The John-Henry Westen Show - Pope Francis praises pro-abortion President and backs communion for pro-abort politicians

00:00:00.000 It has been quite the week for Catholics again, as Pope Francis has once again shocked the world

00:00:05.260 with the most un-Catholic statements. Like in 2016, when he praised Italy's best-known

00:00:10.180 pro-abortion politician, well, Pope Francis this week praised the radically pro-abortion

00:00:15.660 Irish president. And that came just as news broke about his backing communion for pro-abortion

00:00:20.980 politicians, and also another endorsement for homosexual civil unions. I'll be giving you all 0.85

00:00:27.000 the details on this episode of the John Henry Weston Show. Please stay tuned.

00:00:49.620 Before we begin, I would like to encourage you to support LifeSite since we are in the middle of

00:00:54.380 our quarterly fundraiser. Help us please to continue to bring you the truth on many issues

00:00:59.380 we cover. Without your support, there's no way we could do this. So please go to give.lifesitenews.com

00:01:05.380 and be as generous as you can. May God reward you for your support. Let's begin as we always do at

00:01:11.920 the Son of the Cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:01:17.920 LifeSite Irish correspondent Tim Jackson reports that on Friday, at his meeting with pro-abortion

00:01:25.220 Irish president Michael D. Higgins, Pope Francis told those gathered, and these are quotes from the

00:01:30.940 Pope, I did not just meet a man, a president. I met a wise man of today. End quote. The Pope also added,

00:01:39.480 and I quote again, I thank God that Ireland has such a wise man as its head. End quote.

00:01:47.220 President Higgins, for those of you who might not know, is the one who signed the abortion

00:01:52.660 bill in 2013 that made the killing of unborn babies legal in Ireland when a woman claimed

00:01:58.120 to be suffering from suicidal ideation as a result of her pregnancy. It was the most devastating blow

00:02:04.360 to Catholic Ireland in its history. Worse even than the grave persecution the nation has suffered.

00:02:11.920 In November 2015, Higgins moved Ireland even further from its constitutional foundation in

00:02:18.460 divine and natural law by signing a bill that legalized homosexual marriage. And that was, 0.91

00:02:25.280 of course, following their referendum. And then following a repeal of the country's constitutional

00:02:30.120 protection for the right to life, Higgins, who was just praised by Pope Francis, signed another

00:02:37.520 abortion bill in 2018 that legalized abortion on demand up to 12 weeks, with abortion up to birth

00:02:43.700 allowed, if the baby's found, to have a life-limiting condition. That, by the way, resulted in 2019 alone

00:02:51.020 in 6,666 Irish babies being killed. Higgins has described Ireland's historic ban

00:03:00.120 on abortion as having no concern for Irish women who would have to travel for England for their

00:03:04.360 abortions. And he claimed that the successful 1983 referendum, which was the campaign to protect

00:03:11.280 unborn babies from abortion, had been, and I quote, callous, sinister, and undemocratic. And this,

00:03:18.300 you know, is unbelievable. This is the man whom Pope Francis has praised now. You know what? It's

00:03:25.860 actually exactly the same as 2016. Do you remember in 2016, Pope Francis praised an Italian politician?

00:03:34.140 In fact, it's hard to call her a politician. Her name was Emma Benino. She was Italy's leading

00:03:39.480 proponent of abortion for decades. Pope Francis called her one of the nation's greats. And she was

00:03:46.760 actually pictured performing illegal abortions back in the day, and then became a politician campaigning

00:03:53.600 for abortion herself. I mean, she herself had an abortion at the age of 27 and was the premier

00:03:59.660 abortion activist. And yet Pope Francis named her as one of the nation's greats. Anyway, responding to

00:04:07.160 Pope Francis's praise for President Higgins, Ireland's Catholic Association chairman Brian Flanagan told

00:04:13.540 LifeSite News that the most disappointing aspect of the meeting was the Pope's apparent unwillingness

00:04:18.740 to call the Irish leader to repentance. And he said, and I quote,

00:04:23.300 our Pope could have attributed wisdom to one of the principal pro-abortion politicians in Irish history.

