The John-Henry Westen Show - Scott Hahn： Catholics can’t win by compromising with liberalism

00:00:00.160 Welcome to this special episode of the John Henry Weston Show, where we are very pleased to bring you back a guest that is very well known to you, Dr. Scott Hahn, who has actually done it again, written a book that's very timely, and we're going to want to hear about all about really what to do in our society to bring us back to sanity.

00:00:20.800 You're going to want to stay tuned.

00:00:30.000 Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.

00:00:44.720 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:00:50.080 Scott, welcome back to the program.

00:00:52.180 It's great to be with you again, John Henry.

00:00:53.720 Well, you have really a knack of writing books that pertain to the moment.

00:01:00.480 Now, that's Providence, I'm sure, but last time we spoke to you about a book about death and resurrection of the body, right in April of last year, during the height of concern about death due to coronavirus.

00:01:14.540 And here we are talking about the future for rebuilding society in the midst of what seems like societal breakdown.

00:01:23.040 Well, I would like to be able to take all the credit, but I can't.

00:01:27.700 You know, we wanted a book to come out in time for Easter, dealing with the resurrection.

00:01:32.260 So, Hope to Die, the Christian Meaning of Death, and the Resurrection of the Body seemed timely, but little did we know how timely it would prove to be with the pandemic.

00:01:40.720 And likewise, we were targeting a late fall date that would coincide with the presidential election.

00:01:46.660 But when that presidential election just happened, you know, it is right and just why the future of civilization depends upon true religion. 0.99

00:01:56.240 Again, took on a divine timeliness for which we could take no credit, but express much gratitude because the message is not only timely, but also timeless.

00:02:05.440 And I think that's what so many Catholics in America forget, that there really is a perennial philosophy.

00:02:11.640 There's a perennial teaching about the relationship between the supernatural order and the natural order.

00:02:17.840 And so easily and so frequently, these two are merged and confused.

00:02:24.340 And so, like, you know, St. Thomas would say, we distinguish to unite, not to confuse and not to separate and oppose,

00:02:32.040 but in distinguishing between the natural order, where we're humans, and the supernatural order, where we're children of God.

00:02:39.300 You know, that distinction is something that is seismic and almost impossible to exaggerate.

00:02:47.560 And so what I decided to do with my co-author and good friend, Brandon McGinley, was to seize the nettle, you know, to talk about religion.

00:02:56.780 In some ways, the most offensive topic, the most misunderstood subject, you know, and not just going back to Marx,

00:03:03.680 whom we quote in the beginning, when Marx describes religion as the opium of the masses.

00:03:08.780 But even among faithful today, and I'm reminded of what it was like to be growing up in the 70s,

00:03:15.180 where you would hear Christians singing one song like, I'm not religious, I just love the Lord, you know, or I'm not religious, I'm spiritual.

00:03:23.940 That's been much more common, say, the last 10 or 15 years.

00:03:27.440 But it's sort of like, you know, Princess Bride.

00:03:29.520 You keep using that word, but I don't think you, you know, I don't think it means what you think it means.

00:03:33.940 And so we go back to classical antiquity, you know, so that, in a sense, we press pause when it comes to the Judeo-Christian tradition,

00:03:44.140 or what we would call supernatural revelation, with regard to the true religion, the Catholic faith.

00:03:49.300 And we just look at religion through the eyes of, well, Plato and Aristotle, but especially Cicero,

00:03:55.180 and a little bit of Seneca, because it's surprising to people to discover that religion is an essential virtue.

00:04:02.980 That in the natural law tradition, you have many different virtues, and virtues are, to the soul, as far as the ancients were concerned,

00:04:12.520 what muscles are to the body, or what intelligence is to the intellect.

00:04:17.440 Virtues, what make you a vir, a man, mature, so that you can do more and more good,

00:04:22.560 more and more easily, for more and more people, that's virtue.

00:04:26.160 And there are many virtues, you know, honesty, thrift, patience, magnanimity,

00:04:29.900 but they're basically grouped under the four cardinal virtues, because cardinal means, you know, it hinges on these things.

