The John-Henry Westen Show - January 08, 2026


Pope Leo's Former Classmate WARNS： ＂This is NOT the Catholic Church＂


Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

143.27876

Word count

3,819

Sentence count

313

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

18

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Join Tony and Dr. William Anthony Thomas as he unpacks the most important word in the Catholic Church: Synodality. Dr. Thomas explains the meaning of the word, how it came about, and why it has been a disaster for the church.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Synodality has been disastrous for the Catholic Church. 1.00
00:00:03.720 St. Paul would say, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. 1.00
00:00:07.620 It's rubbish. 1.00
00:00:08.760 No bishop who has a spine can accept this. 1.00
00:00:14.300 We have figured it out.
00:00:15.980 We have figured out, thanks to our guest, the meaning of synodality.
00:00:20.220 Everybody is asked, what is synodality mean?
00:00:23.340 We have the synod on synodality.
00:00:24.800 It's become the most important word in church today.
00:00:27.820 And everybody's wondering what does it mean?
00:00:29.480 No one can define it.
00:00:30.540 We've found someone who can.
00:00:31.880 Dr. William Anthony Thomas, thank you for joining us, Tony.
00:00:34.740 God bless you.
00:00:35.480 Yes.
00:00:36.200 Let's begin as you always do, with the sign of the cross. 0.56
00:00:38.880 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
00:00:42.280 Amen.
00:00:42.700 Amen.
00:00:43.280 You are a professor here in Rome.
00:00:45.660 You are a Mariologist. 0.97
00:00:48.600 But most stunningly, you know what synodality means.
00:00:53.740 This is quite the burning question on so many minds.
00:00:56.680 A lot of talk shows have talked about it.
00:00:58.980 What is synodality?
00:01:00.840 Tell us what it is.
00:01:02.120 Where does it come from?
00:01:03.260 And what's the meaning of it?
00:01:04.640 It originated after a meeting between Justin Welby and Pope Francis, or Papa Bergoglio,
00:01:13.780 as he's known here in Rome.
00:01:15.240 Justin Welby, the former head of the Church of England.
00:01:18.060 Yes.
00:01:18.600 Okay.
00:01:18.920 Who described how they made decisions in the Church of England, using the laity.
00:01:25.980 And this is why, one of the reasons why they changed the names of the congregations.
00:01:31.200 They were known as sacred congregations.
00:01:33.380 Now they're called dicasteries.
00:01:36.340 And the word dicastery comes from the Greek dicasterion, meaning with the laity.
00:01:42.840 And so we have these new dicasteries for different things.
00:01:48.200 On my computer, when I write dicastery, the autocorrect puts in disaster.
00:01:54.440 Okay, this is really good, because you're unpacking a lot of different things.
00:02:01.720 So everybody knows that forever and ever, we call this the, well, actually it was called
00:02:06.160 the Holy Office.
00:02:07.020 But then it was called, for the longest time, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
00:02:11.300 And as you said, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.
00:02:14.540 But then, under Francis, it was changed to dicastery.
00:02:17.760 And this was a big deal for all the reporters.
00:02:19.240 We had to switch all of our parlance and everything else from the CDF to the DDF now.
00:02:23.820 And it was awkward.
00:02:24.940 But there's a meaning to it that's related to this synodality concept.
00:02:29.900 Yes.
00:02:30.620 And it was a misinterpretation of the Second Vatican Council, a misinterpretation of, in
00:02:36.480 many ways, the use of the laity.
00:02:39.080 I don't have a problem, as a member of the Pontifical Academy myself, and working with
00:02:45.820 other dicasteries in the Holy See, because I'm a lay person, but I'm a lay person with
00:02:53.940 a competence.
00:02:55.360 And that's the difference.
00:02:56.720 It's not about a political equality, where we have to have so many men and so many women,
00:03:02.940 and there has to be equality in numbers.
00:03:05.480 This is purely nonsense.
00:03:06.840 And this should not be the case.
00:03:09.920 But under the Bergoglio pontificate, this is what he wanted, to bring in people, many
00:03:17.220 of them have no competence at all, or they have other agendas that are not Catholic.
00:03:23.380 Justin Welby comes in and explains this to Pope Francis.
00:03:28.340 And how did that go?
00:03:29.960 How was that adopted?
00:03:31.780 And how do you even know the story?
00:03:32.960 Rome is a rumor mill, if you want.