00:04:31.540 Mr. Flanagan continued saying of the Pope that he should have informed and warned President Higgins

00:04:38.740 of the eternal consequences for the perpetrators of such a crime against the most defenseless of God's

00:04:45.420 beloved creation. And as LifeSite's Michael Haynes reports, on a new airplane interview Wednesday,

00:04:53.540 Pope Francis once again expressed his support for same-sex civil unions, calling for laws to promote

00:04:59.540 civil unions since we are all equal. Responding to a question from Stefano Maria Paci of SkyTG24

00:05:07.980 about the recognition of homosexual marriages, the 84-year-old pontiff first referenced marriage.

00:05:15.560 He said, marriage is a sacrament. The church has no power to change the sacraments as the Lord has

00:05:22.580 instituted them, end quote. Now, here's an interesting thing. Pope Francis often does this. Often when he

00:05:30.280 goes contrary to church teaching, he says something strong seeming to support church teaching. So he said,

00:05:36.840 you know, in response to the question, marriage is a sacrament. The church has no power to change

00:05:42.060 the sacraments as the Lord has instituted them. But then he adds this, if they want to support a

00:05:49.960 homosexual couple in life together, states have the possibility of civilly supporting them, end quote.

00:05:56.840 So it's unbelievable what's happening. He said, and I'll quote it for you again,

00:06:03.220 there are laws that try to help the situations of many people who have a different sexual orientation,

00:06:10.800 he said, end quote. The church, by the way, has taught the opposite of what the Pope is teaching

00:06:17.700 and saying. The church, by way of the congregation of the doctrine of faith, addressed the same question

00:06:25.360 already in 1986. The document was called on the pastoral care of homosexual persons. It says,

00:06:32.920 and I quote, a person engaging in homosexual behavior, therefore acts immorally. And any 0.95

00:06:38.880 such activity is contrary to the creative wisdom of God. Christians who are homosexual are called as 0.98

00:06:45.060 all of us are to a chaste life. And while noting that the truly pastoral approach will appreciate the 0.61

00:06:52.460 need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin. There's another document from the 0.98

00:06:57.900 congregation for the doctrine of faith, the CDF. And it was in 2003, it was called considerations

00:07:03.320 regarding proposals to give legal recognitions to unions between homosexual persons. And it too

00:07:09.960 repeated the church's strong condemnation of homosexual activity and homosexual unions, saying that

00:07:16.480 homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. And presenting numerous reasons to argue against the

00:07:22.520 legal definition of homosexual unions, the CDF characterized any law in favor of same-sex unions

00:07:28.800 as contrary to right reason. It said, and I quote, furthermore, all Catholics are obliged to oppose 0.96

00:07:35.560 the legal recognition of homosexual unions, end quote. So the Catholic Church teaches, moreover,

00:07:42.220 that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and that respect for homosexuals cannot lead in any way 0.98

00:07:48.820 to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.

00:07:54.820 John Horvath, the vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and

00:08:00.380 Property, commented to LifeSite News about what the Pope said, saying that it is, and I quote,

00:08:06.460 apocalyptically scandalous and a great shame that the highest authority on earth, the Vicar of Christ,

00:08:13.960 publicly endorses homosexual civil unions. It's indicative, he said, of our 0.94

00:08:18.520 sinful times and why Our Lady warned us of a great chastisement in Fatima, end quote.

00:08:24.400 So following the interview, LGBT activists were very public about their praise for the Pope's

00:08:31.340 support of civil unions. Dissident Jesuit pro-LGBT campaigner priest, Father James Martin,

00:08:38.420 wrote on Twitter that the Pope was again supporting civil unions. Meanwhile, pro-LGBT Catholic group,

00:08:44.500 New Way's ministry, I say Catholic in quotes, by the way, was said, and I quote,

00:08:51.960 if there was any debate left over whether pontifex, the Pope, supports same-gender civil unions,

00:08:58.380 it is settled. Only last year, Pope Francis had voiced his support for the homosexual civil unions

00:09:06.720 in the film Francesco calling for a civil union law. At the time, Bishop Athanasius Schneider

00:09:13.740 pointed out that such an approach is no act of kindness towards persons with same-sex attraction.

00:09:20.060 Rather, he said, it's an act of cruelty, and I quote, because these persons will be confirmed in mortal

00:09:26.140 sin, they will be solidified in their interior psychological dichotomy, since their reason tells

00:09:33.020 them that homosexual acts are against reason, and against the explicit will of God, the creator 0.61

00:09:39.160 and redeemer of men, end quote. But that in-flight interview from last Wednesday was not done yet.