00:04:37.120 And so prudence, and temperance, and fortitude.

00:04:40.340 But the chief moral virtue of the four cardinal virtues, for the ancients, for Augustine, for Aquinas, is justice.

00:04:47.620 Making sure that you're capable of giving to others what you owe them.

00:04:52.040 I mean, that's sort of like, plain and simple, except that we usually approach the virtue of justice from below.

00:04:59.600 Looking at, you know, the low-hanging fruit of transactional justice.

00:05:03.820 You know, you pay for your groceries before you leave.

00:05:07.080 And that is commutative justice.

00:05:09.020 And then, of course, there's a lot of discussion about social justice, the equity, the fairness that we owe to others,

00:05:15.140 especially the needy among the members of our community.

00:05:18.220 And that's distributive justice.

00:05:20.000 But it's almost entirely forgotten that there are forms of justice that are transcendent.

00:05:26.260 That is, they transcend our capacity to repay.

00:05:29.540 You can't show justice to your parents by giving them life and love, food, clothing, and shelter, and nurture.

00:05:34.980 I mean, maybe in the end, when they're dying, but even then, you're not giving them life.

00:05:40.200 So what do you do?

00:05:40.940 You honor your father and mother.

00:05:42.380 It's the virtue of pietos, piety.

00:05:45.360 Likewise with your country.

00:05:47.440 Right.

00:05:47.960 So we're in a situation right now where it seems like the world is honestly a billion miles from the concept of God.

00:05:58.860 In fact, it seems like secularism is coming on like a storm.

00:06:02.560 We are being hounded out of any kind of religious perspective in the public sphere.

00:06:10.040 It really does seem like they're invoking a state religion of anti-religion.

00:06:15.780 And yet, you're proposing this way forward.

00:06:18.280 Explain that for us, if you would, please.

00:06:20.200 Well, you know, I just feel as though Catholic Americans can end up being much more American than they are Catholic. 0.84

00:06:26.300 So you've got to go back to the basics and lay the foundation in every generation.

00:06:29.780 And so, you know, we speak in the book about this bank robber that took place in Sweden back in the 70s when two robbers took, I think, four people hostage.

00:06:41.360 And for five days until the Swedish police finally got them out with tear gas and force.

00:06:46.200 But in the trial, the world was shocked when these hostages spoke out in defense of their captors.

00:06:52.020 And that's how the Stockholm Syndrome entered our vocabulary, because we discovered something that psychologists have known.

00:06:58.760 You internalize the mentality and the way of thinking of your captors just as a coping mechanism.

00:07:06.600 Well, you know, in certain traumatic events, it's perhaps more understandable.

00:07:10.580 It's less noticeable.

00:07:11.720 But I do think in order to kind of cope with a secular society, and it's not just secular, it's secularistic.

00:07:19.080 That is to say, it regards religion as irrelevant, purely relativistic, and downright dangerous if you dare to bring it out of the public square to conduct social discourse.

00:07:30.060 And so how do you cope with that?

00:07:32.000 Well, you privatize your religion.

00:07:34.020 And you adopt a notion of religion that is inherently relativistic, and you do it gradually.

00:07:40.200 You do it without even noticing it.

00:07:42.860 And so suddenly, you know, we wake up and we're outraged.

00:07:47.040 And, you know, we are offended because we're not able to exercise our rights as Americans.

00:07:51.960 You know, forgetting some of the admonitions of the New Testament.

00:07:55.240 Don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come upon you.

00:07:58.740 You know, look at the Lord and recognize that he basically achieved his kingship through the Paschal mystery, through the death and the resurrection.

00:08:09.400 But, I mean, through a torturous death, we sort of glamorize crucifixion with jewelry, forgetting that it was devised as the most perfect form of torture to bring someone to the state of shock, but keep them from lapsing into unconsciousness.

00:08:25.660 Not just for hours, but sometimes for days.

00:08:28.120 And there were no loincloths back then, so it wasn't only excruciating, it was extraordinarily humiliating, out in public.

