The John-Henry Westen Show - Theologian corrects Vatican Abp. who said priests could accompany assisted suicide victims

00:00:00.000 Welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.

00:00:03.940 I'm your host, John Henry Weston, and I'm thrilled to bring you Dr. Monica Miller,

00:00:07.880 a theologian and pro-life activist who's here to discuss with us something very controversial.

00:00:12.380 Last week, Archbishop Paglia from the Vatican made comments that suggest that anyone who

00:00:17.520 says Judas is in hell is a heretic, and also talked about how a priest could hold the hand

00:00:22.940 of an assisted suicide person going through that, and that's just fine.

00:00:29.100 Stay tuned.

00:00:52.720 Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.

00:00:55.240 In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

00:00:59.320 Amen.

00:01:00.440 Amen.

00:01:01.420 Dr. Monica Miller is a good friend.

00:01:04.520 She is also someone very well known in the pro-life movement.

00:01:07.960 The founders of Citizens for Pro-Life, what's it called again?

00:01:13.780 Citizens for a Pro-Life Society. 0.63

00:01:15.620 That's it.

00:01:16.140 Citizens for a Pro-Life Society. 0.63

00:01:17.400 And also very famous for having found unborn aborted baby victims, their bodies discarded 0.84

00:01:25.620 and making that public.

00:01:27.580 Also, though, probably less known is the fact that she's a theologian, and she's a theologian,

00:01:34.500 a professor in Michigan.

00:01:35.840 And actually, what I found very enjoyable was reading Rome Street Home by the Hans that talk

00:01:44.140 about their conversion to the Catholic Church.

00:01:46.320 Dr. Miller is mentioned in there as really inspiring the Hans in their pro-life work that

00:01:52.120 actually helped them a lot in their own ongoing struggle over the faith.

00:01:55.600 So, welcome, Dr. Miller.

00:01:57.680 Thank you.

00:01:58.380 I knew Scott when he was still a Protestant.

00:02:01.880 He and I were in graduate classes together at Marquette back in the 1980s, and I attended

00:02:09.080 his baptism.

00:02:10.680 It was a conditional baptism, but I attended that, and I've been good friends with the

00:02:15.660 Hans family.

00:02:17.060 Beautiful.

00:02:17.780 Yeah, he calls it, I think, the Grand Slam or something like that.

00:02:24.120 It's really great to speak to you about this, because when I saw this issue come up,

00:02:27.940 Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia making these comments about hell, and then also about the pro-life

00:02:35.880 issue of suicide and what to do about it, I thought immediately of you, because I thought,

00:02:40.100 oh, that's perfect.

00:02:40.900 That combines both your expertise.

00:02:43.260 So, let's get into the issue.

00:02:44.980 I'm going to read his quotes that he gave.

00:02:47.440 A little bit of context first.

00:02:49.600 Archbishop Paglia, of course, is already very controversial, having come from Terny, the

00:02:55.040 Diocese of Terny, where he had a very controversial mural put up with himself embracing a nude

00:03:00.780 man.

00:03:02.420 He's the guy who went to the Pontifical Council for the Family first, then the Pontifical

00:03:07.320 Academy for Life.

00:03:09.000 At the Academy for Life, under his watch, they got rid of the pro-life pledge, got rid of

00:03:13.660 a bunch of the members who were very close to John Paul II.

00:03:16.740 Then he went and still, as the head of the Academy, also heads up the Pontifical Council,

00:03:24.800 excuse me, the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family, which similarly, they got rid

00:03:31.160 of their mandate or changed it drastically now to promote Amoris Laetitia, also getting rid of the

00:03:38.320 two most prominent professors associated with the Institute.

00:03:42.340 So, from there, let's go into what he said last week.

00:03:46.840 Last week, Archbishop Paglia said, and I'll quote it for you, one of the things he said

00:03:52.920 anyway was, yes, we must remember that for the Catholic Church, this is a direct quote,

00:04:02.080 for the Catholic Church, if someone says that Judas is in hell, he is a heretic, end quote.

