The John-Henry Westen Show - July 29, 2026


What Church History REVEALS About Leo’s Pontificate: Burke, Mariam & Schneider's Analysis


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Transcript

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00:00:00.000 the question is, is the Pope the Pope? And this is a question that few people
00:00:06.940 have been willing to grapple with publicly for over 13 years now.
00:00:13.440 Hello, my friends. Well, as you can see, the crisis in the church has reached a tipping point,
00:00:22.820 I guess. This morning we had news from Bishop Paprocki that the SSPX, well, they're just
00:00:30.760 now Protestants anyway. But I don't want to talk about Bishop Paprocki today. I want to talk about 0.53
00:00:36.800 three people in the church that I know and love that at least at some point I was able to call
00:00:44.220 friends. They're heroes of mine in the church who have fought the crisis in the church, who have
00:00:51.720 called out the errors of at least Francis. And it's terrible because there's so much
00:01:04.040 division in the church right now. The best people are fighting the best people.
00:01:09.940 These three people I'm going to mention now, I consider likely one day they will be named saints,
00:01:17.160 all of them. And I wouldn't be surprised. But I'm going to talk about what they're saying right now.
00:01:25.820 I'm going to look at it critically with the help of a church historian, actually,
00:01:32.460 whom you all know. His name is Ed Mazza. He is a historian, a church medieval historian.
00:01:39.840 He's done lots of work in this area. He's written a few books now. He's got a new book out on
00:01:45.580 anti-popes. Ed Mazza, thank you so much for joining us.
00:01:48.720 Oh, it's a pleasure as always.
00:01:50.100 Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,
00:01:54.020 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
00:01:57.260 I'm going to start with a good friend of mine who recently came out with her position on the SSPX.
00:02:07.420 This is Mother Miriam. She's super famous because she was Jewish, then converted to become an
00:02:14.560 evangelical, and then tried to convert Catholics for about 10 years, and then became a Catholic.
00:02:19.540 And under Cardinal Burke, founded her own order, and now works to promote the truth and is unafraid
00:02:27.040 to call out the errors, even the errors of Francis and Leo. But here was her take on
00:02:35.040 the current situation with the SSPX. Let's have a listen.
00:02:39.360 Neither pope has given us, the faithful, a matter of doctrine that is of faith and morals that is wrong and error and bounded on the faithful.
00:02:53.600 How do we know that Pope Leo is the pope and that Pope Francis was the pope?
00:02:58.360 Because they have been universally accepted as pope.
00:03:02.260 Now, if they're false, it'll take a future pope to declare that.
00:03:07.460 But we can't know that.
00:03:08.720 We cannot know that. They're accepted as Pope by the church, even if they teach heresy.
00:03:14.520 From there also, though, we have Bishop Schneider, another man I know and love and honestly think he's going to be a saint.
00:03:22.100 And he too has recognized the errors of Francis and even Leo.
00:03:27.660 But he has a thesis that is very controversial.
00:03:31.500 I want to read you a line from his thesis, and it's a very interesting one, and I think one that shocks in a particular way.
00:03:44.340 I talked to him at length in various interviews about this very topic years ago already, but I want to just read you from his essay over at 1 Peter 5, which I think is very succinct.
00:03:54.840 he says the pope cannot commit heresy when he speaks ex cathedra this is a dogma of faith
00:04:03.380 in his teaching outside of ex cathedra statements however he can commit doctrinal ambiguities
00:04:10.100 errors and even heresies and since the pope is not identical with the entire church the church
00:04:16.680 is stronger than a singular erring or heretical pope.
00:04:22.020 Just so that we're all clear on heresies, I want to let you know that we are talking
00:04:31.020 about heresies, and this is where the third character whom I know and love is also in
00:04:36.540 this debate, Cardinal Raymond Burke, who I also think will one day be a saint, but he
00:04:43.560 has said uh and avowed that what we're dealing with when it comes to certain teachings the death
00:04:51.200 penalty is a reversal of church teaching now the death penalty teaching the new one by uh francis
00:04:57.560 is in the catechism and it's been not only reiterated but emphasized and more than a
00:05:05.480 highlighted, doubled down on by Leo XIV. Let's listen. This is Cardinal Burke saying in 2019,
00:05:14.200 after Francis had come out with the new teaching on the death penalty, which opposed the old
00:05:19.420 teaching. Here's what Cardinal Burke had to say. And by the way, Cardinal Burke did this
00:05:23.760 in union with Cardinal Pujac, as well as Archbishop Tomasz Peta and Archbishop Jan
00:05:31.920 Pavolenga and Bishop Schneider. This was their assessment of just the one heresy. They say,
00:05:38.860 in accordance with the Holy Scripture and the constant tradition of the ordinary and universal
00:05:44.740 magisterium, the church did not err in teaching that the civil power may lawfully exercise
00:05:51.800 capital punishment, i.e. the death penalty, on malefactors where this is truly necessary to
00:05:57.860 preserve the existence or just order of societies. In case you're wondering about it, here's Pope
00:06:04.260 Leo reiterating Francis's heretical teaching on the death penalty and then his doubling down.
00:06:11.780 Watch this. It's important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the
00:06:17.120 church. Someone who says I'm against abortion but says I'm in favor of the death penalty is not
00:06:22.620 really pro-life. So someone who says that I'm against abortion, but I'm in agreement with
00:06:29.660 the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life. 0.99
00:06:35.500 So they're very complex issues. Ed, I'm really hoping that you can make some sense of this for
00:06:40.340 us because what we have now is this teaching, I guess it was best expounded by Bishop Schneider.