00:03:35.740 It's not only the listening post for Catholic things that happen around the world, where
00:03:42.240 you hear everything.
00:03:43.900 I remember back in the 80s, a particular high-ranking cleric phoned me from Ireland every night at
00:03:51.040 eight o'clock.
00:03:51.940 I had cold dinners for 20 years, because this man phoned me at eight o'clock, which is the
00:03:58.860 time of our dinner here, what we call Chena.
00:04:01.460 And he wanted to know, he phoned from Dublin, what was happening in Ireland.
00:04:07.960 So he was in the thick of the woods, and the listening post of Rome knew everything, what
00:04:14.300 was going on.
00:04:15.360 And therefore, Rome knows, because so many people are involved in so many different aspects
00:04:22.100 of the church's life that we say, what's going on in China, what's going on in Russia, who
00:04:28.200 is this, that, and the other.
00:04:30.060 And it is the business of the church to know that.
00:04:33.420 And therefore, when you hear and when you see, I mean, the optics, for example, when Justin
00:04:40.540 Welby came to Rome, one of the first things Bergoglio did was to bow down and ask for his blessing.
00:04:48.940 And of course, the man was not validly ordained.
00:04:52.140 According to Mary del Val, the apostolic succession was interrupted during the so-called
00:04:57.940 Reformation.
00:04:58.640 So the Catholic Church doesn't actually recognize the validity of orders of the Anglicans, because
00:05:07.260 it was a break.
00:05:08.760 And if you go back, and I hope people do go back and study what happened when this break
00:05:15.760 happened where one priest ordained the other as archbishop, it's a nonsense.
00:05:21.140 And therefore, their orders have no validity.
00:05:24.220 And for the Pope to bow down and ask this man, well, he had no ecclesiology.
00:05:31.060 Papa Bergoglio had no idea of theology.
00:05:35.600 And I say that based on his pontificate, which for me, and this is my opinion, is a failed
00:05:43.120 pontificate.
00:05:44.880 It was a pontificate of confusion, of ambiguity, of paradoxes.
00:05:51.180 A pontificate, I hope, will not be continued under the present pontificate.
00:05:58.140 Pope Leo XIV is the Pope, but he's Leo XIV.
00:06:03.840 He's not Francis II, nor should he become Francis II.
00:06:09.140 His loyalty is to Christ, not to Bergoglio.
00:06:13.340 He cannot continue that pontificate.
00:06:16.060 It has been disastrous for the Catholic Church from the beginning to the end of it.
00:06:22.360 Even the poor man in his long johns appeared before he died in St. Peter's.
00:06:28.180 That was an absolute disgrace.
00:06:30.420 His whole pontificate was really designed to debase the papacy.
00:06:34.820 Strong words from a professor who is here.
00:06:37.800 That here that there can be strong words from a professor who is here.
00:06:41.100 The time of equivocation, the time of confusion must end.
00:06:46.640 We must state what it is, and we must correct it.
00:06:52.720 And I know that many people have suffered under the pontificate of Pope Bergoglio, Pope Francis.
00:07:00.600 If they criticized him, they went after the particular professors and fired them.
00:07:05.380 Or they were suppressed, or they were kicked out of the episcopacy.
00:07:10.020 There are many bishops who lost their sea.
00:07:13.760 And I remember one bishop in Puerto Rico.
00:07:18.700 He said that, you know, it's entirely up to you to take this COVID vaccine.
00:07:25.560 It's entirely up to you.
00:07:26.940 And he was removed.
00:07:28.860 And this was the level of dictatorship that we had here in Rome.
00:07:33.540 Many of the Swiss guards left rather than take the vaccine.
00:07:38.560 And quite rightly so.
00:07:40.040 Because in 2008, Pope Benedict listed seven new sins.
00:07:44.860 One of those had to do with genetic modification and genetic engineering of the human person.
00:07:52.920 The injection of experimental drugs on the human person.
00:07:56.460 And we find that this vaccine that came in COVID, nobody knew the effect of the sudden death syndrome that is prevalent around the world.
00:08:07.840 The long COVID, the sicknesses that people have endured from that.
00:08:12.200 And these drug companies, big pharma, we call them, have made billions upon billions upon billions.
00:08:20.060 And at the same time, through their lawyers, have gained immunity from prosecution from every government through the World Health Authority and through the United Nations, both of which organizations have become totally corrupted.
