The John-Henry Westen Show - The DISASTROUS POPE： Francis, Leo, or BOTH!？

00:00:00.000 I think it's very important for us to recognize that even a pope who remains pope can teach

00:00:05.880 something erroneous. Hey, my friends, there is a new book released that's making the waves. It's

00:00:13.240 called The Disastrous Pontificate, and it refers to, of course, Pope Francis. We've got someone

00:00:20.900 here to speak to it, not the author, because the author is an unnamed cleric, but it's a very

00:00:26.260 prominent person who's promoting this book and has published it through his publishing house,

00:00:30.080 and that's Dr. Peter Kwasniewski. Thank you so much, John Henry. Good to be with you as always. God

00:00:34.700 bless you. Let's begin, as you always do, with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

00:00:39.000 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. So, Peter, this is very interesting because,

00:00:46.520 you know, we've been covering this at LifeSite for 13 years, and this book lays out in detail

00:00:52.680 what has happened, what went down. But I have one question for you right off the bat. Why now?

00:00:58.460 The pontificate's over. Why is it being published right now? Yes. Well, there's a practical answer

00:01:05.060 to that question, which is that it took the author five years to research this book, and he only just

00:01:09.800 finished, you know, six months ago. So, it's been published as soon as it was possible to publish it

00:01:14.860 after the death of Pope Francis so that it could be as complete as it could be. But the real answer,

00:01:20.020 the deeper answer to the question is, the Catholic Church has a serious problem on its hands. I mean,

00:01:25.800 there are many problems we could talk about, but let's stay focused on this one problem. The problem

00:01:30.840 is a 12-year pontificate that, as the subtitle says, is a rupture from the magisterium on so many

00:01:38.560 topics. And not just a rupture in terms of doctrinal teaching on faith and morals, although that's bad

00:01:44.920 enough. In fact, that's, in some ways, the worst aspect. But it was also a pontificate that was full

00:01:50.840 of illegal and criminal actions. You know, what do I mean by that? I mean, protecting, promoting bad

00:01:58.240 people, bad players, you know, some of whom were even convicted and put into jail, right? That Pope

00:02:03.620 Francis was behind this sort of cabal, that this mafia-like cabal. And this is all very well

00:02:09.820 documented in this book. So the book is not just about doctrine. It's also about almost like a blow

00:02:15.280 by blow account of all of the immoral things that also went on under Francis's watch and at his

00:02:21.400 behest. And so really the book, it's kind of divided into two parts, the doctrinal part and the day-to-day

00:02:27.600 governance of the church part. And I think, you know, it's almost 900 pages. By the time you just,

00:02:34.680 you know, it's a massive work of scholarship with thousands of footnotes. So by the time you get

00:02:41.880 to the end of this book, and I'm not sure how many people will actually read it cover to cover. It's

00:02:45.700 more like an encyclopedia, more like a reference work, really a documentation source. But at the end

00:02:52.420 of it, you have to look at this and say, this was a disastrous pontificate. There's no question about

00:02:56.720 it. This is not some kind of subjective opinion that just a few nutty people have. By any possible

00:03:03.380 acceptable Catholic standards, this was a disastrous pontificate. And that phrase, by the way,

00:03:08.380 comes from Cardinal Pell from the Deimos Memorandum. He's the one who used that expression,

00:03:13.140 which the author then took as his title. Now, for all those listening, I need to let you know

00:03:18.280 how astonishing it is to hear Dr. Krasniewski say this, because Dr. Krasniewski is not a lightweight,

00:03:25.020 doesn't fool around with saying hyperbolic things. And so to hear you speaking like this about

00:03:32.680 illegal activities and things of that nature, it's really stunning. But as you said, this priest

00:03:40.320 has put in all the receipts. Please continue.

00:03:42.200 Yes, pardon me. And so you asked why now, and I don't feel like I actually answered that.

00:03:47.680 That we need to, the Catholic Church, her hierarchy, her cardinals, her Pope, eventually,

00:03:55.440 somehow, by the grace of God, by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, need to address the last pontificate.

00:04:02.680 When I say address, I don't just mean, oh, Pope Francis, he was such a kind and humble man. No,

00:04:08.420 no. I mean, Pope Francis said these erroneous things. These are false. They need to be repudiated.

00:04:13.820 They are wiped from the slate. You know, there needs to be something like what happened with Pope

00:04:19.140 Honorius in the early church, where, as I'm sure that the listeners here know, Pope Honorius taught

00:04:25.760 something erroneous about the two wills of Christ. And he was posthumously anathematized and

00:04:32.560 excommunicated and condemned by multiple popes and councils. That's how seriously they took

00:04:37.420 orthodoxy back then. Something similar needs to happen with Pope Francis. And that's the only way

00:04:43.440 that the church can redress the wrongs. We can't just leave all of these things on the books and say,

00:04:50.100 well, okay, maybe we didn't like that pontificate, but it's over with. It's the past. It's water under

00:04:54.900 the bridge. You know, we can let it go now. That's just not going to cut it with the institution of the

00:05:00.100 Catholic Church. Let's dive into that distinction for a second, because I think what you said right

00:05:04.600 off the bat will make people go, oh my gosh, really? Criminal activity, real nefarious stuff.

00:05:10.580 It's cover-up of abusers who should have been in jail. There is that, but it's far less serious

00:05:19.140 than the actual doctrinal errors. Is that what you're saying? And give us an example from the book

00:05:25.700 of one of those extreme situations of sort of scandal in terms of the world, but not in terms of doctrine.

00:05:35.840 Um, I mean, I, I would just say that the, you know, the promotion of various bishops, uh, who,

00:05:44.160 you know, who, who were involved in sexual abuse or covering up sexual abuse. Um, I would say that,

00:05:50.320 that there's, there's plenty of documentation in here about father James Martin and about the LGBTQ,

00:05:54.960 uh, movement and the way in which the Pope, um, gave encouragement, uh, and, and spoke ambiguously

00:06:02.800 so that people took encouragement, uh, from him. Um, yeah, I mean, those are just some examples of,

00:06:07.680 of, of, of, you know, the, the sort of things that we have seen in papal history where

00:06:13.280 popes have been immoral in their own personal behavior or in their alliances with political

00:06:20.600 figures or in their nepotism and their simony, whatever it might be. Right. We've seen this before.