00:08:35.280 And if this is how God achieves the redemption of the world, then we should see, as members of his mystical body, that we're called upon to suffer.

00:08:44.600 He didn't suffer and die to exempt us or spare us, but rather to endow our meager sufferings with a redemptive capacity that they would never have on their own.

00:08:53.220 And so, again, we shouldn't be terribly surprised that what was known for centuries as liberalism, that was really inherently, but in a disguise, a form of virulent secularism.

00:09:05.620 And the agenda, the narrative was always progressive, that as we distance ourselves from religion, we approach more and more freedom.

00:09:15.380 And, I mean, there's so many flaws with that way of thinking, you almost have to go back to the alphabet, the multiplication tables.

00:09:22.120 And that's why we're looking at the virtue of religion as the highest form of justice.

00:09:28.400 It is right and just isn't just a line lifted from the liturgy.

00:09:32.440 I mean, it is a truism, except that people don't realize that if it is right and just to give God thanks and praise always and everywhere, it's our duty, but it's also our salvation, then just look at what's implied.

00:09:44.700 It would be wrong and unjust not to give God thanks and praise.

00:09:50.240 And it's not like a misdemeanor.

00:09:51.740 It's a felony.

00:09:52.460 It's not just a venial sin.

00:09:54.080 It's mortal.

00:09:55.060 It's not just for individuals.

00:09:56.720 It's also for societies.

00:09:58.560 And the catechism is pretty clear on this point.

00:10:01.640 If I could just quote for a moment, paragraph 2105, where we read that the duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially.

00:10:12.040 This is the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one church of Christ.

00:10:22.520 Then it goes on to quote Vatican II, by constantly evangelizing people, the church works toward enabling them to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, but also the laws and the structures of the communities in which they live.

00:10:36.380 The social duty of Christians is to respect and awaken in each person the love of the true and the good.

00:10:42.620 And it goes on to talk about the true religion and the social kingship of Jesus Christ.

00:10:47.600 It also acknowledges freedom and other things, too.

00:10:50.520 But it's like we've got to get back to that and recognize that all of this is inherent in the parting words that Jesus gave the disciples when he said in the Great Commission of Matthew 28.

00:11:01.020 He said, hey, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

00:11:04.160 He doesn't say all authority in heaven and earth will be given to me at the end of time.

00:11:08.640 It is now mine.

00:11:10.000 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, not just in all nations, but the ethne themselves.

00:11:16.480 The communities are to become followers, faithful followers of Jesus.

00:11:21.520 And he speaks of baptism, but also of teaching them whatsoever I have commanded you.

00:11:25.820 And it's like not just the common denominator, you know, not just the social justice or the private morality that we have overlapping still, although it's shrinking.

00:11:36.520 No, whatsoever Christ has commanded.

00:11:38.800 And then we obey.

00:11:40.840 You know, it's like Mother Teresa, faithfulness, not success.

00:11:44.100 You know, let the angels do the actuarial tables to figure out whether it's likely or not.

00:11:48.220 But in sending them forth to the Roman Empire, talk about a pagan culture of death, their odds were zilch. 0.97

00:11:55.580 And yet against all those odds, somehow over the course of generations, the apostles and their successors succeeded.

00:12:02.320 And not all of them were faithful.

00:12:03.840 Most of them weren't martyred.

00:12:05.480 It was just everyday life, marriage and family and friendship and neighborhood.

00:12:09.520 And I think we've got to get that ball moving again.

00:12:11.580 I think we've got to recognize that a lot of these sacred mysteries that we call Catholic doctrine have sort of faded away so that most of what we think about are the social and the political controversies and how to employ a sort of minimalist, reductionist approach, natural law.

00:12:28.860 Let's find the common ground.

00:12:30.700 Okay, it's shrinking.

00:12:31.680 What do we do now?

00:12:32.740 You know, and I just think it's time for us to say, hey, for better, for worse, let's be faithful.

00:12:38.140 We're not going to win by compromising.

00:12:40.560 So let's not compromise.

00:12:42.880 Absolutely.

00:12:43.880 It's so awesome to hear you say this.