00:06:46.620 popes can indeed teach heresy as long as it's not in ex cathedra statements and mother miriam
00:06:52.880 seems to follow that logic when condemning the sspx because she says that we are to follow
00:07:00.600 but she adds not when he's commanding sin comparing that to a husband who's to be listened
00:07:06.240 to by his wife unless there's sin and then cardinal burke as well uh saying we must obey
00:07:11.320 you know the sspx must obey uh the holy father all of them accepting this premise that was
00:07:19.420 basically best enunciated by bishop schneider that a pope can indeed in his official teaching
00:07:28.140 on faith and morals give us heresy let me start off with this question the last
00:07:36.240 ex cathedra statement in the church when was that 1950 pious the 12th solemnly defined the
00:07:45.280 assumption of our lady i guess since then we could have had anything goes any heretical teaching on
00:07:52.600 faith and morals um it could have been possible and we're just i guess really lucky that it's
00:07:57.400 only been francis and leo and everybody else didn't and the faith could look completely
00:08:01.780 different. I'm trying to make sense of this. I don't mean to be flippant, but it's really
00:08:05.800 a central question. And you had a line in your book that really struck me because it really,
00:08:13.300 it pinpointed this. And it was this line, and I'm hoping you can expand on that for us.
00:08:20.140 You said, we're forced to choose between the conclusion that the Bergoglian pontificate,
00:08:27.520 that means francis pontificate was invalid or that the ordinary papal magisterium can teach
00:08:34.660 dangerous errors something that no ecumenical council or canonized saint has ever taught
00:08:40.900 tell us if you would john henry the question is not whether or not the the sspx bishops have
00:08:48.120 excommunicated themselves the question is is the pope the pope and this is a question that few
00:08:57.020 people have been willing to grapple with publicly for over 13 years now. Okay. Francis was not
00:09:05.500 Francis. And to all appearances, Leo is not Leo. These are manifest public heretics parading
00:09:17.360 as legitimate popes. They're anti-popes. And heretics don't have the power to excommunicate
00:09:26.660 anybody, as we can get into. But I want to make that clear. There's an elephant in the room.
00:09:33.700 And with all due respect to Mother Miriam, Cardinal Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider,
00:09:39.700 and everybody else in the Catholic world, that's what we have to understand. The first question is,
00:09:46.320 do we have an anti-pope squatting on the chair of Peter? Our Lady of Fatima, in the Third Secret, 0.81
00:09:52.600 as as we have been told by different prelates in the church said that the devil would infiltrate
00:09:59.500 the church there would be apostasy starting from the top all right so that's the first thing we
00:10:04.400 got to get on the table here that being said the next thing we have to address is bishop schneider's
00:10:11.680 statement i can't think of a statement in 2000 years of catholic history that is more uncatholic
00:10:18.060 than to say that the Pope can teach grievous error and even be a flaming heretic.
00:10:27.380 And not only that, but there's nothing we can do. We just have to live with it. So where to begin? 0.60
00:10:32.180 Well, let's begin with Catholic teaching on the role of the Pope within the Catholic Church.
00:10:39.480 You're very kind to point out all of this is in my book, Saints vs. Anti-Popes. There are
00:10:45.140 over 135 theologians who have grappled with the issue of, can a pope be a heretic? And if a pope
00:10:56.340 was a heretic, what would happen? St. Robert Bellarmine, doctor of the church, said that
00:11:03.420 if the pope were a heretic, he would automatically lose his office. Suarez is another famous 1.00
00:11:11.140 theologian who agreed with him. On the other side of the question, there's John of St. Thomas,
00:11:17.080 for example, who says that, well, an imperfect council would have to be held in order to
00:11:23.400 actually depose the heretical pope. Now, out of these 130 plus theologians who have
00:11:33.120 come to grips with this issue. Only one, Marie-Dominique Bois, taught that the heretic 0.71
00:11:44.320 pope would still be pope. Those people who claim that Leo is a heretic or Francis was a heretic,
00:11:52.540 but he's still pope and we still owe him obedience and he still has the jurisdiction
00:11:56.980 to to excommunicate people they're following one person out of 135 and they're not even doing that
00:12:06.220 because every theologian well I'll just read you the quote this is from Marie-Dominique Bois
00:12:13.940 but on the hypothesis that the pope could turn privately heretic I would deny in an absolute way
00:12:22.780 that he would be deposed ipso facto or that he could be deposed by any counsel. Now, St. Robert
00:12:30.180 Bellarmine classified this opinion as exceedingly improbable. And again, this is the only opinion
00:12:36.260 out of 135. The bottom line is this. All these hundreds of theologians that have talked about
00:12:45.380 the possibility of a pope becoming a heretic and then what to do with him. Does he lose his office
00:12:50.060 automatically, or do we need an imperfect counsel? Or in the case of Marie-Dominique Bois,
00:12:56.620 there's nothing you can do. In all of these cases, they are postulating the Pope fell into heresy
00:13:03.940 as a private teacher, as a private doctor. As far as I'm aware, there is no one in Catholic
00:13:12.900 history in 2000 years of Catholic history, no saint, no counsel that has ever taught
00:13:18.860 that a vicar of Christ, a successor of St. Peter, a pope, qua pope, acting as pope in his ordinary
00:13:28.380 or his extraordinary magisterium could teach heresy. There is no such teaching in the Catholic
00:13:35.000 church. In fact, quite the opposite. I can prove. Can you just clarify that point for a second?