00:04:08.140 So, we'll unpack that a little bit and then go back to what he was talking about in the

00:04:13.300 context.

00:04:13.820 But just that statement has caused a lot of consternation.

00:04:17.820 We know that Pope Francis has sort of intimated with some interviews that, you know, a person

00:04:25.080 doesn't go to hell. 0.96

00:04:25.960 Sculfery is one of those people who he interviews regularly with, and he's said numerous times

00:04:31.640 that the Pope has said nobody goes to hell.

00:04:33.780 In fact, he said, you know, when he pushed him once to say, what happens if someone doesn't

00:04:37.700 want, you know, doesn't want to go to heaven?

00:04:39.140 Does God force him in?

00:04:40.240 And the Pope said, according to Sculfery, no, he's annihilated, which of course is all sorts

00:04:45.700 of controversial all by itself.

00:04:47.860 But those interviews have never been denounced by the Vatican.

00:04:52.600 In fact, they're published in a book by the Vatican, but they're still quasi denied by

00:04:57.460 saying, well, Sculfery never takes notes, so we can't be sure about anything.

00:05:01.180 And yet, the interviews with him continue and continue and continue.

00:05:05.520 So it's very strange stuff.

00:05:07.500 But Dr. Miller, if you can just unpack for us just that one thing about anyone who says

00:05:13.540 Judas is in hell is a heretic.

00:05:16.960 Well, my first reaction, John Henry, is, you know, it is kind of amazing what comes out 0.64

00:05:25.360 of the mouths of some of the prominent people in the Catholic Church regarding their theological

00:05:31.740 positions.

00:05:32.480 But it's, I would classify or characterize the comment is just theologically reckless.

00:05:40.420 I also find it a little humorous, perhaps, who it is that he would be maligning in terms

00:05:48.560 of their theological opinion, namely St. Augustine and the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas, because

00:05:57.740 they certainly argued that, shall we say, Judas is not among the saved, which I guess is another 1.00

00:06:08.220 way of saying that he's in hell.

00:06:10.240 The thing is, I mean, there is no Catholic position that says, if anyone, Christian, non-Christian,

00:06:20.660 whatever, Catholic, whatever, believes that Judas is not among the saved, that they're

00:06:27.860 a heretic.

00:06:29.520 So where is he coming from?

00:06:31.360 Where is he getting that?

00:06:32.480 And I think what he's doing, which kind of gets us into the second comment that he made

00:06:41.020 regarding priests being able to pastorally accompany those who are committing suicide or

00:06:49.680 assisted suicide.

00:06:51.620 I think what Polly is trying to get at is that we cannot say with certainty that such persons

00:07:02.100 are necessarily going to hell. 0.68

00:07:04.600 So he's salvaged Judas as kind of the poster boy, right, for those who do commit suicide

00:07:13.960 and may nonetheless have wound up saving their souls.

00:07:19.040 Right.

00:07:19.360 Now, maybe Judas is spending an awful long time in purgatory.

00:07:23.640 But in any case, Polly wants to get him into the saved category.

00:07:31.820 And I think I'm not barking up the wrong tree.

00:07:36.640 I think it's because he has this view, again, that those among us who have been failed by friends,

00:07:46.420 failed by family, failed by...

00:07:48.140 And by the way, he basically blames society for people who choose suicide or assisted suicide.

00:07:58.840 Well, they don't get the blame for the action that they're choosing.

00:08:02.200 He's blamed the culture rather than the actual individual choice, the individual will of the

00:08:10.340 person who wants the lethal injection, wants the overdose of drugs, wants to shoot themselves

00:08:17.580 or however, whatever their chosen method.

00:08:21.200 It's not their fault.

00:08:23.140 So he's trying to save Judas again as the poster boy for those sad situations where people are

00:08:33.140 going to make a decision to end their life.

00:08:36.400 Right.

00:08:36.520 Right.

00:08:37.000 Right.

00:08:37.180 Right.

00:09:06.520 They're not responsible for their actions.

00:09:09.460 Their level of personal freedom somehow is compromised.