00:12:46.920 It's so awesome to hear you announce, too, that this is not a new thing.

00:12:51.260 This has been the constant tradition of the Church.

00:12:53.980 It has seemed like for many years now, particularly probably 60 years or so, we seem to have abandoned that concept in regular society.

00:13:04.700 It is time to bring it back.

00:13:06.360 It's so radical, though, because, I mean, the great thought out there says, oh, how could you ever possibly do this?

00:13:13.780 You're in a pluralistic society.

00:13:15.640 You have to respect all the religions that are out there, by the way, now including Satanism. 0.83

00:13:20.780 And how are we supposed to live in a society where you're pushing your one tiny religious view and you're so extreme, hardly any even of your own leadership in your church believe what you're saying right now?

00:13:34.000 How would you respond to them?

00:13:35.120 Well, one of my favorite illustrations in the book is the wrong way run of the defensive end for the Vikings, Jim Marshall.

00:13:42.560 Back in the early 60s, he was already breaking records and he has four or five in the NFL, but he's never made it into the Hall of Fame, probably because of this one event where he picked up one of the 30 fumbles that he recovered.

00:13:57.560 He holds the record for recovered fumbles, but this time Billy Kilmer fumbled for the 49ers.

00:14:03.120 He ran it back to the end zone, celebrated it by tossing the ball and promptly gave two points to the 49ers because he ran the wrong way.

00:14:11.140 And so they scored a safety.

00:14:13.800 And, you know, you think about that.

00:14:15.820 He wasn't out to betray his teammates.

00:14:18.080 We tend to act in terms of what we think is right.

00:14:21.180 And on the football field of life, I think many Catholics believe that pluralism is the prescription.

00:14:27.740 And I would say, no, pluralism is the description.

00:14:31.580 Pluralism is the empirical fact of our everyday life.

00:14:34.400 And we've got to get used to it at one level, but at the same time, we should recognize that pluralism is the problem, not the solution.

00:14:42.300 And when Jesus says, make disciples of all nations, he adds in the end, and I am with you to the end of the age.

00:14:50.160 And so when I came out with this sort of book, you know, it was really the flip side of a book that we did about, oh, three years ago for Emmaus Road called The First Society, The Sacrament of Matrimony and the Restoration of the Social Order,

00:15:03.320 where I indicate that it's not by taking over the Capitol or, well, I didn't use that illustration back then.

00:15:09.400 It's just simply by living the sacraments, in particular for most Catholics, living the sacrament of matrimony.

00:15:15.680 And I hearken back to Father Keefe in my doctoral seminar, my first society on religion and society.

00:15:21.880 That was when Newhouse had just come out with the book, The Naked Public Square.

00:15:25.660 He was still a Lutheran, hadn't become a Catholic or a priest, but he was sort of approaching this through John Courtney Murray and others just saying,

00:15:32.940 okay, we should all be allowed to bring out into the public square our beliefs and have those inform our voting.

00:15:39.260 And so in the doctoral seminar, we were half Catholic and half evangelical, and I was still a Protestant, but I was en route to the Catholic faith.

00:15:48.040 And so as we were debating and discussing this, Keefe just sort of opined unexpectedly.

00:15:53.580 Staring out the window, he said, you know, if Catholics simply live the grace of matrimony,

00:15:58.040 for one generation, the result would be a transformed society, a Christian social order.

00:16:04.420 Oh, but I digress.

00:16:05.360 And he went back to his notes and I'm like, keep digressing.

00:16:08.900 What in the world was that?

00:16:09.840 It was like a flash of lightning, you know, on a bright, sunny June day.

00:16:13.420 And I've thought about that ever since, because I'm convinced that the sacraments

00:16:18.360 have this capacity to form a civilization, the likes of which we haven't yet really seen.

00:16:25.380 Okay, the Roman Empire became christened, hardly utopian, and that's not what we're looking for anyway.

00:16:31.600 But the fact is, you have in religion generally, this capacity, this potential to form civilizations.

00:16:40.240 But in a true religion, the natural capacity of religion is suddenly elevated.