00:13:40.120 because you said in his ordinary or extraordinary magisterium, define that. What does that mean?
00:13:46.280 When the Pope makes a pronouncement like Pius XII made the solemn declaration that Mary was
00:13:53.480 assumed into heaven in 1950, or in 1854, Pope Pius IX solemnly defined that Mary was immaculately
00:14:05.940 conceived or on certain other occasions the pope acting ex cathedra right teaching something that
00:14:14.840 all catholics must hold to is protected by the holy spirit it's a negative protection he's
00:14:20.400 protected by the holy spirit from teaching heresy okay you you it's infallible it's infallible
00:14:27.100 teaching uh unfailing you know unfailing as it were there is the ordinary magisterium
00:14:32.940 which is, you know, as the name would imply, it's the teaching authority which the Pope ordinarily
00:14:40.260 employs. And as you point out, Bishop Schneider and others, philosopher Ed Fazer, a number of,
00:14:49.460 you know, otherwise good individuals who teach that, well, the Pope can make serious, grievous
00:14:56.620 errors in this other mode, this ordinary mode of teaching. It's just that Francis and
00:15:02.520 Leo are the most extraordinary and prolific examples of this in 2,000 years of church
00:15:09.440 teaching. There is no backing to this. There is no foundation to assuming that. Again, it's already
00:15:15.380 been established that when a pope speaks ex cathedra, that is to say, in his extraordinary
00:15:20.060 magisterium, he is infallible. He can't teach error of any kind, actually, let alone heresy.
00:15:28.360 But what about the ordinary magisterium? Well, the pope can be infallible even in his ordinary
00:15:37.180 magisterium when not just one pope, but a series of popes teach over a long period of time the
00:15:45.960 same thing again and again and again and again and again and again to the whole church. That's
00:15:52.340 infallible. Now you read this in every dogmatic manual, especially written before Vatican II.
00:16:00.800 That's what you'll find. So the fact that the popes 17 times have said that Mary is mediatrics
00:16:11.580 of all graces and co-redemptrics means that those teachings are actually infallible, which actually 0.56
00:16:17.340 shows that Prevost is most likely an antipope because he is, through Tucho, is saying that
00:16:26.420 we can't call Mary co-redemptrix or mediatrix, even though the ordinary magisterium of the
00:16:33.260 Catholic Church, 17 different statements from popes have established that it's infallible
00:16:39.260 teaching. That doesn't mean that it's an ex-catheter teaching because it's not the
00:16:43.300 extraordinary magisterium. My old colleague, Dr. Mark Miravale, has been petitioning the Holy See
00:16:49.300 to come out and make an extraordinary magisterial statement on the subject. But quite frankly,
00:16:56.060 in the words of Father William Most, one of the best teachers of the 20th century,
00:17:00.920 we don't need it. It's already infallible. But I got news for you. That's not the only teaching
00:17:06.680 that's been repeated 17 or more times over the course of centuries, actually. There is a teaching
00:17:14.100 that the Pope is indefectible. The successor of St. Peter cannot defect from the faith. In other
00:17:21.700 words, he cannot teach grievous error that's poisonous to the rest of the church. This was
00:17:27.560 confirmed at the First Vatican Council, as a matter of fact, and it's also been confirmed
00:17:32.580 dogmatically by other popes, but with your indulgence, I will read a few quotes just to
00:17:38.260 give an example. There's probably two dozen or more throughout the history of the church,
00:17:42.860 and this is predicated upon St. Luke chapter 22 verses 32 through 33, where our Lord says to St.
00:17:53.240 Peter, he says to him that Satan hath desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee
00:18:02.680 that thy faith not fail. When you have come to yourself, confirm your brothers, confirm the
00:18:09.340 brethren. Now, again, there's scores of commentaries by popes and saints down through the centuries on
00:18:17.180 this point. And the point is, is that the Roman pontiff cannot teach error, period. I mean,
00:18:24.180 serious error that would land souls in hell if they followed it. So in the back of my book,
00:18:29.780 again, Saints versus Antipopes, I've got an appendix. And in that appendix, I list
00:18:34.440 these statements by the most famous statements by popes and by other saints. So for example,
00:18:42.420 St. Lucius I, Pope Martyr, who ruled from 253 to 254.
00:18:49.840 This is under the Diccian persecution.
00:18:52.380 I mean, this is in the catacombs. 0.98
00:18:54.040 This is really early, right?
00:18:56.300 This is what he says.