00:08:36.840 It really does seem that there is a lid put on so many things that happen here in Rome that the publishers don't get to find out about.
00:08:47.400 In the normal run of things, the Pope should reside in the Apostolic Palace.
00:08:52.100 And in the Apostolic Palace, there is a regent.
00:08:54.680 And the regent makes a note of everyone who visits the Pope, when they visit, what time they come in, what time they leave.
00:09:03.960 And all of that is published in what we call the Acta Apostolicus Sedes.
00:09:09.240 But Bergoglio, because of his hatred of the previous poncifs, whom he considered rigorous, moved into Casa Santa Marta and took over the entire second floor,
00:09:22.320 which meant, effectively, nobody else could live in the building while he was there.
00:09:27.480 And they lost a lot of money from revenue.
00:09:31.700 And the cost of keeping him there was 26 million.
00:09:34.520 Some people thought, oh, he's Pope Francis.
00:09:37.160 He's the poor pope.
00:09:38.460 He loves the poor.
00:09:39.560 And he must be living in a wigwam somewhere in Vatican Gardens. 1.00
00:09:43.920 No, he had an entire floor to himself.
00:09:46.520 He said himself, the only journal I read is La Repubblica, the communist newspaper.
00:09:54.700 And he was meeting people, the communist editors.
00:09:58.320 He met all kinds of other people.
00:10:00.280 He awarded abortionists.
00:10:02.560 He awarded all kinds of other people.
00:10:05.460 This was a terrible, terrible pontificate.
00:10:08.520 I mean, we watched it play out.
00:10:10.880 It was play by play.
00:10:12.140 But just to hear it in, especially from someone in the Vatican, it's both shattering but heartening.
00:10:19.540 Because finally, someone who's in a position who can voice this stuff with clarity is beautiful to hear.
00:10:29.360 Let's get back to synodality.
00:10:31.240 Because even though, so the idea comes from Justin Welby.
00:10:35.000 But you're also telling me something about Rousseau.
00:10:38.080 We have to understand philosophy.
00:10:40.680 The other day, on many occasions, I go to another classmate of mine, Mario Gretsch.
00:10:48.600 He's now the cardinal in charge of the synod of synodality.
00:10:53.640 And he knows the same professors as I knew in the Angelicum.
00:10:59.320 And now he's a cardinal.
00:11:01.180 And I'm a theologian, mariologist.
00:11:03.280 So, I said to him, you can't promote this because it's devoid of Christology.
00:11:11.240 As Pope Leo himself said, there's no template for this.
00:11:15.480 So, it's a very ambiguous, confusing movement within the church that lacks apostolicity.
00:11:23.200 It doesn't go back to the fathers.
00:11:25.640 There's no place in Scripture that says Jesus talks about synodality or the synodal church.
00:11:32.680 The synodal church is the church of England.
00:11:35.460 It's not the Catholic church, which is the one true church on earth. 1.00
00:11:40.240 And they have valid ordinations and valid apostolic succession.
00:11:45.000 When I read, and Cardinal Gretsch gave me a copy of the final document in Spanish,
00:11:51.860 and I read it, and I began to see the philosophy behind it was based on the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
00:12:00.500 And he is the father of sentimentalism.
00:12:04.820 And he wrote a book called The Social Contract.
00:12:08.740 And synodality is almost page for page of the social contract of Rousseau,
00:12:14.580 who scoops out the entire notion of Christianity in Europe
00:12:18.800 and prepares Europe for that bloody revolution that we had in France.
00:12:23.600 Explain to us, what is sentimentality? What is that?
00:12:26.380 Well, it's all about feelings, emotions.
00:12:29.020 Somebody says, oh, this is sinful, this is wrong, this is mortal, this will destroy your soul, and so on.
00:12:38.940 You cannot say this nowadays, because you will hurt people.
00:12:44.840 You will hurt their sentiment, you see?
00:12:47.760 So anything goes.
00:12:49.420 Well, this is nonsense, and as St. Paul would say, 1.00
00:12:53.340 rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. 1.00
00:12:55.700 That's exactly what it is. 1.00
00:12:57.480 It's rubbish, and I denounce it right from the beginning, 0.96
00:13:02.400 and I told Cardinal Gretsch, this is going nowhere. 0.99
00:13:06.240 No bishop who has a spine can accept this.
00:13:10.380 It must stop.