00:06:25.560 This is anybody who knows church history knows that immoral popes are not some kind of new, you

00:06:31.660 know, newsworthy item. I mean, they are newsworthy, but, but I mean, they're not, you know, they're

00:06:35.740 not a make or break. They don't in a sense seem to put strain on the claims that the church makes

00:06:42.560 about the papacy because the church has never said the Pope is impeccable. The church has only ever said

00:06:47.880 that the Pope will not bind the entire church to error in a definitive way. I mean, that's how I

00:06:55.120 read Vatican one. The Pope will not bind the church to error. Uh, and that's a minimalist reading of

00:07:02.020 Vatican one, but you know, this is a debated topic. Some people have a very maximalist reading of,

00:07:06.580 of what infallibility demands, but I just take it as if the Pope wants to settle a question

00:07:12.800 definitively, then he has the authority to do that. And the weird thing about Francis

00:07:17.360 is that for 12 years, he sowed a lot of ambiguity and a lot of confusion and errors as well, but he

00:07:24.740 never, he never exercised the fullness of his pontifical authority. There's no ex cathedra statement

00:07:31.500 from Francis. There's no, there's not even anything close to it, right? Um, that doesn't remove the

00:07:37.560 scandal. It doesn't remove the cognitive dissonance. Um, it doesn't remove the theological challenges

00:07:42.880 of explaining how much, how, how this much error is compatible with the Petrine office, but it does

00:07:48.520 remove the most obvious contradiction of Vatican one. I can put it that way. That's a really, really

00:07:54.180 tough question. It's hotly debated among very Orthodox Catholics, not even those who would apply

00:07:59.280 a maximalist principle to the reading of Vatican one, even those who would take a sort of medium

00:08:04.760 road, the road, you know, middle of the road type of approach. Um, who would say that, you know,

00:08:10.480 um, well, if you're going to say that the only time that it really counts is when we have an ex cathedra

00:08:16.600 statement, well, do we really need a Pope? The last one was 1955. I think most would say,

00:08:23.020 yep, we still need to adhere to what the Pope says when he speaks authoritatively, not, you know,

00:08:31.880 people will make the distinction. I think, so if you say some folks will say, um, this would be a

00:08:38.440 maximalist interpretation, I guess. So everything the Pope says that he intends for teaching, um,

00:08:44.800 and that includes his airplane interviews. And when he does interviews with, with authors that

00:08:49.680 he knows is going to publish his writing, that's all to be believed by the faithful. The minimalist

00:08:56.120 position would be it's only ex cathedra statements, but I think middle of the road would be no, all

00:09:01.520 um, published teaching documents of the Pope, um, where he intends to give doctrine or teach

00:09:09.760 doctrine. And I think that can be said of things like amoris laetitia, fiducius supplicans, just,

00:09:16.820 just to name a couple. Amoris laetitia is controversial because it allows for, uh, divorce, 1.00

00:09:22.820 remarried communion. It, it sort of undoes the teaching of our Lord where he says, if you,

00:09:27.320 uh, you know, uh, if you're still married, go to another woman, you commit adultery. So those are,

00:09:33.700 those are really tough things. So that's where, if I'm not mistaken, that's where there's, there's a

00:09:38.540 back and forth between, uh, theologians who are trying to figure out where we are in this mess.

00:09:44.220 Exactly. Well, let me, let me clarify something, which I think is extremely important. Um, I'm only

00:09:50.680 saying that the papal teaching is guaranteed by God to be free from error, to be inerrant when the

00:09:59.680 Pope teaches ex cathedra. That's the claim I'm making. Not that the Pope doesn't have the authority

00:10:04.740 to teach in many other ways and at many other levels, nor that normally the, uh, the faithful

00:10:10.980 are supposed to embrace all of those teachings. So the faith will have a, a, a standing obligation

00:10:17.160 to receive all the Pope's teaching that is official. So not his off the cuff remarks. No

00:10:23.780 theologian has ever thought that, um, some theologians say his homilies don't count because

00:10:28.840 John the 22nd preached error in homilies. And so we know that homilies are not protected, uh,

00:10:34.100 and that we don't have to adhere to homilies, uh, necessarily with, with religious submission of

00:10:38.720 will and intellect. But, but I think everybody agrees that the Pope's official teachings are

00:10:44.300 normally to be accepted by the faithful. And what makes Francis pontificate so horrendous

00:10:52.440 is that there were so many things he taught at, in that way, not ex cathedra, but with his ordinary

00:10:59.320 papal magisterium that the faithful couldn't accept, or at least had to refrain from accepting and say,

00:11:05.520 I don't understand how this is compatible with what has been taught before. And I'm not defying it.

00:11:11.400 I'm not going to burn the Pope in effigy, but I'm, but I'm not going to accept it either because I

00:11:16.640 simply cannot reconcile it in my conscience and in my intellect with what's gone before, right?

00:11:21.980 That's a crisis moment in the church. And I like to put it this way. I like to say that Francis's

00:11:27.820 pontificate was the ultimate engineering stress test of the papacy because the papacy is, you know,

00:11:33.620 it's a durable institution. It's the only one in the world that's lasted for 2000 years.

00:11:37.980 It's weathered a lot of storms, but there are particular problems with Francis pontificate that

00:11:44.440 I think theologians are going to be wrestling with for a long time. Uh, and, and certainly the,

00:11:49.140 the ordinary lay faithful, you know, we shouldn't have to wrestle with these questions. This is above

00:11:54.500 our pay grade. I mean, you know, we, we should have a Pope whom we can just venerate, respect,

00:12:00.280 embrace, accept, you know, he's our Pope, he's our father. We accept it all. And that's, that is the

00:12:07.080 normal Catholic mentality. I have that mentality. I want to have that mentality, right? But I'm not

00:12:12.100 going to, to accept the things in footnote 353 of Amoris Laetitia. I cannot do it. And the reasons are

00:12:18.820 given in this book, you know, that why we can't accept that footnote, you know, and, and with other

00:12:24.040 examples like that. They are hugely complicated questions because it, it, it does go to the core

00:12:29.920 of what it means to be a Catholic. This issue of the official teaching is submission of mind and will

00:12:35.120 that you're talking about to the official teachings. And here's where it really meets its, its ultimate