00:18:57.560 The Roman apostolic church is the mother of all churches and has never been shown to have
00:19:05.860 wandered from the path of apostolic tradition, nor being deformed, succumbed to heretical
00:19:14.300 novelties. According to the promise of the Lord himself to Peter, again, Luke 22, verses 31 through
00:19:22.600 32, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. Another early pope that we could point to,
00:19:28.420 Pope St. Felix I, Martyr, 269 to 274. He says, speaking of the Roman church,
00:19:37.220 as it took up in the beginning the norm of the Christian faith from its authors,
00:19:42.540 the princes of the apostles of Christ, she, the Roman see, remains unsullied according to what
00:19:50.560 the Lord said, I have prayed for thee, etc., etc. Pope Damasus I, ruled from 366 to 369,
00:19:58.420 382. The first see, therefore, is that of St. Peter, that of the Roman church, which has neither
00:20:05.500 stain nor blemish. Let's look to some later popes. This is Pope Pelagius II, who ruled from 579 to
00:20:15.040 590. And he cites Luke 22. And he says, see, beloved, the truth cannot be falsified, nor can
00:20:27.520 the faith of Peter ever be shaken or changed. And he goes on to say, well, again, let me give you
00:20:35.880 another quote. The Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 869 repeated the words of
00:20:43.560 Pope Hormizdas from 514 to 523, because in the apostolic see, the Catholic religion has always
00:20:55.780 been kept undefiled, and her well-known doctrine has been kept holy. So I could literally go
00:21:03.680 through 2,000 years of Catholic history and give you dozens and dozens and dozens of popes who
00:21:11.760 taught something repeatedly to the whole church, which means it's infallible. It's infallible that
00:21:19.500 the Pope is indefectible, that he cannot teach heresy. That's what I would say to Bishop Schneider.
00:21:26.580 That's what I would say to Mother Miriam. That's what I would say to Cardinal Burke.
00:21:29.960 It's an infallible teaching of the church. What are you going to do about it?
00:21:33.360 How did the Cardinals deal with it then? How did the bishops deal with it when they had to
00:21:38.640 confront them? And how did they even determine that they were anti-Poet? I mean, obviously,
00:21:43.360 this time is mega confusing. You have the best people on either side. It reminds me of what
00:21:49.380 our Lord said in the scriptures, in the end, even the elect, if it be possible, will be confused.
00:21:55.300 Give us some examples from history of how bishops, priests, and cardinals dealt with the same kind
00:22:01.840 of a thing. One of the earliest examples we have is from one of the darkest parts of the Dark Ages.
00:22:07.180 We have St. Columban, an Irish missionary who went throughout barbarian Europe bringing the faith
00:22:16.020 back. And at the time, he writes a letter to Pope Boniface IV, I think it is. He's heard a rumor
00:22:25.160 that Boniface is promoting Pope Vigilius's council that was held under Emperor Justinian,
00:22:32.980 which looked like it was making compromises for the faith in order to appease the monophysite
00:22:38.940 heretics. And so it looks like the Pope is defending or promoting heretics. So let me read
00:22:47.900 you the quote that Boniface says to him, excuse me, that Columban says to Pope Boniface IV,
00:22:55.060 I summon you, remove the cloud of suspicion from St. Peter's chair, call a conference so that you
00:23:03.260 may clear the charges laid against you for you are alleged to favor heretics god forbid men should
00:23:11.920 believe that this has been is or shall be true and he goes on to say that already it is your fault
00:23:20.080 if you have erred from the true belief and made your first faith void justly do your subordinates
00:23:29.440 oppose you, and justly do they hold no communion with you. For if these things are rather true
00:23:37.700 than fabled, with changed roles your sons are turned into the head, while you become the tail,
00:23:48.880 thus too shall they be your judges, who have always kept the orthodox faith, even if they
00:23:55.100 seem to be your subordinates. And he goes on to say, now he acknowledges Rome is the head of all
00:24:02.080 the churches of the world, but he says, be careful lest you lose your dignity through some mistake
00:24:09.060 for power will be in your hands just so long as your principles remain sound. For he is the
00:24:16.880 appointed key bearer of the kingdom of heaven who opens by true knowledge to the worthy and shuts
00:24:22.700 to the unworthy. Otherwise, if he does the opposite, he shall be able neither to open nor to
00:24:28.220 shut. In other words, a pope will lose his power, he will lose his office if he becomes a heretic 1.00
00:24:37.240 or promotes the heresy of others. So this is just one example of St. Columban here telling that to 0.96
00:24:44.640 Boniface IV. Now, the ironic part of all of this is that not only is St. Columban a saint, but
00:24:50.460 Boniface IV is also Saint Boniface IV. So even a saintly pope can be accused of being an antipope.
00:24:59.800 It all depends on how they ultimately clarify their actions or don't clarify their actions.
00:25:08.020 It's really stunning because Columban doesn't even know that it is for sure. It's on suspicion
00:25:16.760 because he's given the impression that that's a bit freaky because we have so much impression that
00:25:24.480 I mean well we have statements out loud uh by Leo and Francis the one on the death penalty was so
00:25:31.600 clear but you could make more about how all religions are pathways to God uh Leo saying
00:25:37.720 to the Anglicans we're already one and and if it's just about meetings with people who are heretical
00:25:43.640 and seeming to give them favor,
00:25:45.140 will both Leo and Francis famously meet
00:25:47.840 with Father James Martin,
00:25:49.340 the biggest purveyor of, you know, 0.96
00:25:52.580 a homosexual heresy in the church. 1.00
00:25:55.280 Hey, my friends, it's going to be a really historic night.