00:09:14.320 That is part of Catholic social or moral teaching.

00:09:19.000 And yet he's comparing that to Judas, who had full will, full knowledge of what he was

00:09:24.840 doing, went up to our Lord and betrayed him, really hated Christ.

00:09:29.120 Even from the beginning, he's stealing from the apostles.

00:09:32.080 Well, exactly, and thank you for bringing that up because some of the most serious, damning,

00:09:44.260 no pun intended there, right?

00:09:46.240 But damning statements are made in God's word regarding Judas.

00:09:53.600 And you go to the Gospel of John.

00:09:55.380 John actually says, Satan entered him.

00:09:58.580 So in other words, theologically speaking, even if you wanted to go up a notch, doctrinally

00:10:07.220 speaking, in God's holy word, Judas has been placed himself on the side of Satan.

00:10:17.100 In the Gospel of John, John actually gave us the reason.

00:10:22.320 And it's a spiritual reason.

00:10:25.780 He sided with Satan.

00:10:28.100 He put himself on the side of Satan.

00:10:29.960 The other tragedy about Judas is he had a certain level of regret.

00:10:40.160 Now, how do we know that?

00:10:41.520 Because he went back to the Sanhedrin, to the Jewish elders, the chief priests, and wanted 0.90

00:10:48.880 them to take the money back.

00:10:50.260 Of course, they wouldn't.

00:10:53.180 But what he fails to do is to open himself up in humility, like Peter did, and cast his

00:11:03.460 sins at the one place where they could have achieved forgiveness, at the heart of our Lord.

00:11:11.880 Instead, he commits the worst sin, which is despair, despairing of salvation, despairing of forgiveness.

00:11:21.920 And so his way to get out of his own personal suffering is not to place that suffering at

00:11:30.760 the heart of our Lord, but to kill himself.

00:11:33.720 And in some ways, I mean, I think that brings us to the situation of suicide and assisted suicide.

00:11:43.540 Because that is the failure of hope where, you know, what is the Christian religion? 1.00

00:11:49.180 One of the most important dimensions and gifts of the Christian faith is that our suffering 1.00

00:11:57.980 can be united to the suffering of Jesus, and it's salvific.

00:12:03.060 But when somebody commits suicide, and I'm going to say even worse, in a way, the assisted 1.00

00:12:08.560 suicide movement, because there, it's packaged.

00:12:12.840 There, it's deliberate.

00:12:14.320 It's not even such a question of despair, as it is not to see value in human suffering, but

00:12:23.900 to eliminate it.

00:12:25.600 And that, I think, is even a worse, it's worse than somebody who's in a depression.

00:12:30.780 They don't see an option for themselves.

00:12:33.720 They find that they have to get out because they're in such despair over life.

00:12:38.160 And they throw themselves off a bridge, they buy a gun, and they shoot themselves, and

00:12:43.300 they do it privately.

00:12:44.960 They don't involve someone else in aiding and abetting their act of despair.

00:12:54.640 So, I mean, that brings us, I guess, in a way to the second, in some ways, even more

00:13:00.240 problematic, a position that Vincenzo Apaglia raised just a few days ago in his statement

00:13:09.440 about suicide.

00:13:10.800 Let me read that so all of yours can know what was happening.

00:13:15.380 So, first of all, he said, and he goes back and forth, because he says, we're against assisted

00:13:21.080 suicide, but then you can play with it.

00:13:23.020 And here's how he says it.

00:13:23.780 He says, we're against assisted suicide because we do not want the dirty work of death, and

00:13:29.060 because we are all well aware that for believers, life goes on.

00:13:33.800 To accompany and hold the hand of those who are dying, he says, is the great task of every

00:13:41.580 believer.

00:13:42.920 And then he goes on to say, assisted suicide is a great defeat for society.

00:13:48.740 And then he says, and I'll quote him again, I always celebrate funerals for those who commit

00:13:54.800 suicide, because suicide is always a question of unfulfilled love.