00:12:43.160 test with Francis because in Amoris Laetitia, yeah, it's in the footnote, but later on, because there was

00:12:51.580 the issue of people wondered, oh, is it true or not? He published in the Act Apostolic Estes, which is

00:12:58.940 sort of like the rule book for bishops, that it is on fact authentic magisterium defined, he defined it

00:13:04.900 as such, or at least it was defined as such in there, that the bad interpretation, the interpretation

00:13:10.280 that allows for the heretical interpretation, in other words, is the only interpretation and it is

00:13:16.500 authentic magisterium. And that's where many people, mine included, minds were blown, uh, thinking,

00:13:23.320 oh, now what? Right. Right. It just seems like if you, um, again, to say something as authentic

00:13:30.460 magisterium to say, this is the interpretation of the document, um, is still not to say this is

00:13:36.440 guaranteed to be free from error. Uh, and, and I, I realized that may sound like semantics, but it's not,

00:13:41.640 it's very, very important because Vatican one is defining the gift of infallibility, which is a

00:13:47.240 kind of nuclear weapon that the Pope has, not something that he's just using all the time,

00:13:51.500 like, like pistols in the wild West, you know? Uh, and so I think it's very important for us to

00:13:56.800 recognize that even a Pope who remains Pope can teach something erroneous. And there, I mean,

00:14:03.640 the, the, the hyper-papalists out there, if I can call them that, the ultramontanists,

00:14:07.460 so to speak, um, you know, they try, I mean, to me, they do gymnastics to try to say, oh,

00:14:14.460 there's never been a Pope who's taught something erroneous. I, I don't buy that. And most church

00:14:18.960 historians don't buy that, you know, Pope Honorius, Pope Vigilius, Pope John the 22nd,

00:14:24.560 you know, and there are others too. These Popes certainly put their name behind something

00:14:28.700 that is erroneous. And nobody at the time said, oh, they've ceased to be Pope. We don't have a Pope

00:14:33.520 anymore. We need to go and elect a new Pope. You know, it's true that they were,

00:14:36.960 that John the 22nd recanted, he recanted his error. It's true that Vigilius, uh, you know,

00:14:43.780 made, made a good end. Um, it's true that Honorius was condemned after he died, but no Pope or council

00:14:50.340 after Honorius said he's, he unseated himself as Pope, right? So, I mean, I'm not, I don't think

00:14:56.500 we can resolve all these questions right here, but, but I, I think that it's by no means obvious

00:15:02.380 that you couldn't have somebody who was a material heretic sitting on the throne of Peter until God 0.98

00:15:08.600 takes him away. Um, and that the church wouldn't have to deal with the fallout of that. I, I've never,

00:15:13.900 I still haven't seen a knockdown syllogistically watertight argument that that couldn't happen,

00:15:19.200 right? And I think that factually it did happen. Um, so that's, that's where I'm at at least.

00:15:24.740 That's the key distinction there would come are the official documents that they published,

00:15:29.800 uh, official teaching documents like we have with Amor. I'm, I'm, what my wonder is if Francis

00:15:35.980 is unique in history, in the history of the papacy in that he has published official teaching

00:15:42.840 documents, or is he just like the other popes you mentioned? He's just another one. There's nothing

00:15:49.240 new here other than, you know, maybe he's done it more, uh, than other popes in the past, but,

00:15:55.280 or is it just, you know, this is run of the mill. We got to get used to it.

00:15:59.860 Yeah, no, no. I, I actually do think it's a unique situation. I, my point is there,

00:16:03.920 there are analogies earlier in papal history. It's, you know, uh, somebody says that, that history

00:16:09.680 never repeats, but it rhymes, you know? So I think that we have analogies that can help us to deal with

00:16:16.280 Pope Francis, but he is uniquely bad because of the multitude of, of the errors and, uh, and evils,

00:16:23.920 and also because of the magnitude of them, right? They touch on fundamental questions of faith and

00:16:29.240 morals as, as Grigio demonstrates in this book. Basically it's, when I said these, the ultimate

00:16:34.460 engineering stress test, what I meant is it's almost like a, how far can you go before you

00:16:40.920 deconstruct the papacy, before the papacy auto-destructs, right? How far can that be

00:16:46.520 pushed? And I think, you know, I realized that the state of a conscience out there are going to be

00:16:50.620 blowing up and they're going to be like, you know, they're going to be ready to write 10,000

00:16:54.760 refutations of faith. But I think that really, we don't know what's possible in divine providence

00:17:01.040 until it actually happens in history. That is, if somebody, I like to say it this way, if somebody

00:17:05.600 before the Aryan controversy had said to a bishop or a lay faithful, you know what, in a few years,

00:17:12.320 almost the entire episcopate is going to be in heresy or in, or, or in cahoots with heresy. Um,

00:17:18.040 the Pope is going to be, uh, um, kind of wavering on the question. Uh, the greatest, uh, bishop in the

00:17:24.720 world, um, Athanasius is going to be going around, um, in a kind of clandestine way as like a, like a flying

00:17:31.440 bishop, helping people in different places. I mean, they would have said, no, you're crazy 0.63

00:17:35.760 because that means the Catholic church has failed. And well, lo and behold, we had the Aryan crisis 0.99

00:17:40.380 and it looked like things were really going to fall apart, but they didn't. Um, and so I think

00:17:46.000 that the question of how far can a Pope go into error, how far will divine providence allow him

00:17:52.660 to go into error? And what will providence do to respond to that? What kind of, of, um, immune system

00:18:00.120 will he activate in the church to respond to that crisis? I think that we've seen that and we've

00:18:05.660 seen it demonstrated in real time. And I think we have seen an, um, in an amazing way, how certain

00:18:11.900 cardinals, certain bishops and tons of lay people, uh, and of course, somebody like Dominic Grigio

00:18:17.500 have responded to this. I think this is really a providential moment. Um, let me just share with

00:18:22.560 you a comment that I've received from a lot of readers of this book. They they've said, I am learning

00:18:28.260 so much about my faith because of this book, because of the problems that the book is talking

00:18:33.040 about. Why? Because it doesn't just talk about errors. It talks about, here's what Francis said.