00:25:57.960 On September the 24th, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
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00:26:54.800 I also want to just real quick throw this in here before I forget. And that is that,
00:27:01.160 you know, I said earlier that every Catholic theologian that deals with the issue of can
00:27:06.320 the Pope be a heretic. They don't think it's possible, but they'll grant it as a hypothetical
00:27:11.700 if the Pope could teach heresy as a private doctor. For example, like Cardinal Ratzinger in
00:27:18.280 his trilogy, Jesus of Nazareth, he says up front, I'm not teaching as Pope here. I'm teaching as a
00:27:24.160 private doctor. Feel free to disagree with me. I've got a quote here from Pope John Paul II,
00:27:28.180 and this is what he says. He says that the essential task of the papal magisterium
00:27:34.700 is to explain the doctrine of the faith
00:27:37.440 and to promote the knowledge of the mystery of God
00:27:40.920 and the work of salvation,
00:27:43.140 bringing out all the aspects of the divine plan
00:27:45.660 as it unfolds in human history
00:27:47.140 under the action of the Holy Spirit.
00:27:50.940 This is the service to the truth
00:27:53.040 that has been primarily entrusted to Peter's successor.
00:27:59.160 And this is the key phrase.
00:28:00.380 who, in the ordinary exercise of his magisterium, is already acting not as a private person,
00:28:12.040 but as the supreme teacher of the universal church. When the Pope is teaching as the supreme
00:28:20.000 teacher of the universal church, he cannot teach heresy. Plain and simple.
00:28:25.480 That's so troublesome because, you know, with the official teaching documents of amor statitia, of gaudete exultate, of fiducius supplicans, we have that problem in spades where every Catholic who's a Catholic knows that's not on.
00:28:45.300 And yet it's a teaching on faith and morals that, as Catholics, we're supposed to submit to in mind and in will.
00:28:52.840 Please continue.
00:28:53.400 Pope Innocent III, you know, some people say, well, you know, theologians debate whether or not the pope can lose his office.
00:28:59.340 But as I just pointed out, we've got dozens and dozens of popes that taught magisterially and infallibly that the Holy See is indefectible.
00:29:07.020 But if you want to go back to the argument about does the pope lose his office, Pope Innocent III in his magisterium teaches.
00:29:13.540 so he the pope can be judged by men or rather shown to be judged if he clearly loses his savor
00:29:22.640 to heresy since he who does not believe is already judged more examples of saints and what they did
00:29:30.380 practically speaking at the turn of the second at the beginning of the second millennium
00:29:38.500 there was a situation in medieval europe where kings emperors lay lords were appointing bishops
00:29:47.220 not only were they appointing bishops they were investing them with the symbols of their
00:29:51.940 spiritual authority now the reason why this had gone on is because for 200 years there was the
00:29:57.800 sort of the salutary neglect that had happened because of the vikings and the magyars and
00:30:03.480 different invasions that happened, and Europe broke up into feudal Europe, and the papacy was
00:30:09.040 in a bad state. But when the reformed popes came along, they said, no, you can't keep doing this.
00:30:15.040 This was known as the investiture controversy. And the emperors, one emperor, decided to
00:30:24.840 imprison pope pascal ii and then when pascal ii was released the rest of the bishops of the church
00:30:35.180 were expecting pascal to condemn the emperor for lay investiture but he didn't even when he got
00:30:42.580 his liberty back so three canonized saints saintly bishops saint hugo saint eve and saint godfrey
00:30:52.820 attended a council in France. And at this council, they condemned in a document,
00:31:03.440 lay investiture. And what they did was they wrote to the Pope and they said,
00:31:11.540 as we absolutely do not expect, you choose another way and you refuse to confirm the
00:31:19.960 decisions of our authority, may God help us, for you will be separating us from obedience to you.
00:31:30.200 He's an antipope, and therefore, they don't have to be in communion with an antipope. Again,
00:31:35.580 fortunately for history, he confirmed their teaching, and a crisis was averted.
00:31:43.080 But the point is, John Henry, these saintly bishops, these canonized saints, they didn't sit idle. They didn't say, okay, let's have a novena campaign. They came out and they said, Jesus's way or the highway.
00:32:00.020 So, Ed, at this point, I'm sure a lot of listeners are like me, going, ah, where are our cardinals? Where are our bishops? Like, they're literally nowhere. I mean, we've had Leo now. We've gone past his first anniversary as Pope. He's affirmed every horror from Francis.
00:32:20.340 he's if if the clearest easiest example of heresy is the death penalty one he's not only affirmed
00:32:27.720 that he's doubled down on with the uh if you're not if you're not against death penalty you're
00:32:32.160 not pro-life but then with the new teaching demoting our lady which as you explain was
00:32:39.140 you can't contradict it because the church has said it over and over and over again
00:32:42.740 contradicting an infallible teaching of the church but you know it's incredible because
00:32:46.180 there's been veritable silence on Leo yeah sure there was some noise with with regard to Francis
00:32:52.340 but I guess Francis showed enough of the cardinals I'm going to demote you uh or the archbishops
00:32:58.480 laicize you uh if you if you dare to speak out such that we've had zero criticism of Leo from
00:33:07.580 the cardinals and even from bishops almost nary word every every once in a while a little blip
00:33:13.580 and that's it and you're talking a handful of bishops literally on the planet so we're left
00:33:20.580 like the laity are left doing it but the what are you supposed to do as lady if you're saying here
00:33:27.820 the the bishops are the one to are the ones to confront this they're the ones to take it up
00:33:32.480 they're the ones the cardinals principally i guess are the ones but there's like zero literally zero
00:33:37.880 right now, taking up Leo. What are we supposed to do? Well, we're told we're supposed to follow
00:33:44.540 the example of the saints and holy people, correct? I mean, everything I've been telling
00:33:49.500 you so far is what the church has taught for centuries. Are we supposed to now no longer
00:33:55.540 go along with that, to please Leo, to please Tucho? So let's give some examples from history
00:34:01.340 of what holy lay people did under the suspicious circumstances of suspicious characters.