00:13:11.920 What the church needs is a revival movement,
00:13:15.320 a revival through catechesis,
00:13:17.740 a revival through faith in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of the world,
00:13:22.700 a revival in authentic Marian devotion,
00:13:25.740 a revival in the sacramental life.
00:13:28.940 It doesn't need something other that distracts and takes away the divine
00:13:34.580 into this human sentimentality of listening to one another,
00:13:39.660 of encouraging one another.
00:13:41.400 That is not what Christ had envisaged.
00:13:45.840 The mandate is to go out to the whole world and teach the good news,
00:13:50.740 tell the good news that the Redeemer of the world has, in fact, redeemed.
00:13:55.440 By His passion and death and resurrection,
00:13:58.340 He is resurrected now from the dead.
00:14:00.820 And therefore, the gates of heaven are open to those who follow Him.
00:14:05.820 He is the way, the truth, and the life.
00:14:08.780 For U.S. residents, creating a will has never been easier.
00:14:13.620 Thanks to My Legacy Will, an online platform free of charge,
00:14:17.600 you can now create your own will and choose to include LifeSite News in it.
00:14:22.160 Specify where your funeral will take place,
00:14:24.540 the number of masses to be offered for your soul,
00:14:26.900 and how your estate would be distributed.
00:14:29.240 We would be deeply grateful if you remembered LifeSite News in your will.
00:14:33.660 Visit MyLegacyWill.com slash LifeSiteNews.
00:14:37.120 Thank you for your support, and may God bless you.
00:14:41.700 This concept so underlies everything that's going on wrong in the Church.
00:14:50.860 It's the same concept that says,
00:14:53.660 oh, we can't say the Jews need to accept Jesus to be saved.
00:14:58.460 We can't deny the Muslims a prayer room, even inside the Vatican.
00:15:03.680 We can't explain to Fr. James Martin,
00:15:07.000 no, you can't lead them down that path that leads to eternal damnation.
00:15:11.080 It totally undermined the whole of the faith, as you just described it,
00:15:15.840 which, as you were saying, it was like,
00:15:17.820 oh, there it is, that's the faith that I knew from my youth.
00:15:21.460 But it seems to be honestly gone in a way that
00:15:24.420 the modern priest, bishop, cardinal, and higher than that even,
00:15:29.940 all seem to be on this different path.
00:15:34.380 And that's it, as sentimentality,
00:15:36.720 as synodality, as sentimentality,
00:15:39.520 as let's not hurt people's feelings.
00:15:41.420 It's about feelings now.
00:15:43.740 So feelings have replaced the truth.
00:15:46.760 And the truth is that man has the capacity to be sinful
00:15:50.660 and in a sense of mortal sin.
00:15:54.380 And in that habitual sense of mortal sin,
00:15:57.320 he invites the demons who roam around the whole world
00:16:00.740 seeking the ruin of souls to enter into their soul. 0.72
00:16:05.260 And their souls become putrid and ugly
00:16:08.240 and other, something other than what God expects
00:16:11.680 and what God has created.
00:16:13.520 And that ugliness in the soul wants to externalize its ugliness.
00:16:19.260 And so we have this concept of self-uglification.
00:16:23.720 We have these tattoos, which are demonic.
00:16:27.000 We have studs in the eyes and the ears and the noses. 0.98
00:16:30.800 And now they have rings in the noses like the pigs. 0.99
00:16:33.620 And this is absurd. 0.99
00:16:36.820 And this, again, has never been denounced,
00:16:39.140 despite the fact that in the Old Testament,
00:16:43.380 in Jeremiah, we are told not to tattoo the body.
00:16:47.760 But they want to do it.
00:16:49.820 But the church should have eyes in which to see
00:16:53.240 that this level of putridness,
00:16:56.780 spiritual putridness, is widespread. 0.98
00:16:59.800 And this is why Christianity is dying in Europe. 0.97
00:17:04.560 It's growing in other parts of the world.
00:17:06.640 But it's dying in Europe for many reasons.
00:17:09.980 One is the perceived and orchestrated lack of vocations
00:17:14.860 to create a void so that women can come in into ministry 1.00
00:17:19.360 or the married clergy into ministry.
00:17:22.480 Jesus has never stopped calling people to be priests.
00:17:25.740 Never.
00:17:27.780 And many are called.
00:17:29.220 Okay.
00:17:29.720 Few are chosen.
00:17:30.860 Okay.
00:17:31.620 But the vocations are always there.