00:18:38.460 And then it says, here's what scripture says about that. Here's what the church fathers say about

00:18:41.780 that. Here's what St. Thomas Aquinas says about it. Here's what all the popes before Francis said

00:18:45.740 about it. Right. Boom, boom, boom. It's like, it's like the ultimate lesson, catechize yourself at home

00:18:50.380 course in all of these controversial questions. And people are learning a ton. They're like, oh,

00:18:55.080 this makes so much sense. The Catholic church has always taught consistently, for example,

00:18:59.640 that the death penalty is, is licit. Um, and so obviously Francis is wrong, right? That there's,

00:19:06.660 it's, it's, you know, at a certain point you just realize something went wrong with that pontificate.

00:19:12.920 Um, and however the church is going to deal with it, it's going to have to be a future Pope or council

00:19:17.100 or both. We can't fix this problem. Um, however it's dealt with, it has to begin with the acknowledgement

00:19:23.160 that there really was a rupture. I don't think the way that it's off the table that a future Pope or

00:19:31.460 council would declare that Francis was an anti-Pope or that he abdicated, that he, that he

00:19:37.560 removed himself from the papacy or something like that. I don't think that's off the table.

00:19:42.220 I think that's unlikely, but I, I'm, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, there are many possible

00:19:49.200 ways to explain what happened. Uh, and it's going to take some very serious, you know, thought and

00:19:55.540 very serious, um, attention on the part of the church. Yeah. It's a, it's an interesting question,

00:20:00.180 uh, that you raised that, that point. So the book does not rule out that the church could declare

00:20:06.120 him an anti-Pope and therefore that he wasn't the Pope or, or something was amiss and, and he either

00:20:12.160 left the papacy or didn't count some way. It didn't count. Yes. Um, I, I'm not, I, I don't know if

00:20:18.500 I'll be able to find the, the exact page, but what, what the author, he lays out a bunch of

00:20:23.900 different scenarios that have been debated or discussed by famous theologians about how a Pope

00:20:29.480 can go into error and what happens when he does so. Um, and then he says, there is no way to know

00:20:35.460 for sure that is a lay person can't just say, Oh, I'm going to go with Bellarmine. I'm going to go

00:20:39.920 with Cajetid, or I'm going to go with, you know, uh, with, with, with this or that, um, you know,

00:20:44.940 canon law lawyer from the middle ages. I mean, we, we can't do that. It, this is the question

00:20:49.500 that is precisely, it's like, if the government's going to impeach the president, if the United

00:20:55.020 States government is going to impeach the president, then the U S government has to do

00:20:58.420 that. The people can't just vote that they're going to throw out the president or something

00:21:02.140 like that, you know? So it's, um, you know, the church is not a democracy, but we do have

00:21:07.760 the right and the duty to, to, to defend the faith. And that's, I think, very clear from,

00:21:13.100 from, from what, from what Dominic Degregio does. Yeah. I see, it's very interesting because

00:21:17.260 we are at a point of, uh, unknowing. And it's interesting that even this case that's being

00:21:23.900 made holds open that possibility that it could very well be, uh, declared, uh, a non-papacy,

00:21:31.000 if you will, or some, whatever works to, uh, frankly, from my perspective, be a heck of a lot

00:21:36.120 easier to, uh, say that than it is to fix what's gone on. Cause it, the, the problem

00:21:43.060 Muslims are legion with this one. Um, and they're extremely confusing for us because 1.00

00:21:48.880 the catechism being changed, uh, to say that the death penalty is inadmissible when it's

00:21:57.300 supposed to be admissible, these kinds of things, at least for the common Catholic, they're mind

00:22:04.000 blowing to try and defend the church's teaching. Um, especially, you know, for the, I work in the

00:22:10.620 area of life all the time. That's been, that's almost crazy at this point. Like, um, yeah,

00:22:17.000 actually the Catholic church accepts the death penalty. What? You're pro-life? And it's just

00:22:21.260 become an impossibility. So here we are given some of the most confusing times in the world.

00:22:28.760 As we go forward, not, not knowing where the church is going to end up on this question,

00:22:35.240 how are Catholics, the mainstream Catholics who aren't trying to make judgments per se,

00:22:41.480 but they're just trying to, how are they supposed to view the Francis pontificate anyway? Just

00:22:45.420 how? We have to start with the acknowledgement that there is no authority in the, in the, in the church

00:22:52.640 who is impeccable, inerrant, and infallible in every way, absolutely, except our Lord Jesus Christ.

00:22:59.720 He is the true and eternal head of the church. And there are various people who act on his behalf,

00:23:06.200 vicars of Christ. The Pope is a vicar of Christ, a representative of Christ. Um, he's not a

00:23:11.480 replacement of Christ, but he's a representative. He's somebody who's supposed to act as Christ would 0.54

00:23:15.100 act towards the church on earth while he lives, while he's in office. The, the, the bishops are

00:23:19.800 defined by the church as vicars of Christ in their own diocese. And even parish priests, you know,

00:23:24.640 they're called vicars in some traditions, right? They are vicars of Christ in a little way. So we have

00:23:29.460 this sort of, I don't want to say Russian dolls, but you know, we, we have a, we have a hierarchy

00:23:33.040 of, of, uh, of vicars of Christ and all of them rule vicariously. They all rule not in their own

00:23:39.680 name, but in the name of another. And the doctrine they're supposed to pass on is not their own,

00:23:43.480 but that of another, the deposit of faith. And so I think that every, even the simplest Catholic

00:23:48.640 can understand that point, right? That, that we're not looking to the Pope the way that, that,

00:23:53.980 that the Mormons look to their president in Salt Lake city. And they, and they await from him

00:23:58.740 a new prophecy that says, okay, you know, it used to be said that Coca-Cola, you couldn't drink it,

00:24:03.980 but now I say that you can drink it, you know? No, this is not the attitude that Catholics have 0.99

00:24:08.320 towards the Pope, or we shouldn't have it towards the Pope. Um, instead the Pope is, is the, the one

00:24:14.500 who, you know, is, is he's in charge of good order, uh, and, and resolving disputes and holding the

00:24:22.200 line on the deposit of faith in the church. That's his job description. If God, as whether it's a

00:24:28.260 punishment to us for our sins or whether it's just because of the chaos of the modern Western world,

00:24:33.640 and we couldn't really expect, uh, to escape this period without, without a problem like this. Um,