00:34:07.880 Uh, if we go back to around the year 429, the imperial capital of Rome was Constantinople.
00:34:16.340 It was a Christian empire.
00:34:17.600 And the patriarch was a guy named Nestorius under Emperor Theodosius II.
00:34:23.240 In an infamous Christmas sermon, Theodosius comes out, I mean, Nestorius comes out and
00:34:29.420 says, Mary is not the mother of God.
00:34:32.840 She's, she's not the Theotokos. 0.71
00:34:34.680 She's more like God's valet because she dressed him in human clothes, but she's not the mother of the word made flesh, as it were, right?
00:34:46.920 And in the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, a lay lawyer stood up and said, that's heresy.
00:34:54.440 And not only did he say that's heresy, but then he went around and posted a document in public and in the church, copies and copies and copies of documents of the same document in which he says, his name was Eusebius.
00:35:15.040 He was later made a bishop and he later not only fought against Nestorianism, he later fought against the opposite heresy, monophysitism.
00:35:22.120 I have sworn this statement by the Holy Trinity so that it may be made known to the bishops,
00:35:29.920 priests, deacons, readers, and the faithful living in Constantinople that the heresy of
00:35:35.860 Nestorius is of the same kind as that of Paul of Samosata, who was condemned 160 years ago
00:35:43.700 by the Orthodox fathers. He goes through and he takes quotes from this heretic, Paul of Samosata,
00:35:50.300 and he lines up the statements of Nestorius, and he proves that Nestorius is a heretic.
00:35:58.480 Now, Eusebius was never sanctioned by the Pope for having the audacity as a layman
00:36:03.200 to resist his archbishop in this very proactive way that he did.
00:36:08.980 Indeed, the opposite happened.
00:36:10.600 As I told you, he later became a bishop and was instrumental in fighting monophysitism.
00:36:16.440 Now, Pope Celestine, when he eventually wrote to Nestorius, he says to him that this dreadful news has reached our ears about your novelties.
00:36:32.500 We hear that Christ's church is torn apart. With what conscience are you living, meaning Nestorius, being deserted by nearly everyone in the city, meaning the imperial capital?
00:36:46.440 Now, they've deserted communion from a heretical bishop.
00:36:51.420 And the Pope said, you've been deserted, bro. 0.88
00:36:53.960 That's not the only thing.
00:36:54.980 John Henry, you at LifeSite News have reproduced an article by the good folks at WM Review.
00:37:03.600 They have reproduced in the article, Can Heretics Excommunicate?
00:37:10.480 They say, they quote Pope Celestine writing to the Eastern bishops.
00:37:15.680 Actually, it's Pope Nicholas writing to the Emperor Michael, quoting Pope Celestine at the time of Nestorius writing to the Eastern bishops.
00:37:27.300 And he says, if anyone has been excommunicated or stripped of the dignity of bishop or cleric by Bishop Nestorius from the time he began to preach such things,
00:37:39.740 It is manifest that this person has persisted and does persist in our communion, and we do not consider him removed, because the sentence of one who had already shown himself deserving of removal could not remove anyone.
00:37:58.900 A, newsflash to the world. Leo doesn't have the power to excommunicate anybody. Tucho doesn't
00:38:07.400 have the power to excommunicate anybody according to what? The magisterial teaching of Pope Celestine.
00:38:14.560 Elephant in the room has to be dealt with. Now, that's not the only example of lay people.
00:38:21.100 Let's take a woman, an unlettered lay nothing, as my friend Anne Barnhart likes to call her, with all due respect.
00:38:31.040 Catherine of Siena, in September of 1378, wrote to the Italian cardinals.
00:38:37.040 Why? Well, because in September, they, along with the, well, the other cardinals had elected Robert of Geneva, whom Catherine considered an antipope.
00:38:48.760 because they didn't like Urban.
00:38:51.480 I guess it was Urban VI, I think, that was elected back in April.
00:38:56.380 And the Italian cardinals eventually supported him.
00:38:59.560 So the entire college of cardinals supported an antipope,
00:39:04.520 what historians, most historians believe was an antipope,
00:39:08.200 Cardinal Robert of Geneva.
00:39:10.540 And she writes to them.
00:39:12.280 And then again, in my book, Saints vs. Antipopes,
00:39:14.700 I've got an appendix.