00:16:46.080 Now, granted, this won't happen without the cross, and not just back then, but right now. 0.95

00:16:51.660 And it won't happen until Jesus doesn't just resign himself to embrace, to carry the cross,

00:16:56.740 but he has to embrace it as his father's will, and so do we.

00:17:01.120 And really, that's the hard part, because, you know, we want all of the things to be added

00:17:06.400 as a result of the kingdom of heaven being present.

00:17:09.240 But our Lord says, you seek first the kingdom of heaven, then all these things will be added.

00:17:14.260 Or as Pope Benedict said of the French Academy, it's one of my favorite parts of the book,

00:17:18.200 where he's looking at how European civilization had once been christened.

00:17:23.440 It was a Christian family of nations, and they didn't even think of themselves as nations primarily,

00:17:29.660 but just states, and they formed a family that was sacramental.

00:17:34.560 And how did it happen?

00:17:36.060 Well, we formed this political party, and then political action groups, and then we funded it.

00:17:39.960 No, it was the Cluniac Reform, among other things, where well over a thousand monasteries

00:17:45.620 were established by people who wanted to worship God, and to seek first the kingdom of heaven,

00:17:51.720 and then the unintended consequence was Christendom, the byproduct.

00:17:57.060 And this is exactly what I think our Lord is speaking of in the Sermon on the Mount,

00:18:00.540 and it's what we tend to forget, or we reverse that.

00:18:04.620 You know, the tail ends up wagging the dog in the sense that, you know,

00:18:07.980 if we seek first the Catholic faith for political ends, you know,

00:18:12.740 if we seek first all of the things that we want to be added, want God to add,

00:18:16.900 you know, we're going to end up possibly missing out on the kingdom of heaven,

00:18:19.920 and suffering the loss of all of these things that might be added.

00:18:23.580 And so, first things first, you know, heaven over earth, divine worship over human flourishing,

00:18:31.740 loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength,

00:18:35.280 more than ourselves, loving our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God,

00:18:40.320 as Augustine hastens to remind us.

00:18:42.400 So we don't just treat our neighbor the way he wants to be treated,

00:18:46.200 we treat him the way God, the Father of all of us, wants us to be loved for the love of God.

00:18:53.480 And so you go back and you realize, okay, what are we talking about?

00:18:57.080 Basically, the spiritual alphabet of the Catholic faith,

00:19:00.920 building blocks that are not like enormous temple foundation stones,

00:19:05.580 but just things that we have professed as Christians, as Catholics, most all of our lives,

00:19:11.500 we just don't realize that when they're united, when they're integrated,

00:19:15.320 they can unify my life, they can unite my spouse and me,

00:19:19.780 they can also transform our family.

00:19:23.000 You know, holiness is the key.

00:19:25.560 And holiness is contagious if it's authentic.

00:19:29.880 And so we don't draw lines and say, well, I want to be holy, but I don't care about my wife.

00:19:34.800 Of course, I want her to be a saint too, but not our kids.

00:19:37.760 Well, no, we want our kids to grow in holiness as well, but not the neighbors.

00:19:42.060 Well, we want them as well, because we're to love them as we love ourselves.

00:19:45.340 But that's where we draw the line.

00:19:47.120 It's the city of Steubenville, not the rest of Ohio.

00:19:49.760 Well, okay, it's Ohio, but not the other 49 states.

00:19:53.320 No, it's all of America, but not the other nations.

00:19:56.060 No, make disciples of all nations makes that a non-option.

00:20:00.440 And so it really is assembling our beliefs and realizing that all of this was hiding in plain view.

00:20:07.440 All we got to do is turn around and recognize, okay, these building blocks have got to be reassembled,

00:20:15.520 and we're going to do it in order to get home to heaven, the kingdom of heaven.

00:20:19.940 And in the process, we'll let the chips fall where they may.

00:20:22.620 We're going to be good Americans, but we're going to remember what Paul told the Philippians in Philippians 3.20.

00:20:28.940 He said, our citizenship is in heaven.