00:14:00.080 And then he goes on to talk about holding the hand as well of the assisted suicide victim

00:14:08.160 to accompany them.

00:14:09.860 Well, that's where he goes on to say, we must also remember that for the, why, it's amazing

00:14:17.280 he, this is a definitive statement, for the Catholic Church, which is absolutely not true.

00:14:25.700 If someone says that Judas is in hell, he is a heretic.

00:14:28.860 He says that's Catholic teaching.

00:14:30.740 Yeah.

00:14:31.440 I think he needs to go back to the seminary.

00:14:34.000 Sorry.

00:14:34.520 Well, well, that's the thing you were mentioning to you mentioned, John, in the book of John

00:14:41.000 and our Lord's own words.

00:14:42.840 And I think that to me is incredibly fascinating, because our Lord was very, very explicit about

00:14:50.280 Judas and his position on Judas.

00:14:52.540 That's why I've said in the past, when people have asked me, I'd say, you know, in order

00:14:56.800 to say Judas isn't hell, you'd have to make Jesus a liar.

00:15:00.260 Um, and there's a couple of quotes that are very powerful from my perspective on that,

00:15:04.960 but one is this one from John 17, verse 12.

00:15:08.800 Um, he says, while I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe, uh, by that name you

00:15:13.960 gave me, none has been lost except the one doomed to destruction or the son of perdition

00:15:21.320 in other translations so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

00:15:24.140 Right.

00:15:25.780 I, again, I, I think that there's this over sensitivity, if you will, this, this, I don't

00:15:33.280 know, how, how, how, how do I say it without being misunderstood or misinterpreted, but there

00:15:39.860 is this hyper rush to emphasize compassion.

00:15:48.420 That's kind of the new, the new thing, right?

00:15:50.500 You know, mercy and compassion trumps everything, even logic, even the truth and the doctrines

00:15:58.440 of our faith are somehow mitigated, altered, uh, muted, subordinated to this, this, this

00:16:09.080 new rubric of mercy and compassion.

00:16:12.600 And, and, and, and so that you could even have a poly poly up saying that a priest could

00:16:19.460 accompany someone who is engaged in an act of assisted suicide.

00:16:25.960 So that person, um, you know, isn't going to die alone, hold the hand, right?

00:16:31.720 Hold the hand of somebody who's engaged in that.

00:16:34.540 That is so morally problematic.

00:16:37.180 I, I, I just hardly know where to begin.

00:16:40.200 I, I, I'm trying to find analogies to help people understand what, what, what's an issue

00:16:45.860 there.

00:16:46.560 First of all, he does say, um, I, I, I, at least I think, I, I believe he said the priest

00:16:53.020 cannot be in the room when the lethal injection is administrated.

00:16:59.840 That, that was the, that was the conference that said that the, so there's, he was reacting

00:17:05.420 to the, uh, Swiss bishops guidelines and they're the ones who said that the, uh, priest may not

00:17:13.780 be in the room when the lethal injection is administered.

00:17:17.380 And Paglia said, no, he rejected that.

00:17:21.220 And says, indeed, you should be in the room and hold the hand.

00:17:25.120 Okay.

00:17:25.640 He's gone that far.

00:17:27.380 Um, he is in grave error.

00:17:29.660 I'm just going to say it right out.

00:17:31.440 There's no way that you can stand by while somebody takes a gun and points it to their

00:17:36.840 temple and is about ready to point, to pull the trigger and kill themselves and not intervene

00:17:44.280 to stop them from doing that evil act to themselves.

00:17:47.740 You have a, you have a moral responsibility to stop that killing, to prevent it, to protest

00:17:56.420 against it, to counsel the person away from that act of, uh, self violation.

00:18:05.360 And for, and for a priest to just to be there and hold the hand and mop the brow and stroke

00:18:11.840 the head of somebody who's going to kill themselves, that priest is aided and abetted. 0.87

00:18:17.740 That's suicide. 0.66

00:18:19.900 Moreover, they have given scandal.