00:39:15.860 uh the second appendix is selections from catherine's letter to the italian cardinals
00:39:22.120 and she says what made you do this the poison of self-love which has infected the world
00:39:29.780 this is what has made you pillars lighter than straw flowers you who shed no perfume
00:39:38.160 but stench that makes the whole world reek um tell me what you really think kathy 0.96
00:39:44.760 um she goes on to say that basically this guy is is the devil and you have inflicted this devil on 0.72
00:39:53.580 us you should know better i mean so this is how a lay woman addressed the college of cardinals well
00:40:00.520 we're supposed to emulate the saints aren't we john henry so something you said there really
00:40:04.640 struck me because it is part of the conversation i had with bishop schneider so i asked bishop
00:40:10.480 Schneider about the possibility, because if you remember during the, if you remember, you're the
00:40:16.920 guy who wrote the book, but it was during the Francis pontificate that we were having all
00:40:24.520 these troubles. One of which was because of what you presented, it was about the Benedict's
00:40:31.640 resignation and how it doesn't work, how it's wrong. And I know there's different people who
00:40:38.940 made the same claim but that was that was one of them and i asked bishop schneider about this
00:40:44.200 because not only is it the uh resignation but then it was the rules uh set up by john paul
00:40:52.940 ii for the election which were also uh not followed and then the the the pronouncement
00:41:01.080 in the document that that uh john paul ii made university dominici grages uh especially i think
00:41:06.600 it was paragraph 76 that talked about how if elected improperly it doesn't count it confers
00:41:12.460 no power on the one elected and there's no need for any announcement on the matter and of course
00:41:16.920 we had the revelations of the sun gallant mafia and that collusion which violated the laws in
00:41:23.600 university dominici graders the constitution on the election of pontiff and here's what bishop
00:41:29.400 Schneider told me. He said, if the whole college of cardinals agrees that this is the Pope,
00:41:38.960 that supplies for the problem and he is the Pope for sure. And what you just said a second ago
00:41:46.820 was that Catherine is fighting the whole college of cardinals. That's crazy because that just
00:41:54.380 undoes what the very sort of thesis or whatever that it seems Bishop Schneider was working from.
00:42:03.220 I tell you that you cardinals did wrong with the antipope. He was chosen a member of the devil. 0.57
00:42:10.420 You have committed all these faults in regard to this devil to confess him as pope, which he surely
00:42:17.380 is not Catherine of Siena. Now, I will debate anybody, John Henry, anytime, any place in the
00:42:25.200 Catholic world on this point, that lay people can observe objective reality and tell the truth like
00:42:31.520 it is. I want to come back to the beginning only because what we're experiencing right now in the
00:42:36.960 church is a rather unbelievable time of division, and I would say even diabolic disorientation.
00:42:47.380 You have the best of the best of the best people fighting one another, sometimes less charitably. I have heard from now many people in this space calling for charity because these condemnations, like this morning with Bishop Paprocki saying they're just Protestants.
00:43:10.700 There is a understanding among all Orthodox Catholics that something is very, very wrong.
00:43:19.720 To put it very simply, if Leo was your pastor at your parish, he last week met with Father
00:43:30.720 James Martin.
00:43:31.920 During the Holy Week, he let the LGBT pilgrimage come in through your holy door at the parish.
00:43:39.200 He keeps appointing associate pastors who are LGBT, whatever, whatever.
00:43:43.320 He has altar girls.
00:43:45.000 He, and the list could go on and on.
00:43:47.680 Would you let him catechize your children?
00:43:50.040 And everybody knows the answer is no way.
00:43:54.600 So at one level, everybody gets it.
00:43:57.740 But the issue is at this point, there is so much confusion.
00:44:04.820 An article that we published recently over at LifeSite from Father David Nix,
00:44:09.200 um talks about that like there there's an umpteen different positions even among those
00:44:15.500 who understand the church crisis and get it with the kind of fighting that's going on of the
00:44:22.180 really mean and nasty accusations i think that's really really harmful because there's very few
00:44:29.580 people who at the same time get it so i very much appreciate you and especially your humility you
00:44:38.400 you come at things not from a you don't brandish a sword or club to beat down your opponents with
00:44:45.260 you want to debate them everybody takes seriously what you know the they feel the holy spirit's led
00:44:51.480 them to um and you've done obviously a lot of research but you don't lord it over people i
00:44:57.280 guess is a way of putting it the way our lord said or the way the apostles said why don't you give us
00:45:01.600 your final thoughts on this and i would encourage people to get your book saints versus anti-popes
00:45:06.480 because I think it's really quite something, gives us that perspective of what we do. And
00:45:11.320 maybe you can tell us a little bit about, maybe in your conclusion, the relationship between
00:45:15.820 Catherine of Siena and another saint who was known as an America worker, St. Vincent Ferrer.
00:45:23.040 To answer your second part first, St. Vincent Ferrer, who converted thousands of Jews,
00:45:29.860 raised the dead, was a wonderful Dominican preacher and great saint. And for a time,
00:45:35.880 he supported what it turns out to be the anti-pope rather than the pope. So in a certain
00:45:43.520 sense, St. Catherine was on the right side of history and St. Vincent Ferrer was not.
00:45:49.880 And it just goes to show you that well-meaning people can be mistaken and be on different sides
00:45:56.340 of an issue. And we shouldn't strike people off and say, you're in schism, you're going to hell,
00:46:05.100 you're leading souls to hell. That's being judgmental, is it not? I mean, St. Anthony,
00:46:10.620 not of Padua and not of Egypt, but St. Anthony, the saintly bishop of Florence during the early
00:46:17.660 Renaissance, writes about this. He says that we, those people who supported a rival person as the
00:46:28.160 Pope, we shouldn't consider them to be in schism, that we have to have charity for everybody. That's
00:46:34.160 the watchword, is charity, right? The truth in charity, caritas and veritate, right? What I would
00:46:39.860 add to what we said so far is that in addition to the teaching of the saints, in addition to
00:46:47.620 the teaching of the theologians, in addition to just common sense, we actually have Marian
00:46:52.940 apparitions. Our Lady did not leave us in the lurch. There's a reason why she said that the
00:46:59.020 Third Secret was supposed to be revealed no later than 1960. There is evidence that, and again,
00:47:06.160 I get into this in my book, Saints vs. Antipopes. I also get into it in my book, The Third Secret of
00:47:11.180 Fatima and the Synodal Church, Volume 1, Pope Benedict's Resignation. We have people like
00:47:16.320 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Alice von Hildebrand, talking to the editor of Leservatori Romano,
00:47:23.540 asking about the third secret and being told about the apostasy at the top.
