The John-Henry Westen Show - November 08, 2023


The fallout from Pope Francis' suspension of ordinations by France's most faithful bishop

Topics
Vocations and ordinations suspension
Hosted by
John-Henry Westen
Mentioned
Thomas Duchesne Archbishop Dominique Rey Mgr Dominique Rey John Paul II Joseph Strickland Pope Benedict Bishop Ray Eskimi Chaque
Pope Francis, a 'false church,' and the Synod on Synodality ｜ Matt Gaspers Bishop Schneider： Blessing of same-sex unions is 'an abomination'

Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

124.78

Word count

2,276

Sentence count

160

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Archbishop Dominique Rey is the Bishop of the Diocese of Toulon, France. He has been in charge of the diocese for the past 23 years, and is responsible for one of the most popular seminaries in all of France, Notre-Dame de la Citade de Versailles. In this episode, he talks about the recent Vatican decision to suspend the priesthood and diaconite, and what it means for the future of these vocations.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.080 It was a difficulty also for us because in a context where the dialogue is very important
00:00:06.400 in the church, synodality, etc., we have no response to our questions.
00:00:15.760 I have sent many letters without any answer.
00:00:20.080 We are here in France, in southern France, in the Diocese of Toulon, with the Archbishop
00:00:33.520 Pierre, Archbishop Dominique Rey.
00:00:35.760 It is so good to be with you.
00:00:37.580 Thanks so much.
00:00:39.940 Now, in America, you have a great reputation because in this diocese, you have many priests.
00:00:47.040 You have a seminary that's probably, I think, one of the most popular seminaries in all of France.
00:00:53.140 So your diocese is doing very well.
00:00:55.800 Yeah, it's difficult to be the judge of the situation, but we have some signs very positive
00:01:05.440 of a fruitful pastoral in the point of view of vocation, of evangelization, and the presence
00:01:14.280 of a church on the bad situation of a society, of a diakonia.
00:01:21.000 It's an association of solidarity, and there is a strong action of the presence of a church
00:01:29.660 for the poor, etc.
00:01:31.480 Many good signs, but at the same time, as each diocese, we have difficulties.
00:01:38.680 Sure, sure.
00:01:40.240 And you've been here now, I think it's 23 years, you've been the Bishop of the Diocese.
00:01:44.980 I was named by the Pope John Paul II in the year 2000, and I came from Paris.
00:01:54.680 Okay.
00:01:55.740 So it's a beautiful, vibrant diocese full of priests, young priests, too.
00:02:00.400 I think you have the youngest priests in all of France, which is really beautiful.
00:02:05.740 Now, something very controversial happened last year, which had reverberations all around
00:02:10.580 the world.
00:02:11.140 We heard of it in America.
00:02:13.440 And it was that the Vatican did a visitation on the diocese here.
00:02:19.580 And then something really that seemed very tragic for us, because we saw from the West, a suspension
00:02:29.060 of the priesthood at a time right before you were to do some ordinations.
00:02:33.740 I believe it was June the 26th of 2022, you were supposed to do ordinations, four to the
00:02:39.120 priesthood and six to the diakonia, something like that.
00:02:41.520 And they got immediately stopped, just days before they were to take place.
00:02:45.920 Yeah, yeah, it was a very big surprise for us.
00:02:50.180 We have received a letter from Eskimi to the suspension of all the ordinations for the
00:03:00.000 diaconite and for the priesthood.
00:03:03.460 And so, presently, there are more than 10 seminarians who are waiting for a solution.
00:03:12.100 And it's difficult in this situation, but I'm very touched inside the seminary, because
00:03:21.680 there are a good sense of the church, a peace in the situation of difficulties.
00:03:28.100 Many seminarians and formators are very full of a strange sense of the presence of God, and
00:03:41.100 they wait for the decision of a holy sea about the future of these vocations.
00:03:49.360 Absolutely.
00:03:49.880 And we've got one of those seminarians, who was to be ordained already a priest by this
00:03:56.600 point, with us right now, Thomas Duchesne.
00:04:00.320 Thomas Duchesne is actually, I'm very proud to say, is from Canada as well, from Ontario,
00:04:07.320 so French-speaking in Canada, and therefore fits in really well here in France.
00:04:12.160 Thomas, you were on the cusp of ordination to the priesthood.
00:04:19.220 You were days away.
00:04:23.720 Tell us about that, because that must have been a shock.
00:04:26.500 For a layman, we can only imagine you're going to get married, and then all of a sudden
00:04:31.440 it's stopped.
00:04:32.780 What was that like for you?
00:04:33.980 Yes, it's a great comparison, because we were waiting with a lot of joy after all the
00:04:40.700 years of preparation.
00:04:42.360 Yes, it was a shock to learn about this new.
00:04:46.940 My pastor, my superior of my small community, the Company of St. Thereseus, told me some weeks
00:04:53.420 before we had this new, to start praying for all the souls who will benefit from the grace
00:05:02.240 of my priesthood.
00:05:04.400 And when I received this notification from our bishop and from the Vatican, I started