00:18:23.360 They have given the impression then to anyone standing by the hospital staff, the nursing

00:18:29.700 staff, the doctors, the janitors, whoever, and then just the public at large, that there

00:18:37.340 must not be anything morally wrong with assisted suicide.

00:18:41.340 That priest has a duty to help that person live their life.

00:18:48.080 And you know what accompaniment really means?

00:18:50.960 It means being with that person in their suffering, to stand by that person as they are going through

00:18:58.680 whatever, whatever suffering they are enduring, whether it's physical pain, the last stages of,

00:19:04.700 you know, stage four cancer, um, being, being bedridden and not being able to live the kind

00:19:11.300 of quality of life that you want for yourself because of the various handicaps or disabilities.

00:19:18.640 That's the Christian love that we're supposed to show someone and, and to be there and to,

00:19:25.100 and to hold their hand.

00:19:26.240 And here's an analogy that I will give.

00:19:28.600 If Polly would agree, and let's just give him the benefit of the doubt.

00:19:32.880 I mean, he says, you know, we don't want to be there while the dirty work of death, right?

00:19:38.500 Those are very, those are very strong words.

00:19:41.000 The dirty work of death is, is, um, is being accomplished.

00:19:45.440 Okay, could you hold the hand and stand by while a woman is in the process of aborting her unborn 0.95

00:19:57.700 child?

00:19:59.360 And you know, there are a lot of clinic workers I've even seen, and it makes me sick to my

00:20:04.200 stomach, by the way.

00:20:05.440 You'll see photographs of a clinic worker holding, holding the hand of the woman while she's on

00:20:12.800 the procedure, uh, table, getting her abortion. 0.63

00:20:18.120 And I, I, I find that so contradictory because while we're having that human connection, we're

00:20:29.320 having, while we're having that human connection, holding the hand of somebody killing her baby,

00:20:35.920 you're, you're, you're making a human connection while there is the supreme disconnection.

00:20:42.800 And I transfer that to the assisted suicide.

00:20:47.180 That person who's committing assisted suicide is committing an act of disconnection.

00:20:53.500 I am disconnecting myself from the life that God has given to me.

00:20:58.580 And you can't accompany that.

00:21:01.060 You have to protest that.

00:21:03.120 You have to stand against that.

00:21:05.240 You have to help that person remove themselves from that act of self-violation, whether it's

00:21:13.880 the priest, the nurse, the doctor, the janitor who's in the room mopping the floor.

00:21:20.240 Everyone has that responsibility.

00:21:22.880 And, and, and, and, you know, thank God for the Swiss bishops.

00:21:26.260 I guess they kind of got it, right?

00:21:28.680 So we have to, we have to support the light where, wherever it may be found.

00:21:33.280 Right.

00:21:33.740 Now it is very interesting because that analogy is really, really good because both situations,

00:21:40.660 especially in today's world, they seem so perfect, so wonderful.

00:21:44.580 So this notion that Archbishop Paglia is presenting, I think it would extend actually to, to holding

00:21:51.320 the hand of a woman getting an abortion as well.

00:21:54.560 And it's so, you know, because it sounds so good from the perspective of the world.

00:21:59.200 Yes, they're making a choice that may be a sad choice, but, you know, we're going to

00:22:02.620 be there and we're going to show them love anyway.

00:22:04.900 And yet it's not showing them love to help them down the path.

00:22:10.180 It's counterfeit.

00:22:11.200 It looks like love, but in essence, metaphysically speaking, spiritually speaking, morally speaking,

00:22:17.920 it's an act of death that, you know, dressed up to look like love.

00:22:23.700 And that, that's, that's where the trick, it's, it, and we're tricked by it.

00:22:28.000 We're sucked in by that falsehood and, and, and, and we need to, we need to, we need to name

00:22:34.320 it for what it is.

00:22:35.640 Absolutely.

00:22:36.120 And I also think it is a great falsehood.

00:22:40.340 The whole notion of nobody ever goes to hell is also a great falsehood.

00:22:45.760 And it starts with Judas because that's the most extreme case.