00:47:28.600 We have Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre himself reminding us that at Lourdes, at Fatima,
00:47:34.840 excuse me, at La Salette, at Fatima, Our Lady warned about apostasy at the top.
00:47:41.340 And then we have Father Malachi Martin, who read the third secret because he was the assistant
00:47:47.680 to Cardinal Bea, and Cardinal Bea was at the meeting when this was revealed.
00:47:53.540 by John the 23rd. And Maliki Martin predicted in 1994, he says, the present situation,
00:48:02.040 concentrating on the church John Paul II got and the policy he formulated, he still maintains the
00:48:08.380 facade. He still welcomes the bishop for their ad limita visits. He still treats them as if they
00:48:14.380 were doing their duty, knowing they're not doing their duty, knowing some of them are plotting
00:48:21.180 against him, knowing some of them want him to resign before his time and get out so that they 0.87
00:48:31.300 can elect a man after their own heart who will be an antipope. I mean, how much more evidence do we 0.94
00:48:38.980 have to present that we have been warned? It's like somebody who's driving on a dangerous road.
00:48:45.520 You passed that sign, you disregarded another sign, and you just kept on going until you went
00:48:50.880 off the cliff. Who's to blame for that? Who's to blame for that? It's like St. John Paul II when he
00:48:56.660 went to Fatima in 1982. He said, can the mother who with all the force of the love that she
00:49:03.280 fosters in the Holy Spirit desires everyone's salvation keep silence on what undermines the
00:49:10.440 very basis of their salvation? No, she cannot. And he goes on to say that our lady said strong
00:49:17.260 words at Fatima, but she did it because she was concerned about the Pope and she was concerned
00:49:22.320 about the church and she's concerned about the salvation of souls. So we need to turn to our
00:49:26.720 lady. We need to pray the rosary every day. We need to wear the brown scapular. And as Bishop
00:49:31.960 Sheen said, we need to hold our prelates and bishops and cardinals, we need to hold their
00:49:37.080 feet to the fire because if there is an anti-Pope sitting on the throne of Peter and we don't get a
00:49:44.960 proper consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary? Pretty soon, there's going to be
00:49:50.560 chastisements. Lucia said, God will use Russia as the instrument to punish the whole world. 0.69
00:49:57.260 Sister Sasagawa at Akita, Our Lady told her that fire will fall from the sky and consume the greater
00:50:03.120 part of humanity, that the living would envy the dead. Yeah, there's one last thing that I'd like
00:50:07.320 to bring up, and that's this. You wrote something that I had never seen before, and it involved the
00:50:16.180 approved apparition of La Salette. La Salette, where I think everybody knows now, they predicted
00:50:22.840 that Rome would lose the faith, become the seat of Antichrist, that there would be two worm-ridden
00:50:27.880 popes. But there's one other thing that I found fascinating. You note in your book that the
00:50:33.720 Abbe Combe, the editor of the 1906 edition of The Secret of Melanie, adds that he has it from
00:50:42.800 Melanie that the church will be eclipsed. In this sense, one will not know which is the true
00:50:50.960 pope. That I thought was really fascinating because this from the same approved apparition
00:50:56.320 that we get, there will be two worm-ridden popes. We get that when she said the church will be
00:51:03.040 eclipsed and the world be deranged by fear, she was mentioning that, or she was meaning that they
00:51:09.980 will not be able to discern who is the true Pope. It's quite shocking, but that is what the Abbe
00:51:15.120 Combe said. He spoke to Melanie, and that is the interpretation. And actually that backs up
00:51:20.320 something that St. Augustine had taught. I reproduced the quote from St. Augustine. He says,
00:51:26.300 you know, when our Lord says that in the end times that the moon and the sun will not give
00:51:31.640 their light, St. Augustine writing a letter says, the sun, that is the church, shall be darkened
00:51:39.520 because in those tremendous tribulations and temptations which shall be in the end of the
00:51:44.860 world, many who had seemed as bright and as firm as the sun and the stars shall fall away from the
00:51:52.020 faith and a state of grace. Not only La Salette, but it's a little known fact about the message of
00:51:58.100 Akita, Our Lady of Akita told Sister Sasagawa to follow your spiritual director, and he will
00:52:05.940 guide you about the messages in particular. And Father Yasuda, who is a saint himself,
00:52:14.220 he died with literally the odor of sanctity at age 90 something, in a very obscure Japanese book
00:52:23.420 from 25 years ago he actually shares this he says bishop john ito appointed me spiritual director
00:52:31.800 of the convent in 1974 a year before the miraculous tears of the statue began and he goes
00:52:39.100 on to say judas and the last pope are to sell jesus to the enemy therefore the era of antichrist
00:52:48.800 Pope will soon come. I would encourage everybody, go grab Ed's book. I think it's, especially for 0.80
00:52:55.260 our times, something that's needed. It's good to have a historical reference point as to
00:53:00.300 what the church has already gone through so that we can live through this, which is obviously
00:53:06.360 another crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, Ed Mazza, thank you so much for joining us.
00:53:10.540 Thank you, Dan. God bless you, Ed, and God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.
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