00:05:10.780 to offer all this suffering and all this difficulties to understand, because we want to give all
00:05:20.880 life to the church and to Christ.
00:05:23.640 So I started, yes, to offer everything for my apostolate, for the sanctification of souls.
00:05:32.760 And the sufferance is, I think, also a kind of purification for us to be fully consecrated
00:05:40.900 to Christ and to have a great desire purified to the priesthood.
00:05:48.680 Your community is a very beautiful community.
00:05:52.920 It's one which has an outreach to the poor.
00:05:55.680 In fact, let's take a look at this little video that you guys have about your community,
00:05:59.900 your company of St. Thereseus, who was the saint of the Blessed Sacrament, the young boy.
00:06:05.020 Yes, he's a martyr of the Eucharist.
00:06:07.480 Beautiful.
00:06:08.060 Let's take a look at that.
00:06:08.820 Dans notre village de Pignan, au cœur du Var, est née notre compagnie, avec la bienveillance
00:06:14.600 de notre évêque, Mgr Dominique Rey, qui nous a toujours beaucoup encouragés et soutenus.
00:06:19.440 Avec les compagnons et les bénévoles, nous avons mis en place une distribution alimentaire.
00:06:24.500 Un de nos saints patrons, Saint Vincent de Paul, aimait à dire souvent « J'ai peine
00:06:29.200 de votre peine ». Chaque semaine, les jeunes se relaient pour accompagner les familles en deuil,
00:06:34.940 pour leur apporter la présence du Christ, et un message d'espérance, de compassion
00:06:39.480 et de soutien.
00:06:40.480 Ces œuvres de charité sont véritablement source de joie et de grâce pour nous, prêtres,
00:06:46.120 jeunes compagnons ou bénévoles.
00:06:47.940 À travers le service des plus fragiles, nous apprenons à servir et à suivre le Christ,
00:06:53.180 qui a été toujours attentif aux besoins de tous les hommes.
00:06:56.740 Nous vivons ici sous le patronage de Saint Arcissus, martyr de l'Eucharistie, de l'Antiquité
00:07:02.460 chrétienne.
00:07:03.460 C'est une belle figure du don de soi au service des autres, dans l'amour de Dieu.
00:07:07.700 C'est tout un programme, mes bien chers amis.
00:07:09.900 Alors, je sollicite le soutien de votre prière pour nous aider à faire rayonner l'amour
00:07:14.940 de Dieu, qui est toujours attentif aux besoins et aux souffrances de tous les hommes.
00:07:20.460 So, if I can ask you, Bishop Ray, what led to this?
00:07:29.100 Do you have any knowledge of why, what happened?
00:07:32.100 I think the Holy See was saying to me that the diocese has received many groups, many vocations
00:07:42.380 from different areas from different areas, and some of them come from traditional situations, traditionalists.
00:07:53.860 Other ones, they come from charismatic groups.
00:07:58.620 The dissonance about all those vocations is for some of them a problem, and so in this sense,
00:08:09.060 they ask me the suspension of ordination.
00:08:12.860 But all the files of this guide have been studied by the responsables of the seminaries, with information they have received from different places where this guide was before.
00:08:29.860 And before the presentation for ordination, we need to have many information, recommendations, and so.
00:08:42.620 And it has been done for all these vocations.
00:08:47.060 So it was a surprise for us to receive this suspension, the global suspension.
00:08:53.980 And it was received like a sanction.
00:08:59.620 But you see, in this situation, we have to stay in a way of theft, between the resignation and, on the other side, the rebellion.
00:09:17.260 And so we are trying to go on with discussions with the Holy See to find a solution.
00:09:27.380 I've sent many letters.
00:09:29.380 I've visited the rector of the seminary, I've been in Rome to discuss, but it was a difficulty also for us, because in a context where the dialogue is very important in the church, synodality, etc., we have no response to our questions.
00:09:54.380 I've sent many letters without any answer.
00:09:59.380 And so the silence is very difficult to leave.
00:10:06.380 But we advance in the faith, we advance in the hope, and we pray for the church.
00:10:15.380 In a way, it's a real suffering that you must endure and your fellow seminarians and fellow, those to be ordained, suffer for the church.
00:10:27.380 The church itself is going through a time of great trial right now.
00:10:31.380 There seems to be an anger or something toward tradition, as Pope Benedict used to say, how can we be against what has our own patrimony?
00:10:47.380 It's what all of our fathers received and had as their mass forever, for over a thousand years in the church.
00:10:55.380 How can we be against our own patrimony?
00:10:57.380 And there is that sentiment right now in the church.
00:11:00.380 But I think a lot of the suffering that's happening to you and your communities are emblematic of the suffering that's going on in the church.
00:11:10.380 And so you're suffering in a way also for the church.
00:11:12.380 And for that, we thank you. We're very grateful.
00:11:15.380 It's interesting in your case because you, yourself, are not traditional.
00:11:20.380 You don't say the traditional mass.
00:11:22.380 You're charismatic in a great sense of the word.
00:11:26.380 There's a real thing about charismatics in the church. 0.89