00:24:38.860 but whatever, however we want to understand it, we can see that you could have somebody who fails

00:24:43.540 to live up to that job description, who fails to govern as a vicar of Christ. You don't have to

00:24:47.580 necessarily solve every problem. All you have to say to yourself is I can know God gave me the gift

00:24:52.780 of faith and the gift of reason. I can know what the church has always taught on XYZ. How can I do

00:24:59.640 that? Because I mean, I can look at the catechism of the council of Trent. I can look at the catechism

00:25:04.300 of Pius X. I can look at the Baltimore catechism. I can look at hundreds of catechisms from the past

00:25:08.880 600 years and see that they all teach the same thing about the death penalty. Um, I can look at this

00:25:13.620 book and see that scripture and all the fathers of the church and all the doctors and all the popes,

00:25:18.180 they all teach that the death penalty is licit in certain circumstances. I can know pretty easily

00:25:23.280 what the Catholic faith has always been on this subject. Um, and then I just have to say,

00:25:28.800 I can't explain it, but Francis is, is often in left field. He's in, he's, he's in la la land.

00:25:34.580 I don't know how he got there. I don't know why he's there. I don't know what, what I can do about it,

00:25:39.260 but I know I'm not, I'm going to believe what the church has always believed and taught.

00:25:42.700 That's the safe thing to do. And surely that makes sense, right? How could that not be the safe thing to do?

00:25:47.940 How could anybody say, I'm going to take the word of this Argentinian Jesuit, um, over St. Irenaeus,

00:25:57.900 St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Pius X, you know, St. John

00:26:03.980 Paul II. I mean, how, how am I going to take it over all of these witnesses? I can't do that. I'm never

00:26:08.980 going to do that. Right. So again, I'm not, I don't think that we should, we shouldn't approach it as,

00:26:15.420 can we theologically solve this dilemma and come up with a theory that perfectly accounts for it,

00:26:21.880 but rather what are we obliged to do here and now? What are we supposed to do? And I say,

00:26:26.880 keep the faith, keep the faith once and for all handed to the saints.

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00:27:00.960 Grave challenges. Cause I, I, I can tell you for average Joe Catholics, and I don't mean average 1.00

00:27:10.260 Joe Catholic who really doesn't really pay attention. I mean, average Joe Catholic who 1.00

00:27:14.880 praises rosary every day, tries to get to daily mass, isn't intellectually gifted though. Um,

00:27:21.100 and so doesn't read your encyclicals, does try and just muscle his way through the catechism because

00:27:26.240 he knows he's supposed to, but really most of it doesn't get, but gets the general gist. All of

00:27:32.080 those guys, massive confusion. In, in some ways they're affected by what you might call the magisterium

00:27:37.820 of the media, but for the most part, the media hits it straight when it talks about Francis and

00:27:44.680 the gay couple blessings. And, you know, we had this, the parade of it with Father James Martin doing

00:27:50.320 it and like, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so very tough things you're talking about, but let's go on to

00:27:57.200 this because even though, I mean, obviously I would agree with the, uh, uh, professor or father or

00:28:05.760 whatever Grigio's thesis, uh, in, in the book that, uh, this cleric makes a point of, um, outlining the

00:28:14.480 disastrous pontificate, which, which as you said, comes from Cardinal Pell. But I mean, it's so

00:28:20.160 evident. Um, and I would think you would agree that this is probably unique in history, uh, for

00:28:26.960 the 2000 years of the pontificate. But, um, we have a, instead of a repudiation or, uh, or going back on

00:28:38.720 in clarification, we have an absolute continuation, especially on the teaching documents. So the

00:28:48.000 reinforcement we now have from Pope Leo of the death penalty teaching of the gay couple blessing 1.00

00:28:56.400 teaching of the Amoris Laetitia teaching of, and goes on, and especially the teaching of in Gaudete

00:29:05.840 Exultate about immigration equates to abortion. Um, those things are being hammered and hammered.

00:29:14.240 Let's, let's talk about that because, um, that's one teaching that generally speaking,

00:29:19.760 uh, has changed in a big way is not talked about much, but in America right now has become central

00:29:25.040 focus, but nobody realizes the reason why Pope Leo is banging the drum on immigration and the bishops

00:29:32.800 are all sort of falling in line on basically they're treating it like the abortion question

00:29:38.080 and they're hammering the politicians is because that's official teaching of Francis in Gaudete

00:29:45.120 Exultate in paragraphs 101 and 102. It's all about, I have to go by memory here, but if anyone were to

00:29:52.880 say grave bioethical issues, meaning abortion, as he, as is clarified by the previous paragraph,

00:29:57.920 um, are, are in some way less important than the immigration question. Such considerations are not

00:30:03.600 worthy of, uh, a politician, let alone a Christian, something that's almost verbatim. But, you know, 0.99

00:30:09.520 so that's now official teaching, uh, official erroneous teaching or contrary to what came before,

00:30:15.440 obviously. But we have a second papacy that's really, that's, that's, that's just basically

00:30:22.880 reinforcing rather than correct. I grant you that, um, it's, it's really regrettable to say the least,

00:30:31.200 that Leo the 14th is not taking advantage of the opportunity to correct. Even if he doesn't

00:30:38.880 mention Francis by name, which would be the, I think the heroic thing to do is to actually mention him

00:30:43.040 by name, but even just to say certain opinions that have been floated out there are not to be held

00:30:48.800 by Catholics. I mean, in a certain sense, I'm not terribly surprised because Leo the 14th is sort 1.00

00:30:55.600 of a, uh, like a polite and mild mannered version of, of, of, of the, of a whole generation of

00:31:02.160 ecclesiastics. I don't want to say, I don't think he's exactly, I mean, I don't like this expression,

00:31:06.400 Francis 2.0. I think that's too simplistic, but he, he is typical of his generation in the views that

00:31:13.920 he holds. And, you know, he's, he's not a radical left wing, but he's left of center in a lot of ways.

00:31:21.600 Right. We can see that. Um, and just to define your terms, when you say left of center, you don't mean,

00:31:27.040 you don't mean that there's a political divide. You mean left of center being Christ in his teachings.

00:31:33.360 And when you say left of, you mean departing from, is that correct? Or is that?