00:09:48.620 LifeSite's David McClune reports on another alarming remark by Pope Francis backing the giving of Holy

00:09:54.260 Communion to pro-abortion politicians like Joe Biden. And again, just like with his support of

00:10:00.440 homosexual civil unions, Francis starts off with a statement that seems to affirm church teaching. 0.61

00:10:07.280 In fact, this time it was his favorite, abortion is murder, comment. I say it's his favorite only 0.89

00:10:13.240 because he used it before. In 2016, Pope Francis used the abortion is murder remark when actually

00:10:22.460 scandalously suggesting that contraception may be used in grave circumstances. That was the infamous

00:10:29.100 Zika virus comments, if you want to look it up. On Wednesday, on that return flight from his visit

00:10:34.780 to Eastern Europe, he went to Slovakia and so on. In the midst of the in-flight interview, he was asked

00:10:40.840 about Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians. And he said basically that it must be a pastoral

00:10:50.180 approach must be used. And that he said that should be without condemning. And he added that

00:10:56.380 he himself has actually never denied the Eucharist to anyone. But here's how he started it all off.

00:11:03.700 He started it all off with abortion that is telling abortion murder again. I mean, this is really an

00:11:11.860 modus operandi. You see this very strong statement, watch out, because then you know something strange

00:11:18.980 is coming. He said, that is murder. Whoever has an abortion kills, he said. Those direct quotes from

00:11:25.080 Pope Francis on the flight. But then he went on right from there. Remember, the question is about

00:11:30.260 giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians. He starts off saying that abortion is murder.

00:11:37.440 Whoever has an abortion kills a child. And then he says this. When it comes to denying pro-abortion 0.64

00:11:44.960 politicians, he said, the problem is not theological. It is pastoral. How we bishops manage this principle

00:11:52.460 pastorally, he said. Communion is not a prize for the perfect, he continued. And then he describes

00:11:59.120 this hypothesis whereby priests can give the Eucharist by being close and tender and give communion

00:12:05.920 to people. He compared it to Amoris Laetitia and how they were to discern communion for divorced

00:12:12.920 and remarried Catholics. The Pope actually criticized priests who, what he said, go beyond the pastoral

00:12:19.900 dimension and become a politician on the issue of distributing communion to opponents of the faith.

00:12:25.080 He said, you know, what must the pastor do? Be a pastor. Don't go condemning. End quote. So as if he

00:12:34.060 had ever given the Eucharist to pro-abortion politicians, the Pope actually said he has never denied the Eucharist

00:12:41.360 to anyone since becoming a priest. You know, in all of this, we can and must remember that St. Paul said

00:12:49.980 of giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, he said in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 11 29,

00:12:58.420 and speaking exactly about this issue already right from the start of the church,

00:13:02.340 he said, and I quote, for he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself,

00:13:09.000 not discerning the body of the Lord. And that's why so many bishops have said, as has Cardinal Burke,

00:13:17.400 that this is not a matter of hating politicians or of being mean to them or nasty to them or unpastoral.

00:13:24.480 In fact, it's a matter of being totally pastoral to warn the Catholic who is wayward, who is 1.00

00:13:32.180 supporting abortion, supporting what the Pope acknowledges is murder. It's calling them back

00:13:38.680 to the fullness of faith, to the truth in regard to their soul, being concerned about their eternal

00:13:46.200 salvation. Because these pro-abortion politicians, these politicians who are supporting murder,

00:13:50.640 they threaten their own salvation. And if the church doesn't call them back as a loving father

00:13:57.520 to right relationship with Christ and his church, that doesn't show a loving attitude.

00:14:04.360 When any father allows his child to go off and do something super dangerous without warning him

00:14:11.000 strenuously that there's a problem, it doesn't show a good caring father. The good caring father

00:14:18.700 does the hard job of disciplining children. And you know, there's another apropos teaching from Saint

00:14:26.300 Paul to mention at this time. He said in Galatians 1.8, but though we or an angel from heaven would

00:14:36.300 preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. And that, 0.86

00:14:43.200 my friends, is the situation we face today with teaching that is not at all related to what the

00:14:51.520 Catholic Church truly teaches. For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston. May God bless you. Remember,

00:14:58.700 pray for the conversion of Pope Francis.

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The John-Henry Westen Show - September 22, 2021

Pope Francis praises pro-abortion President and backs communion for pro-abort politicians

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