00:11:29.380 A great, very strong love for Christ and ready to go out and to act for Christ in the world in a way that many people might think is extreme or, you know, silly. 0.66
00:11:42.380 But you're willing, charismatics generally, they're willing to be fools for Christ in the world because they love so much. 0.72
00:11:49.380 And that we see in the traditional community as well. 0.88
00:11:53.380 In the traditional community as well, there's all these young people, families, priests who love Jesus.
00:12:01.380 And they're doing something very counter-cultural.
00:12:03.380 They're going, they're having these large families and they're going to this Latin mass where they have to learn a new language or whatever.
00:12:11.380 But they're doing it out of a real love, a love for Christ, for his church.
00:12:16.380 And they're beautiful communities, both of them.
00:12:19.380 And so it's funny because they seem quite different, you know, the charismatics and the traditionalists.
00:12:25.380 But there seems to be that union that's not only here, it's all over the world that I've seen.
00:12:33.380 This kind of coming together of charismatics and traditionalists, even though it seems liturgically they're very, very different.
00:12:40.380 They're the same in a strength of love for Christ and a willingness to endure whatever sufferings or condemnations from the world or from brothers in the church that might come.
00:12:55.380 So it's a very interesting dynamic.
00:12:58.380 And I do, we hope and pray for you because we've got similar situations in America with bishops under investigation and so on for being more traditional.
00:13:10.380 And also similarly, I have a bishop in America who's a great and holy bishop.
00:13:17.380 His name is Joseph Strickland. He's in Tyler in Texas.
00:13:20.380 And he, too, doesn't celebrate the traditional mass. He's very charismatic.
00:13:25.380 He does something like two hours of adoration every day before the Blessed Sacrament.
00:13:30.380 But he is also open to tradition, even though he himself really doesn't say the traditional mass.
00:13:38.380 But he's open to that tradition.
00:13:40.380 And he, too, was under an investigation by the Vatican, no suspensions or anything yet.
00:13:45.380 So there's this struggle, and it's going on not just in France. It's going on all over the world.
00:13:52.380 So we pray for you. But most of all, we thank you.
00:13:54.380 Thank you so much.
00:13:55.380 We thank you for your example, for your bon courage. We say to you, bon courage.
00:14:01.380 Courage.
00:14:02.380 Maintain your faith and your openness to Christ and his tradition because it's not a...
00:14:08.380 This too will pass, and you are setting an example, a beautiful example for all the world.
00:14:16.380 Please, please, stay strong.
00:14:19.380 Yeah, we have to be in the hope. And all these difficulties need to love more and more Christ and the church.
00:14:31.380 Amen to that. And it's a time of purification, because sometimes we have made some errors.
00:14:40.380 It's a fact. But to be in the sense of one always, with fidelity,
00:14:52.380 and you see, to be helped also, and it is for my part, it's a good and strong reality,
00:15:03.380 to be helped by many friends who pray for me, who pray for the seminary,
00:15:08.380 who pray for vocations, and so it's a source of support.
00:15:15.380 And I think, for me, there are three pillars for the church.
00:15:20.380 First, in my diocese, the fidelity of Vatican II.
00:15:26.380 Secondly, the evangelization. The church exists for evangelizations.
00:15:36.380 And the third pillar is a pastoral communion with different sensibilities, expression of faith, different charism.
00:15:49.380 But in the union with the church, inside the church,
00:15:55.380 who have the responsibility to discern, to accompany all these ecclesial realities.
00:16:02.380 So the three pillars, who are mission, the fidelity, the tradition of the church in Vatican II,
00:16:14.380 and also a missionary communion with different expressions,
00:16:19.380 are fundamentally the essential of my ministry and of my work.
00:16:27.380 And so it is in the way that I have developed different initiatives.
00:16:34.380 I was saying always, when a car stays in the garage, we have no accident.
00:16:44.380 OK, I have taken risks. And the Pope insists several times, we have to take risks.
00:16:50.380 And so I have taken risks. Sometimes it was with difficulties, but also there are foods.
00:16:56.380 Yeah, exactly. If I could ask you as you close, would you please give our viewers your blessing?
00:17:03.380 Yeah. I bless not only the Semerians, but all the Semerists, all the church, all the Christians,
00:17:15.380 in this context, in this context, to be in the fidelity, humility, disponibility for the service of a church.
00:17:24.380 Our Lord blesses, give for each person in this diocese, for each Christian, the strength to be in fidelity, humility, disponibility, for the mission,
00:17:42.380 for the transformation of the world.
00:17:48.380 Thanks, O Lord, for your love. Thanks, O Lord, for your redemption, your salvation.
00:17:57.380 Thanks, O Lord, to help us to grow in holiness. Amen.
00:18:04.380 Amen. Amen.
00:18:08.380 Thank you, Excellency, so very much. God bless you.
00:18:11.380 Thanks, O Lord. Thomas, thank you.
00:18:13.380 Thank you.