00:31:37.760 Yeah. Maybe, maybe that's, maybe it's confusing to bring in the left, right, French revolutionary

00:31:42.240 jargon here. Um, I, cause I tend to think right wing, good left wing, bad. Um, but it's no, I mean,

00:31:49.040 I guess that I, I, what can I say? I can't disagree with you. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm disappointed so far

00:31:55.200 in the lack of attention that Leo has to, um, the, the rupture from the magisterium that Francis, um,

00:32:04.640 inflicted on the church. I don't know if Leo recognizes it as a rupture. I mean, this is

00:32:10.240 part of the, part of the burden that the church on earth is, is bearing under right now, or is, is, um,

00:32:18.160 weighted down by right now is, is the burden of a whole generation, or maybe even a couple of

00:32:26.240 generations of people whose theological training is very deficient and very distorted. Um, and,

00:32:34.400 you know, even if Prevost is not, um, I don't think he's as radical as Francis in many respects.

00:32:41.040 Um, he certainly has much better taste, uh, and he has more politeness. Um, and there, you know,

00:32:46.400 he's not a, he doesn't seem to be a dictator and so on and so forth. But that being said, he's still

00:32:52.000 kind of cut from the cloth of Vatican II, 1960s, 1970s Catholicism. You know, it's, it's that beige

00:32:58.560 Catholicism, you know, that's still there on the throne of Peter. And we, we can't be surprised 1.00

00:33:04.400 about that because generational shifts take such a long time in the church. You know, we're, we're,

00:33:10.000 we have been ruled and we will be ruled for some time yet by people for whom the second Vatican

00:33:16.000 council was the great new Pentecost and, you know, the, like the be all and end all of, of Catholicism. 0.95

00:33:22.560 And anybody under about 40 years old is, is, is completely done with that and tired of it. I mean,

00:33:30.320 not anybody, but many, many people under 40, under 30, even more so under 25, forget about it. I mean,

00:33:36.640 they think Vatican II, they would say it's fake and gay, you know, I mean, they'd probably say something 0.83

00:33:40.080 like that, right? Uh, yeah, whatever lingo they would use, but, but I mean, you know, those younger

00:33:46.160 generations who really see, oh, it was a mistake to embrace the world and to have this aggiornamento

00:33:53.520 of, you know, we're going to update ourselves and throw off the habits and throw off the, the,

00:33:58.160 the old liturgy and have this updating and that updating. It was a failure. It's a flop, massive,

00:34:03.840 you know, catastrophe. Um, those people are a long ways away from being bishops and popes, you know?

00:34:10.560 So I, I, I'm not trying to reduce this to a sociological analysis. I'm just saying that

00:34:16.560 I guess I'm not, I'm not shocked that this is where Leo the 14th is. And I only wish and pray that he

00:34:23.520 can wake up, uh, at some point and start to see some of the, the dissonance that you and I see and

00:34:28.720 that others, so many others see. These are tough questions because we're dealing with, look, Peter,

00:34:34.160 you and I are, are, are getting on in years and not to say that you're an old man, but, uh, nor I,

00:34:38.400 but, but nonetheless for many, cause I've got eight kids as you know, or, or you might know,

00:34:44.240 um, a lot of them in their late twenties, um, their whole life is Francis. Whereas for us,

00:34:52.240 our whole lives was JP two and then Benedict, but really JP two. So for them, their basic only

00:34:59.200 knowledge of a pontificate is Francis and now Leo and with Leo underlining and reinforcing

00:35:10.480 those very teachings. So it's been very, very clear, especially the authentic teachings as

00:35:16.720 the example with the immigration drum being equivalent to abortion and being pushed that

00:35:20.640 way. That's kind of painfully obviously at this point, but when he told the pro-life movement,

00:35:26.080 if you're not against the death penalty, you're not really pro-life that, that struck to the core

00:35:34.640 of, and it totally divided the pro-life movement because that's official teaching in the catechism

00:35:42.560 and that's now being reiterated by a Pope and it's false. So that's what I mean about we're in a bizarre

00:35:50.160 place. It's not only one Pope now it's two and it's the Pope of those young people that you're talking

00:35:58.480 about. Their whole exist, their whole basically adult lives and knowledge of the papacy is that.

00:36:06.800 Yeah. I think that if you can, if you talk one-on-one to a young person and say,

00:36:12.240 look, I know you grew up with Francis and now Leo, I know they said a lot of true things,

00:36:19.120 but they also said a lot of really problematic things and even some erroneous things.

00:36:24.560 But you know what? They are the last two Popes, but we had 264 Popes prior to them.

00:36:30.880 So two Popes against 264 Popes is never going to change Catholic doctrine. But I don't want to

00:36:38.240 downplay what you're saying. I think it's a real crisis that we're in of faith, a crisis, a test

00:36:45.200 of people's faith. Why do I say that? Because it's so easy to listen to the siren song of the

00:36:54.000 Eastern Orthodox saying, look, we told you so. The all-powerful papacy was always going to get 0.92

00:37:00.640 you in trouble and look where you are now. Just come over to us. We have the original faith,

00:37:07.600 the authentic, you know, patristic faith. Okay. They say that. I mean, look, I've studied Eastern

00:37:14.240 Orthodoxy and they hold a bunch of really horrendous errors. So, I mean, I'm not tempted at all, 1.00

00:37:19.840 but on the outside, beautiful liturgy, traditional liturgy, you know, everything is the way it's

00:37:25.680 supposed to look. And, you know, and they never had a Vatican II. They never had a Francis. Okay. So

00:37:30.480 you can see the temptation there. You know, you can see how some people might even be tempted to

00:37:35.600 question their faith. Well, if the popes can't even, if they can't even do their job,

00:37:40.320 then who am I to trust? I can't trust anybody, you know? So, I mean, I see it as it's really,

00:37:45.760 I mean, this is why the work, we all have a lot of work to do, not just you and me,

00:37:50.800 but priests and good bishops. We all have to keep teaching the Catholic faith in spite of the

00:37:57.840 unedifying behavior of some of our superiors in the church. You know, um, there's not,

00:38:05.600 what else can we do? We can't do anything else. You know, our commitment is to Christ and his church.