00:20:31.120 And he uses the technical Greek term for Roman citizenship, polytuma, but he's reminding the Philippians that they have dual citizenship.

00:20:41.940 They're Philippians, but they're also children of God called to be saints.

00:20:46.240 And so we're Americans, but first and foremost, we're Catholics called to be saints.

00:20:50.920 And so we've got to think in terms of election cycles.

00:20:53.620 But as Catholics, we also have to think in terms of generations and centuries because that's what Mother Church is teaching us.

00:20:59.180 And if we do that, we're going to plant the fall crops so that we have food in the winter.

00:21:03.700 But we're also going to plant forests we might never live long enough to see so that our grandkids, and now we have 20 of those, and so we've got skin in the game.

00:21:11.920 But our grandkids are going to end up with wood to build their houses, their furniture, and to stack their fireplace so they're warm in the winter.

00:21:18.960 And it's a juggling act, to be sure.

00:21:21.600 It's hard to maintain the balance.

00:21:23.200 But with, you know, the sacraments, with spiritual correction, with an honest desire to experience the grace of conversion, not just 35 years ago when I entered the church, but, you know, three and a half hours ago when I was doing my morning prayer.

00:21:37.260 You wake up, and just as you have to be aroused from your physical slumber each day and throughout the day, we need this grace of conversion that is ongoing, it's lifelong, it's daily, it's hourly sometimes.

00:21:51.120 But it's never going to be easy if it always involves carrying a cross.

00:21:55.460 And so we should look at America and say, yeah, on the one hand, it's so much worse than we thought it would be.

00:22:01.400 On the other hand, it's causing us in that darkness to recognize that the light is much brighter than we thought it was, that the good news is infinitely greater than the bad news is horrendously bad.

00:22:14.040 But it's just natural to have this gravitational pull downward where we're just looking at the bad, and we're kind of not exaggerating it, but fixating on it, whereas we ought to be contemplating the sacred mysteries and say, wow, okay, I believed them when I was young.

00:22:29.420 But they're not only just as true as I thought they were, they're more beautiful than I imagined, and more powerful.

00:22:36.200 You know, I think all of this, again, is non-controversial.

00:22:40.340 And so it's not about, you know, launching a consistent tirade against all of these different groups that have really strayed, not only in the world, but alas, yes, in the church.

00:22:51.840 But that, too, is something that we have forgotten.

00:22:55.240 We might fixate on the 50s when Fulton Sheen was winning Emmys, forgetting the fact that, okay, that was the exception.

00:23:03.060 Full seminaries, you know, the convents, too.

00:23:05.340 That was never ordinary in the history of the church, you know, and so there was a strange confluence in American society, you know, all the way until it carried JFK into the White House.

00:23:15.360 But press pause and say, let's get back to ordinary time because Catholic history has never been that way in any consistent manner.

00:23:24.580 Even in the 13th century, as Father Walsh called it, the greatest of centuries, there was so much tension, so much infidelity disguised as, you know, blah, blah, blah.

00:23:36.200 You know, I don't mean to go on, but this has been inside of me ever since my earlier books.

00:23:41.260 I'm so glad you started with the concept of suffering because I think that really, in living this out, in living out the faith, it's very challenging, particularly on that granular level of your own personal relationship with Christ, but also in your families.

00:23:54.560 These are hard things when you live with your spouse and you raise your children.

00:23:58.760 The temptation to not follow through with the gospel with regard to these very difficult situations with your children, you know, as they get older, they get into bad relationships, they might get, God forbid, but into bad marriages.

00:24:13.220 And how do you treat that?

00:24:14.740 How do you deal with that if they get into relationships that are, you know, homosexual and so on and so forth?

00:24:23.120 These are massive challenges for people.

00:24:26.100 And yet, with It Is Right and Just in your concept in the book of always keeping focused on the eternal realities and basically making heaven the goalpost and vision of the whole of life and realizing that that is true love, it gives a clear direction then for how you're supposed to take on these very challenging situations, even in family life like that.