00:22:48.580 Before, before we started taping this, you were telling me of one of the key quotes from

00:22:53.300 our Lord.

00:22:54.020 You were saying, I believe it was one of the worst curses or whatever he gives to anyone

00:22:58.900 or worst thing he says about anyone.

00:23:00.640 What was that?

00:23:01.140 What was that?

00:23:01.480 That, that Jesus said of Judas, Judas, it would have been better had he never been born. 0.66

00:23:10.700 Our Lord is actually saying that about someone.

00:23:14.120 Yeah.

00:23:14.680 It would, it would reduce me to tears.

00:23:17.880 If I, if I, if the Lord had ever said something like that about me or one of my loved ones had

00:23:22.480 better, had they never been born.

00:23:25.520 They really, what Jesus is saying better had they never existed because why, you know, why is

00:23:31.460 it that it would have been better for Judas never to have been born because he's going 0.53

00:23:35.460 to suffer the worst suffering to be disconnected from God and not among the saved?

00:23:43.320 Yeah.

00:23:43.440 I mean, you are perfectly free.

00:23:45.320 And it's a logical conclusion that a, a, a Catholic, a theologian, a believer can make

00:23:52.760 about Judas.

00:23:54.680 And by the way, while we're on the subject, um, and it's, it's kind of pertinent regarding

00:23:59.280 all the controversy that's been going on with, uh, uh, Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the,

00:24:04.880 and the delay in his beatification.

00:24:08.500 Fulton Sheen, um, in one of his great books, The Life of Christ, it's a great book.

00:24:14.440 So if anyone wants to pick up that book and, and, and get a good read on, um, kind of, shall

00:24:18.760 we say a biography of Jesus, right?

00:24:21.200 The Life of Christ, he said, the tragedy of Judas is that he is not Saint Judas, right?

00:24:31.480 I love tragedy of Judas is that he's not called Saint Judas.

00:24:37.320 He didn't go on to become a saint and he could have.

00:24:40.480 Amazing.

00:24:43.540 I, it's, it's so evident from the scriptures, but again, this whole notion of an empty hell

00:24:50.640 or the positing of that position, I think it's actually very similar to looks good, sounds

00:24:58.380 good, but really is metaphysically speaking, horrific.

00:25:02.680 Um, it's right.

00:25:03.700 And here's the other thing, John, John Henry, if, if you want to have this theological position

00:25:09.560 of universal salvation, right?

00:25:12.660 Nobody goes to hell.

00:25:14.020 Not Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, Attila Dahan, nobody, right?

00:25:18.060 Okay.

00:25:19.000 All right.

00:25:19.720 And we can always hope that people are saved.

00:25:21.920 You can even hope that Judas somehow, and maybe in that last second when he, you know, 0.96

00:25:27.260 was hanging himself, cried out to Jesus.

00:25:30.440 We can hope for that.

00:25:31.420 But Jesus wasted an awful lot of his preaching because he often warned people, you know, if,

00:25:42.520 if, if you don't do this and so you risk the fires of hell, you risk the fires of Gehenna.

00:25:51.080 So apparently hell was very real to our Lord.

00:25:53.920 And if that's the case, then we need, we need to take it seriously as well.

00:25:58.200 Yeah.

00:25:58.940 Well, I mean, I mean, how, how, how can we square logically, um, Jesus is saying, Jesus

00:26:04.160 is saying, um, it would have been better for him not to have been born.

00:26:08.220 How can we even hope that Judas is in heaven somehow?

00:26:12.420 Because if he was in heaven, if he is in heaven, it's not better for him never to have been

00:26:18.960 born.

00:26:19.260 It's better that he was born.

00:26:21.380 Yeah.

00:26:22.120 Yeah.

00:26:22.280 So I, I don't think that this is settled doctrine.

00:26:27.460 And that's all somebody wants to believe that Judas somehow, you know, by the skin of his

00:26:33.100 teeth is in purgatory until the end of time.

00:26:38.080 Hey, I'm okay.

00:26:39.240 If somebody wants to believe that, uh, it doesn't make them necessarily a heretic.

