special urgency, end quote. You recall paragraph 14 of
00:08:06.180 Humanae Vitae, where Pope Paul VI condemns contraception. He wrote, and I quote,
00:08:11.240 excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse is
00:08:17.980 specifically intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or as a means, end quote. That's
00:08:24.080 Humanae Vitae, number 14. So some may argue that the encyclical undermining the teaching of the Church
00:08:30.500 on life could never come from Pope Francis. However, you know, Pope Francis has already
00:08:35.080 undermined Church teaching on abortion in an official document. In Pope Francis' 2018 exhortation,
00:08:42.640 Gaudete et Exsultate, he teaches the opposite of what Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI taught
00:08:49.780 regarding the preeminence of abortion as an issue of moral concern. Pope Francis wrote, speaking of
00:08:55.600 immigration and abortion, and I quote, from the exhortation 2018 exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate,
00:09:02.100 and I quote, some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the grave, in scare quotes in
00:09:08.360 the document, grave bioethical questions. The Pope added, quote, that a politician looking for votes may
00:09:14.260 say such a thing is understandable, but not a Christian, end quote. He criticized those who relativize
00:09:21.080 these issues as if there are other more important matters, or the only thing that counts is one
00:09:28.300 particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend, end quote. So we as pro-lifers are here in
00:09:36.980 Quebec to pray for the conversion of Pope Francis, to pray in reparation for the pastors of the Church
00:09:42.960 who are misguiding the flock of Christ on the most fundamental issue of life, the defense of the weakest
00:09:49.280 among us. We pray, we prayed yesterday, and we have to continue praying that the great Canadian
00:09:55.720 martyrs, Jean de Bebeuf, Isaac Jogue, Gabriel Lallemand, René Goupil, Jean de Lalonde, Noël Chabanel, Charles
00:10:02.620 Gagné, and Antoine Daniel, intercede for us. We pray that as they sacrificed their comfort and even
00:10:10.380 their lives to minister to the indigenous peoples of Canada and America, they would assist us in our
00:10:17.260 reparation and prayer for the conversion of Pope Francis and the countless souls that are being
00:10:23.380 misguided by his false teachings. And just as the blood of the martyrs were the seed of faith
00:10:30.440 in our land centuries ago, we pray that our small sacrifices and sufferings in union with the holy
00:10:36.900 sacrifice of Calvary may bring Christ's truth to our homeland, making it once again strong and free.
00:10:44.720 For Life State News, this is John Henry Weston, and may God bless you.