00:24:52.880 If I could get you to Scott, I'd love you to talk about the current reality that we're living in right now in the United States with a Catholic president who is very much in his push anti-Catholic in terms of where he's going on life, on family, even on faith.

00:25:15.960 In this time where he professes himself to be Catholic, goes to Mass, that just on his first Sunday of the presidency, he came out of Mass.

00:25:26.140 All the media was there.

00:25:28.920 Address that, if you would, in the vision coming from your new book, It Is Right and Just.

00:25:35.300 Okay, so I'm reminded of a couple of verses.

00:25:39.040 You know, on the one hand, we read in John 18, 36, where Jesus is being interrogated by Pilate, you know, and he refers to his kingdom not being of this world.

00:25:50.220 Oh, so you are a king.

00:25:51.580 Well, yeah, but my kingship is not of this world because if it was, my servants would fight.

00:25:56.960 And so he goes on not to say, my kingship, therefore, is not in this world.

00:26:02.180 But when you look at that moment and you freeze frame it, you recognize that even the 12 disciples who had spent three years with him still didn't get it.

00:26:11.080 I mean, the triumphal entry, Palm Sunday, we're on a roll.

00:26:15.020 We're going to take Jerusalem by storm. 0.98

00:26:17.760 It'll be winning the popularity contest, you know, and that was never the divine plan.

00:26:22.800 The other thing I'm reminded of is in Psalm 33, verse 12, there is a verse, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

00:26:31.240 Now, we usually assume that referred to ancient Israel alone, you know, not to other nations, except you remember that God said to Moses, Israel is my firstborn son.

00:26:41.380 That's my message for you to deliver to Egypt, which implies that the human race is one big family, not only from Adam, but from God the Father.

00:26:50.300 But it's one huge broken family.

00:26:52.900 And so those of us who are called by Christ, we are called into the world to use the supernatural grace to bring about natural unity as much as possible.

00:27:04.240 When in the last 70 years has this been clearly taught?

00:27:08.160 It hasn't been explicitly denied.

00:27:10.740 Well, yes, it has.

00:27:11.720 But for the most part, we have just been really kind of skating instead of diving into the sacred mysteries.

00:27:21.040 And so I'll be honest, I'm not very surprised by what's going on.

00:27:26.320 I mean, I admit that with the LGBTQ agenda, it's gone further, much faster than I even I expected. 1.00

00:27:33.060 I am not an optimist.

00:27:34.560 My wife is.

00:27:35.480 And so looking at the situation and seeing how deeply divided the church has been, and not just after Vatican II, but it was already these seismic fault lines perhaps were imperceptible in the 50s.

00:27:50.020 But I'm a student not only of church history and salvation history, but American Catholic history.

00:27:55.860 When I go back and I recognize that there are fundamental flaws, you know, whatever you think of the theory of evolution, it fits into the physical realm, not the spiritual.

00:28:06.520 And yet you adopt that as a worldview and progressive narratives then end up being objective fact.

00:28:13.640 And what a false transfer it is.

00:28:15.700 You know, so wherever we fall on the spectrum of opinion when it comes to the theory of evolution with regard to natural science, it doesn't work in the spiritual and the social realm.

00:28:26.180 And yet I think Catholics imbibed it so deeply that they just kind of assumed that this super dogma is going to unite the natural and the supernatural Catholics in America and the entire West.

00:28:37.640 And again, it's like, not even close.

00:28:40.540 That's not going to happen.

00:28:41.740 And so right now, I think a lot of Catholics are wandering around without a compass or a map, and they're kind of wondering, who do I listen to?

00:28:50.940 Because it's not just the nation that is deeply divided by a Catholic president who professes to be interested in unity.

00:28:59.120 It's also the church that's divided.

00:29:01.220 You know, we published a book by Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis.

00:29:05.460 And, you know, it's unforgettable.

00:29:09.240 I mean, it's in some ways alarming.

00:29:11.820 In other ways, it brings a sense of peace and calm because it emphasizes not only the lordship of Jesus Christ and prayer,

00:29:19.460 but the fact that redemptive suffering has always been the order of the day for anyone who wants to get here to heaven.