00:17:34.980 I mean, you look 50 years ago,
00:17:37.100 the number of priests that were there.
00:17:39.500 Men of prayer came from good Catholic families.
00:17:42.380 If you destroy the Catholic family, 0.52
00:17:44.340 you destroy the vocation,
00:17:46.180 the dispensation of grace,
00:17:48.240 and so on and so forth.
00:17:49.560 So Catholic families have been destroyed,
00:17:51.940 of course.
00:17:52.560 But nevertheless, vocations are there.
00:17:55.380 There are many men out there as laymen
00:17:58.260 who have vocations as a priesthood,
00:18:00.640 but because they are orthodox in their belief
00:18:03.660 and they believe in the rosary
00:18:05.140 and they believe in the power of prayer,
00:18:07.280 they are rejected by the bishops,
00:18:10.240 many of whom are spineless.
00:18:12.860 Many of them I know personally.
00:18:15.380 I have written to many of them.
00:18:17.000 And this is a sad reality
00:18:20.220 because even when we read the gospel,
00:18:24.020 and this is the wrong word, by the way,
00:18:26.000 we must proclaim the gospel.
00:18:28.100 If you look at the way it's written,
00:18:30.560 the genre, the style,
00:18:32.640 it's a proclamation of victory over sin and death.
00:18:35.940 So when the priest goes up,
00:18:37.780 he should say a proclamation of the holy gospel
00:18:40.760 according to John or Mark or Luke or Matthew,
00:18:45.160 and then proclaim it.
00:18:46.860 That's when it penetrates the heart.
00:18:49.740 That's when people switch on,
00:18:52.580 when it's proclaimed.
00:18:53.640 If they go up and they read it,
00:18:55.400 most people, 99.99% walk out of the church.
00:19:00.060 They cannot remember what the gospel was of that day
00:19:03.680 because it was read.
00:19:04.820 If families took on this same idea,
00:19:08.500 which many have,
00:19:10.560 you would get this kind of parenting
00:19:14.180 that's non-directive.
00:19:15.660 Oh yeah, we don't hurt your feelings.
00:19:17.500 I've watched it play out.
00:19:18.700 We have eight kids.
00:19:19.880 We had six boys,
00:19:20.580 so we were cured of that quickly
00:19:22.220 because you let the boys do it,
00:19:24.040 it's mayhem.
00:19:25.140 But I've watched this go on.
00:19:26.580 I've watched mothers
00:19:27.520 torturously trying in the store
00:19:30.640 to help their kids
00:19:32.000 and not to ever correct them.
00:19:34.300 Oh yeah,
00:19:36.000 you don't,
00:19:37.220 you really do,
00:19:38.360 you don't want that.
00:19:39.040 You do want it.
00:19:40.000 It's a knife and it's sharp.
00:19:41.480 I know you want,
00:19:42.180 but,
00:19:42.500 and they're killing themselves
00:19:44.200 trying not to hurt the feelings.
00:19:46.420 But the kids are going to get hurt.
00:19:48.380 Of course.
00:19:49.180 And when this goes on and on and on,
00:19:51.180 their kids go off the rails.
00:19:52.860 What happens though in reality,
00:19:54.580 and I'd love to see your insight on this
00:19:57.080 because in reality what happens is
00:19:58.740 that's the way it starts.
00:20:00.540 Eventually the parent gets mad
00:20:02.300 and really hurts the child
00:20:05.260 because that only goes so long.
00:20:08.960 This,
00:20:09.460 oh yeah,
00:20:10.360 it's okay.
00:20:11.280 You hit mommy.
00:20:12.280 Okay.
00:20:13.140 And once there's nobody around,
00:20:15.520 the patient's exhausted
00:20:16.880 and then you snap.
00:20:19.300 Is there anything like that
00:20:20.620 in the church as well?
00:20:21.940 Well,
00:20:22.380 we had discipline once upon a time.
00:20:24.740 In an extraordinary way,
00:20:26.540 most vocations to the Catholic priesthood
00:20:28.940 and the religious life
00:20:30.400 are coming from those young people
00:20:32.660 who seek that type of discipline.
00:20:34.580 In the present European context,
00:20:38.620 there's very little discipline
00:20:40.080 in the priesthood
00:20:41.160 and in the formation.
00:20:43.660 In fact,
00:20:44.560 there is more of an emphasis on,
00:20:47.180 as Bergoglio would call it,
00:20:49.160 he hated rigorists.