00:26:43.740 I think they're kind of hard pressed to hold that position, but it's not as if the church

00:26:49.100 has a, has a position on whether or not.

00:26:51.160 So going back to Polly, I can't say that's the problem.

00:26:55.900 Polly, I can't say that those of us who do hold that position and some pretty, uh, heavy

00:27:02.200 duty theologians in the history of our church have held that position.

00:27:06.320 He can't say that they're heretics.

00:27:08.860 That is where Polly is totally off the cliff. 1.00

00:27:11.480 Right, right.

00:27:13.260 Now this, this whole attitude as a, as a pro-lifer, I think your description of it, uh, is the

00:27:20.700 most apt thing.

00:27:21.840 The comparison to holding a woman as she goes ahead and has an abortion, um, is, is probably 0.98

00:27:28.940 the perfect comparison to this act, which in itself is really, uh, while it looks nice

00:27:35.040 and wonderful and caring and so on, it's horrible.

00:27:37.540 You're, uh, you're in, in a way complicit in someone's killing, the killing of themselves

00:27:44.460 or having a doctor kill themselves, but nonetheless.

00:27:47.420 Um, so it's unbelievable to hear this coming from the Vatican.

00:27:51.660 Um, I should ask you, what do you expect a correction?

00:27:55.920 I mean, this is a very public, this was given as a public, uh, talk and, uh, and he is the

00:28:01.040 head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the head of the John Paul II Institute for

00:28:05.740 Marriage and the Family.

00:28:06.400 Um, so these words of his are going to be listened to, uh, perhaps by many Catholic priests.

00:28:12.000 Um, what would your advice be for Catholic priests hearing this?

00:28:16.340 Well, first of all, the, the, the sacred congregation for the doctrine of the faith needs to make a

00:28:22.840 correction.

00:28:24.820 I, I, I think, I, I think it's incumbent that a clarification, uh, a statement be made.

00:28:31.640 Um, all I can hope for a John Henry is that the majority, or if not the, uh, you know, every single

00:28:43.400 priest has got to know that this can't be right.

00:28:45.600 Um, um, they, they would innately know it, it can't be right.

00:28:49.580 Um, and only those who are looking for an excuse, um, to excuse sin on any level, whether it's

00:29:01.420 abortion, homosexual activity, uh, cheating on your taxes, um, you know, infidelity to your 0.87

00:29:08.660 spout, whatever direction you want to go, um, only, only a priest is looking for an excuse 0.83

00:29:15.620 to excuse sin, period, is going to, is going to agree. 0.74

00:29:20.180 I, I think with, um, with, uh, uh, Pavia, uh, it's foolishness.

00:29:27.280 It's, it's, it's, it's, it's reckless, it's foolishness, and very dangerous that, that such

00:29:33.180 a statement would, would, would be made by somebody so high ranking at the Vatican.

00:29:37.880 Absolutely.

00:29:39.220 Absolutely.

00:29:39.860 Well, Monica, thank you so very much for being with us on the John Henry Reston Show.

00:29:43.640 Uh, may God bless you.

00:29:45.020 If you have any parting words for your fellow pro-lifers, we'd love to hear them now.

00:29:48.400 No, maybe just to go to our website, put in a plug for pro-life society.com.

00:29:55.180 Um, people can go there and, and see what we're up to.

00:29:58.640 Pro-life society, no hyphens, no nothing.

00:30:01.520 Pro-life society.com.

00:30:04.040 That is awesome.

00:30:05.780 Monica, thank you for being with us.

00:30:07.140 God bless you.

00:30:08.060 And, uh, since it's coming up, I want to wish you a very happy, happy, happy Christmas.

00:30:12.300 Thank you.

00:30:12.820 Thank you so much, John Henry.

00:30:15.660 And that's it from the John Henry Reston Show for this week.

00:30:18.400 Stay tuned after Christmas, we'll start up again.

The John-Henry Westen Show - December 18, 2019

Theologian corrects Vatican Abp. who said priests could accompany assisted suicide victims

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