00:29:26.280 And, you know, that's what hope is about.

00:29:28.040 It's not the election cycle so much as a difficult future good is how hope is defined.

00:29:35.080 But when we look at that as Christians, as Catholic Christians, we recognize that becoming a saint is indispensable.

00:29:42.380 Without holiness, you will not see God, Hebrews tells us.

00:29:45.420 But if holiness, if sanctity, if sainthood is the goal, we've got to recognize it's not just a difficult future good.

00:29:53.460 The object of our hope is humanly impossible.

00:29:56.680 It's only something that supernatural grace enables us to be.

00:30:01.060 And even the sacraments don't make holiness easy or automatic.

00:30:06.660 It's possible, but it's going to be very difficult.

00:30:10.300 It's involving a carrying of the cross.

00:30:12.340 And, again, these themes are not denied for the most part, but they're ignored because we want to kind of cash in on what we can do in our political action with regard to our faith.

00:30:24.340 And harness as much of the Catholic population as we can.

00:30:28.100 And, again, there's nothing wrong with that.

00:30:30.300 But if that's all you're doing, there's something profoundly wrong with that.

00:30:34.140 Absolutely.

00:30:34.480 Any parting words for us with regard to your book?

00:30:39.100 Where can we get it?

00:30:40.500 And what would you like to say at the end?

00:30:43.160 I am grateful and proud to be the editor-in-chief of Emmaus Road and Emmaus Academic.

00:30:49.640 And Emmaus Road Publishing published this, as well as Hope to Die and The First Society in most of my recent books, along with Dr. Ralph Martin's book, Church in Crisis.

00:30:58.540 So go to stpaulcenter.com, stpaulcenter.com.

00:31:03.920 And in a matter of weeks, in fact, on Ash Wednesday, I'm also releasing a series.

00:31:11.160 Journey Through Scripture has done a number of series, the Bible and the Sacraments, the Bible and the Virgin Mary, the Bible and the Church Fathers.

00:31:17.360 But this time, it is cultivating Eucharistic amazement.

00:31:20.880 It's entitled Parousia, the Bible and the Mass.

00:31:23.800 It'll be free throughout Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday.

00:31:27.620 And we've harnessed R.D. Delgado, who has Hollywood experience, a faithful Catholic as well.

00:31:34.340 And we've put together something that I'm convinced is exciting.

00:31:37.680 You know, Parousia is the Greek word for presence.

00:31:41.180 In our Webster's Dictionary, it's the word for the second coming, because fundamentalists have generally hijacked and redefined it.

00:31:48.360 But when we profess the real presence of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and he is that, regardless of who's in the White House,

00:31:54.960 we recognize that wherever the Eucharist is, there is the King, and wherever the King is, there is his Kingdom.

00:32:02.120 And so it is a Eucharistic Kingdom.

00:32:04.200 It is a real presence.

00:32:06.020 That is a Eucharistic Parousia.

00:32:08.760 And who is there?

00:32:09.900 Again, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, even when I denied it for years as a Protestant.

00:32:14.520 And even when I'm distracted, that reality is not about conjuring up warm, fuzzy feelings.

00:32:21.420 It is the objective fact of the sacred mystery, the Mysterium Fidei.

00:32:26.360 And, you know, I'm really excited about Parousia, the Bible and the Mass, especially because throughout Lent of this year, it will be available for free online streaming.

00:32:36.440 And so, again, stpaulcenter.com for the book, stpaulcenter.com slash mass.

00:32:44.460 And that's how you can get access to this new series.

00:32:47.460 But thanks for asking.

00:32:48.820 But also, thank you, John Henry, for your hospitality, for your good work, and for the fun that we've had today.

00:32:55.800 God bless you.

00:32:57.080 Thank you so much, Scott, for being with us again.

00:32:59.300 And God bless all of you.

00:33:01.020 We'll see you next time.

00:33:01.900 Hi, this is John Henry Weston, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSite News.

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The John-Henry Westen Show - February 02, 2021

Scott Hahn： Catholics can’t win by compromising with liberalism

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