00:20:51.340 He went around Africa
00:20:52.800 telling the bishops
00:20:54.060 not to ordain rigorous.
00:20:56.440 I don't make this stuff up,
00:20:57.920 by the way.
00:20:58.780 I read this in the dispatches
00:21:01.260 that come in
00:21:02.100 and I say,
00:21:04.100 what does he mean by a rigorist?
00:21:06.140 A rigorist for Bergoglio
00:21:07.640 was somebody who held fast
00:21:09.840 to the Catholic and apostolic faith.
00:21:12.440 He was not into that.
00:21:14.540 He wanted to create
00:21:15.760 a whole new church.
00:21:18.060 And through this movement
00:21:19.720 of synodality,
00:21:21.540 this going away
00:21:22.960 from the divine institution,
00:21:25.540 this patriarchy
00:21:26.600 of what the church is,
00:21:28.500 into creating a church
00:21:29.940 of sentimentality,
00:21:31.580 of feelings,
00:21:32.780 of emotions,
00:21:34.280 of loving one another,
00:21:35.500 of listening to one another,
00:21:37.140 and so on.
00:21:38.020 But God is not in the equation.
00:21:39.840 And therefore,
00:21:41.720 what was proposed
00:21:43.060 and is proposed
00:21:44.140 is not Catholic 0.94
00:21:45.320 and must be rejected.
00:21:47.660 And the way
00:21:48.080 the good Catholic faithful
00:21:49.540 can do it
00:21:50.480 is to express
00:21:52.660 their senses fide
00:21:53.900 by writing
00:21:55.700 one letter
00:21:57.620 or two or three or four
00:21:59.960 once a month
00:22:01.160 to the Holy See
00:22:03.740 and saying,
00:22:04.960 I reject synodality.
00:22:07.960 Whatever about the bishop,
00:22:09.360 the bishops will row along
00:22:10.880 with what Rome says
00:22:12.460 because if they don't,
00:22:13.480 they get kicked out.
00:22:14.620 And I'll probably be kicked out
00:22:16.060 after this interview.
00:22:17.360 But nevertheless,
00:22:18.680 it's time to speak up.
00:22:21.120 And I would say
00:22:22.140 my sense of the faith
00:22:24.320 has been brutalized
00:22:26.560 by the last 13 years
00:22:29.080 of a pontificate
00:22:30.160 that was
00:22:31.160 absolutely disgraceful
00:22:33.260 when I saw
00:22:35.560 the debasement
00:22:36.800 of the papacy.
00:22:38.480 They're trying to say
00:22:39.560 that synodality
00:22:41.060 comes from
00:22:41.760 the Second Vatican Council.
00:22:43.420 This is a lie.
00:22:45.460 This is not true.
00:22:47.760 This is an invention.
00:22:50.160 And therefore,
00:22:50.780 I would say
00:22:51.220 to the Catholic faithful,
00:22:53.000 write
00:22:53.220 and tell them
00:22:54.140 you reject it.
00:22:55.500 And when they get
00:22:56.460 100 or 200
00:22:57.700 or 300 million letters,
00:22:59.980 they might switch on
00:23:01.520 that the sense
00:23:02.580 of the faithful
00:23:03.320 has been disturbed here.
00:23:06.300 This is not the work
00:23:07.660 of the Holy Spirit.
00:23:08.980 So from the inside
00:23:10.240 of the church
00:23:10.760 as it were,
00:23:11.180 because you're a professor,
00:23:12.160 you're involved
00:23:12.980 with a lot of the very prelates
00:23:14.680 that we know of
00:23:16.100 and that are
00:23:16.600 really in the headlines.
00:23:18.000 You went to school
00:23:18.920 even with Pope Leo.
00:23:20.320 You think writing
00:23:21.240 still works?
00:23:22.080 And where should
00:23:22.540 they write exactly?
00:23:23.580 They can address it
00:23:24.700 to Pope Leo XIV,
00:23:26.460 care of Vatican City,
00:23:28.000 Europe.
00:23:29.540 Wow.
00:23:30.700 And a simple thing,
00:23:31.900 I don't agree with it.
00:23:33.540 Or we need
00:23:35.080 a Pope Leo XIV
00:23:36.760 who's independent
00:23:38.060 of Pope Bergoglio.
00:23:40.060 We don't want
00:23:41.020 a continuation
00:23:41.700 of this pontificate.