00:38:09.680 One of the key issues that, uh, even beyond most of what we've talked about,

00:38:16.000 um, that is affecting particularly the, well, the church as a whole, but particularly young people,

00:38:22.240 but it is honestly across the board at this point is related to an official document,

00:38:28.560 the official document being fiducius supplicans. But more than that, in a way, it was the nod or

00:38:37.920 nudge, nudge, wink, wink to the issue you raised before. The meeting of Francis with James Martin

00:38:44.640 really was a breaking point in the church on the issue because he basically is known for a,

00:38:57.120 um, well, it's a heretical position, but it doesn't sound so off the cuff. People think, ah,

00:39:02.960 no, he's not saying it's completely equal to marriage. It's just, let's tolerate, let's welcome,

00:39:08.720 let's accept one another, let's be welcoming. And it's totally heretical. It's a nudge, nudge,

00:39:16.560 nudge, wink, wink. I hope one day you can be married and kiss in the church. But until then,

00:39:22.320 in other words, it is sort of a, but, but it's still off the page, but it's hard to do because

00:39:30.400 the teaching documents there and fiducius supplicans, but then beyond that is the meeting

00:39:35.280 and then the endorsement of his book, the endorsement of his conferences, the endorsement of

00:39:39.840 LGBT masses. And now we have the same thing with Leo. We have the meeting with Father James Martin,

00:39:47.360 unexplained, and Martin comes out and says, yeah, he wanted it to be known. He's supporting my ministry

00:39:53.440 and the LGBT welcoming approach. Then we have all these Bishop appointments by Leo now that are this,

00:39:59.760 in the same vein, LGBT. In fact, the very Bishop who ran the LGBT welcome mass and had the trans guy

00:40:08.320 speak at it in San Diego is now made a full Bishop because he was the auxiliary at the time. So we're

00:40:14.240 getting that same message from Leo. And the church is by and large, the majority of Catholics, I don't 1.00

00:40:22.720 mean, I mean, you're real hardcore practicing at least every Sunday mass Catholics, uh, saying they're 0.99

00:40:30.480 rosary faithfully Catholics. They're off. The majority of them have, I've gone off on the issue and it on 1.00

00:40:37.440 the teaching because it's so far off page from where we should be. How do we address that? Well, so I guess I

00:40:42.960 have a little disagreement with you in this sense. I think when I, when I look at Leo's Episcopal appointments,

00:40:48.560 they seem to me to be all over the place. And I've seen a number of bishops he's appointed who've

00:40:53.280 actually been rather conservative. Some even celebrate the traditional Latin mass. Um, I don't

00:40:58.240 think, I don't know how studied a policy he has about Episcopal appointments. That is, if I put all

00:41:03.120 those pieces on the table in front of me, I think I'd be hard pressed to come up with a completely

00:41:07.200 coherent theory of what's going on. Um, except to say that, that, you know, as with John Paul II and

00:41:13.840 Benedict who also made some bad Episcopal appointments, you know, it, they made very,

00:41:17.680 they had a very mixed record. I, I sometimes had the impression that popes sort of have this

00:41:24.160 attitude. Well, you know, it's okay if the church has a diversity of types of bishops,

00:41:29.120 you know, I mean, we can't, you know, for, for a particular C, um, you know, we only have a few

00:41:34.320 candidates that are being presented to us and okay, one of them is going to have to do, but you know,

00:41:38.560 over here we have a better choice, you know, but I mean, very sort of a pragmatic devil may care

00:41:43.120 attitude, but, but just not. So in other words, I'm not, I think that there's just,

00:41:47.040 it's a mixed record. It's a very mixed record. The other thing I would say is I agree with those who,

00:41:51.360 who have argued that Pope Leo XIV is trying to be the ultimate Pope of unity. He wants to somehow

00:41:59.440 to reach everybody in the church and get them to stop fighting each other and bring them all under

00:42:04.880 one big tent as one big, warm, happy family, you know? And I also agree by the way, with the people

00:42:11.520 who say he's never going to be able to do this because the, the, there are irreconcilable

00:42:16.240 differences of worldview, of theology, of, you know, doctrine, of morals, of, I mean, diametrically

00:42:24.480 opposed points of view that cannot be reconciled over a cup of tea, um, and, and shouldn't be

00:42:31.440 embraced equally on equal terms. So I don't know if it's that Leo XIV is, is very naive about that,

00:42:38.480 or if he's kind of Machiavellian and he's got something up his sleeve that we don't know about,

00:42:42.880 or if he just really believes that somehow the Holy Spirit's going to unify what can't be united,

00:42:47.760 humanly speaking, I don't know. I just know that he meet, he, he not only met with Father Martin,

00:42:53.280 but he also met with the courage representatives, you know? I mean, courage is an organization that

00:43:00.240 in the most liberal parts of the United States, you know, you could be spit upon for even mentioning

00:43:05.520 courage. And yet Leo XIV met those people. So I, do you see what I mean? I, I see him as like,

00:43:11.600 everybody gets a seat at the table and I don't like that because I think it's incoherent, but

00:43:16.880 it doesn't seem to me that he has a liberal agenda that he's just driving in one direction.

00:43:23.120 That's, that's my perspective. Yeah. It's, it's an interesting one. I mean, he did what Francis

00:43:28.880 didn't do. He allowed an LGBT pilgrimage into St. Peter's. A thousand LGBT activists, uh, walked in,

00:43:36.320 you know, rainbow shirts, holding hands, kissing one another, uh, rainbow flags even. So that was

00:43:41.840 interesting on the part of Leo. And it does, it harkens back for me anyway, to the quote from the

00:43:47.280 scriptures, St. Paul, what accord has Christ with Belial or what has an unbeliever in common

00:43:55.360 with an unbeliever, with a believer in common with an unbeliever? Because they are, they're 0.98

00:43:59.360 diametrically opposed belief systems. This is the thing though, is that, um,

00:44:05.120 he also let the Society of St. Pius X come into St. Peter's with Bishop Philae and Bishop Galata,

00:44:12.080 if that's his name. Uh, I, I might get it. I might've gotten it wrong. Uh, and, and, and hundreds of

00:44:17.120 priests, thousands of faithful, they all came in to St. Peter's Basilica and had their Jubilee day.