00:23:43.540 That's all they have to say.
00:23:45.100 And they'll get the message
00:23:46.260 one way or the other.
00:23:48.420 And then you express
00:23:49.660 your faith that way
00:23:50.980 on one radio show
00:23:52.360 some years ago.
00:23:53.720 This may sound
00:23:54.440 awfully cynical,
00:23:56.400 but I was asked
00:23:57.180 to describe bishops.
00:23:59.060 Would they be
00:23:59.660 good bank managers?
00:24:01.180 Would they be...
00:24:02.800 I'm talking about
00:24:03.760 the modern bishops.
00:24:04.840 I'm not talking about
00:24:05.740 the real bishops
00:24:07.980 like Bishop Strickland
00:24:09.280 or others like him,
00:24:11.800 Athanasius Schneider
00:24:13.180 or Bishop
00:24:14.240 Marian Elegante,
00:24:16.880 a wonderful man
00:24:17.920 and so on.
00:24:18.980 I'm not talking
00:24:19.720 about them.
00:24:20.420 I'm talking about
00:24:21.140 the ordinary guy
00:24:22.680 who has nothing to say,
00:24:24.220 who's afraid of anybody
00:24:25.460 who comes forward
00:24:26.220 and says,
00:24:26.540 I want to be a priest.
00:24:27.980 He'd sooner shut down
00:24:29.020 the parishes
00:24:29.660 or amalgamate them
00:24:31.260 and all of that.
00:24:32.500 So I was asked
00:24:33.000 to describe
00:24:33.520 what did I think of them.
00:24:35.500 I said,
00:24:35.860 well,
00:24:36.100 the only comparison
00:24:37.840 I can describe
00:24:38.960 a bishop,
00:24:39.760 a modern bishop
00:24:40.940 under Bergoglio
00:24:41.840 is that of a jellyfish
00:24:43.840 and the jellyfish
00:24:46.160 has no spine.
00:24:48.300 The jellyfish
00:24:49.360 has no heart.
00:24:50.780 That doesn't bother it
00:24:52.040 because it's got 0.99
00:24:52.740 no brains either. 0.99
00:24:55.000 And if a bishop 0.97
00:24:56.400 as a successor
00:24:58.100 to the apostles
00:24:59.540 has his fidelity
00:25:01.180 in Jesus Christ,
00:25:03.220 not in a wayward pontificate,
00:25:06.880 but in Jesus Christ,
00:25:08.460 he will give his life
00:25:09.760 for Christ
00:25:10.360 as the early apostles did.
00:25:12.600 And that's the sort
00:25:13.580 of backbone
00:25:14.320 like Cardinal von Gallen
00:25:16.340 and many other
00:25:17.500 great bishops
00:25:18.220 stood up to tyranny.
00:25:20.080 That's what they should do.
00:25:21.840 And I call on the bishops
00:25:23.440 of the world
00:25:24.220 to stand up
00:25:25.780 and to face
00:25:27.500 the reality
00:25:28.360 of the chaos
00:25:29.580 that exists
00:25:30.380 in the church today
00:25:31.740 and to say,
00:25:33.080 enough is enough.
00:25:34.660 We need clarity.
00:25:36.080 We need truthfulness.
00:25:37.700 We need a plan
00:25:39.060 to go forward,
00:25:40.600 not synodality.
00:25:42.440 It doesn't play any role.
00:25:44.280 It will destroy
00:25:45.060 the church from within.
00:25:46.560 Professor Thomas,
00:25:47.420 thank you so very much.
00:25:48.420 I can't thank you enough.
00:25:50.020 We need that.
00:25:51.000 I pray that the bishops
00:25:52.080 heed your message,
00:25:53.620 your exhortation to them.
00:25:55.740 And we'll be having you
00:25:56.880 back here very soon.
00:25:57.980 Thank you.
00:25:58.380 God bless you.
00:25:59.340 God bless all of you.
00:26:01.060 And we'll see you next time.
00:26:01.860 Hello, it's Fr. David Nix.
00:26:07.780 If you like this content,
00:26:09.020 please click the link
00:26:10.300 in the description
00:26:10.960 for more like this.
00:26:12.600 Thank you all for watching
00:26:13.540 and God bless you.
00:26:14.500 Let's see more like that.
00:26:16.040 Thank you.
00:26:25.400 Thank you.
00:26:26.100 .
00:26:26.500 .
00:26:27.140 .