00:44:22.320 Um, he, he, you know, at the, at the, at the risk of also at the risk of sounding like a

00:44:26.880 Pope's planer, which I'm not, you know, that, um, but I, I do, I do often wonder,

00:44:33.920 I, I think that the Pope's job is the most difficult job in the world. I mean, hands down,

00:44:39.360 nobody can dispute that, but also that I think that the Pope has less knowledge and less control

00:44:44.960 over a lot of particulars that happen, even, even in, at the Vatican than we might think.

00:44:49.600 Um, I, I just, unless we knew for a fact that Pope, that somebody came up to Pope Leo and said,

00:44:56.400 are you okay with the LGBT pilgrimage coming to St. Peter's on this date? And he said, yes,

00:45:01.200 absolutely. I love it. Go for it. Then I I'm sorry, but there are a hundred people in the Vatican

00:45:06.560 who would approve something like that without telling Leo. So I'm just, I'm just pointing out

00:45:10.960 that, you know, the fact that he in theory has power to do everything doesn't mean he's omniscient

00:45:16.640 and doesn't mean he's omnipotent. Uh, I just, he has limits. He's very limited. I think he's hedged

00:45:22.400 around right now, um, by people who, even if he wanted to do the right thing, would probably

00:45:28.480 twist his arm, uh, in this or that way to make him not do it. So yes, I mean, I'm just, I, I'm not

00:45:36.080 saying that he is helpless and that he's a victim, but only that it would take a very powerful personality.

00:45:43.760 It would take a sort of Giuseppe Sarto, a Pius X bulldog to rule something like the Vatican

00:45:50.960 right now. And he doesn't strike me as that kind of personality.

00:45:54.080 So final question for you, Peter, how long can we take this? So as we were saying before,

00:46:01.920 the Francis pontificate for about 12 years lasts as long as our, most of our adult children,

00:46:06.960 their whole lives is there is the Francis pontificate, the, what they're understand as adults.

00:46:10.400 Leo is a young man. Um, and if this were to go on like the JP two pontificate, for instance,

00:46:18.960 something, even a semblance of that, we would have decades and decades and decades under two

00:46:27.360 pontiffs that have basically led the faith astray on very key issues of our day, homosexuality, uh, 0.97

00:46:34.880 the death penalty, uh, immigration versus abortion, just key central issues to the modern world

00:46:41.840 that they're just off on. How long can we take it as, as the Catholic church?

00:46:46.080 You know, I, I said this before in a way, but I, I'm, what impresses me the most when I study church

00:46:50.400 history and especially recent church history is how much less resistance there was to errors

00:46:59.520 in the 1960s and seventies than there is now. Uh, and what I mean by that is if you want to know

00:47:05.520 what the Catholic church teaches about marriage and family and sexuality, it's very easy to find

00:47:10.640 right now in spite of the confusion caused by Francis. And in spite of whatever Leo might

00:47:16.480 unfortunately have done so far, um, that there's, you know, all the courses online that you can take

00:47:22.720 about, let's say theology of the body in the best sense, I'm not going to go into, you know,

00:47:27.600 there are different versions of that, but you know, all of the courses you can take defending,

00:47:31.280 um, a pro-life mentality, um, opposing contraception, all of these things that is the arguments on behalf

00:47:38.160 of the truth are very prominent. They're very convincing and they're very, they're very easy to access

00:47:45.520 now in the internet age. And to me, this is a hopeful sign because it, it makes it easier for

00:47:51.760 a person of goodwill. Granted, they have to have, I think some fortitude, but a person of goodwill can

00:47:56.880 say, look, I know what the real teaching of the church is about marriage and family. I'm not going

00:48:01.360 to allow myself to be confused by some homosexual, um, pro-homosexual bishop somewhere. I'm just not 0.86

00:48:07.200 going to do that. Um, it doesn't clear up the problems. It doesn't, you know, remove the cognitive dissonance.

00:48:14.160 What I'm saying is the faithful now are, are those who care, care more and they know more

00:48:20.880 and there's more access to the truth. And I see that as a really hopeful sign. I, and you and I

00:48:25.600 both know so many, I know so many families around the world, um, who are living the faith more fervently

00:48:33.040 than ever in spite of the counter witness that we're getting from, from the hierarchy. Right. Um,

00:48:39.760 but the other thing I just want to throw out there again, you know, you can tell I love church

00:48:43.360 history. I love studying it. The Aryan controversy lasted for over a hundred years. So somebody who

00:48:48.320 was born at the beginning of that never lived to see the end of it. Um, and it went through

00:48:52.640 multiple pontificates and multiple emperor emperors. Um, and, and even worse was the iconoclasm

00:48:59.920 controversy in the East where for over 150 years, you had emperors commanding the destruction of images

00:49:07.280 and churches, the destruction of icons and of relics and all kinds of things. And then another emperor

00:49:12.880 would come and reverse it for a few years. And then another emperor would come and reverse it again.

00:49:16.640 And it just went back and forth like this, you know, to just, I mean, I can, when I read this book

00:49:21.440 about the iconoclasm controversy, uh, not too long ago, I mean, I couldn't, I was thinking if I lived at

00:49:27.440 that time, it would have been such a wretched time to live, you know, because my church would change

00:49:34.160 what it looked like would change on a pretty frequent basis. You know? Um, I mean, so I, I think,

00:49:40.400 I think the church has weathered incredible storms. Um, granted this is a unique kind of storm,

00:49:46.720 but it's not a storm that's more powerful than almighty God. And it's not more powerful than our

00:49:51.520 faith. Um, you know, doesn't scripture say that our faith conquers the world or faith conquers

00:49:58.240 everything. So I don't have any easy answers, but I do have the answer of our faith, our faith in the

00:50:05.360 rock, which is Christ and the papacy. Well laid out in the book, the disaster pontificate. Again,

00:50:11.360 not only the errors, but an explanation of what the truth is on each of those subjects,

00:50:17.360 meticulously detailed in this tome. Thank you so much, Peter Kwasnetsky for being with us. God

00:50:22.160 bless you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.

00:50:31.440 Aloha everyone. This is Jason Jones for LifeSide News. We hope you enjoyed this video. For more

00:50:37.040 content like this, check the link in the description. You can also connect with us on social media to stay

00:50:43.840 up to date with the latest news on life, faith, family, and freedom. Thanks for watching and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - February 25, 2026

The DISASTROUS POPE： Francis, Leo, or BOTH!？

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