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Why Catholic Bishops Love Islam · Crisis Point

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Recently, the Archbishop of Detroit spoke of Islam as if he were himself a devout Muslim. Sadly, this is just the latest example in a decades long love affair between the Catholic hierarchy and Islam. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons and welcome to Crisis Point. Okay, so I want you to picture something. Picture that you are in high school. For me, that was a long, long time ago. For many of you it was not as long a time ago. And picture that kid, the kid who is not very popular, he's not very confident and, but he wants to, and he doesn't want to be picked on. So he sees that, for example, the players on the football team, they are all popular, they are all confident and they pick on the kids who are not confident and popular. So what does he do? He decides, okay, I want to be liked by that group. So I am basically going to just kiss up to them. I'm going to tell them how great they are. I'm just going to talk about them all the time as being the best. I'm going to do whatever they want and that will prevent me from being picked on, from being ostracized. Basically, he becomes a jock sniffer, to use the term that we use, at least in my day. I'm not sure if they still use that or not. Well, that is in essence the Catholic bishops and Muslims, Muslims being the football players and the Catholic bishops being the unconfident, not popular kid who tries to suck up to them so that he doesn't get picked on by them. Let me give the latest case in point and I want to talk about this, where this comes from. Why is it that our bishops seem to have a love affair with Islam and they treat it with such kid gloves? The latest example was the Archbishop of Detroit, Weisenberger, I think his name is, who was recently at a mosque and video circulated about some of his remarks while he was there. I'm going to play it here for you. I think that the video was going around viral online. I got this one from our friends over at Catholics for Catholics. Let me just play it for you and you'll see what I'm talking about.
• 2:28
  Speaker B: There is nowhere that I feel greater honor, fraternity and kindness. And from the moment I drove onto this beautiful property today, I very fully felt the sense of the divine presence as our wonderful Imam spoke so beautifully. We are members of the same human family. All churches, all mosques, all synagogues, all places where God reaches out and touches with his finger are sacred. This is a truly wonderful and sacred place. A place that will bring all of humanity I believe in into deeper communion with our one God. My prayers are that you will know great, great successes here, great blessings here and that together we will come to love our one God all the more. I will be brief because I also know we have prayer at 1:30. But again, I'm deeply, deeply grateful for the welcome. I'm deeply grateful to be in the presence of other religious leaders in our community. And there is no place, I think, that I feel more at home. May God bless you. May God bless this place. May God keep you always safe, productive and filled with joy and blessings. Thank you.
• 3:56
  Speaker A: Okay, first of all, I don't know if I've seen anything more cringe in a long, long time. Anything more effeminate in a long, long time. Let's be honest, that was just embarrassing. I mean, it was almost difficult to watch. It's like watching one of those old episodes of the Office where Michael Scott is saying something so over the top cringe that you just. It's almost like painful to watch the episode. Well, that was a TV show. That was fiction. This is actually. Ha. This actually happened in real life. I can't even imagine being there and not just being painfully uncomfortable. Listening to His Excellency's comments at this mosque, it's clear who the weak kid is who's trying to be liked. It's him. It's clear that that's him. And I. Because think about it. Try to picture a Muslim leader and imam, for example, at a Catholic event talking like that. I cannot imagine that has ever happened. It just isn't the way they would ever talk about us. And also it's like he speaks, the archbishop speaks, as if Islam is a true religion, if not the true religion. He talks about the divine presence being there, being a sacred place. He even prays for their successes. He wants them to be successful. What does that mean? To convert more people to Islam. So is a Catholic bishop really praying to God that he wants more people to become Muslim? I mean, I can't interpret what he said any other way than that. We have actually a Catholic bishop praying for the advance of Islam. Think about all the martyrs in the past who are rolling over in their graves right now. Think about St. Francis who rejoiced when the first Francis proto martyrs were killed. Why were they killed? Because they went into mosques. Mosques. Mosques, sorry. I think in Northern Africa and they would preach the gospel. They would literally interrupt services, Muslim services, and preach the gospel. And they were killed for this. They did. Repeatedly. They kept getting kicked out. They kept doing it. Until they got killed. And St. Francis said they are true Muslims. Francis said they are true Franciscans. These proto martyrs are true Franciscans who went in interrupted Muslim services to preach the gospel. And now we have a Catholic bishop who's literally praying for the advance of Islam. And so it's, it's, it's just crazy. It's just insane. And there's a reason, of course, this went around, went viral and people were listening to it and watching it and upset about it. And I was too. But I will admit I had a little bit of a ho hum reaction to it simply because I have spent a long time studying Catholic ecumenical relationships and interreligious dialogues. Interreligious relationships. I did this obviously for my book Deadly Indifference. I have a link to it, how you can buy it in the show notes if you want to look at that. Check that out. This came out five years ago, but it's completely applicable today. Completely applicable today. In fact, it explains why a Catholic bishop would be praising Islam at a mosque. It goes into detail how we got there, but I want to give an overview of it here. How we got there, how we got to a point where Catholic bishops are literally in love with Islam. And of course, what are the next. What are the steps to get out of this? Now? The beginnings of any religious dialogue. Now, just to be clear, so everybody understands, I want to make sure everybody understands our terms here. Ecumenism is Catholic relations with other Christians, non Catholic Christians. So ecumenism is with, for example, the Orthodox and with Protestants who are Christian, but they're not Catholic. Interreligious dialogue is our relationship with any non Christian organization. My guess is the Vatican will soon declare a third category for its relations with the Society of St. Pius X. That's a joke. Probably too soon, too early for that type of joke. But the point is, interreligious dialogue is something that began essentially in the middle of the 20th century for Catholics. Before that, there was no such thing. In fact, Catholic popes told Catholics, don't get involved in ecumenism and definitely don't get involved in interreligious dialogue. I mean, probably it was like a big deal when I think it was Pope Pius XI, I think in the late 1920s, met with a Muslim political leader. It wasn't interreligious dialogue. It was more as pope, as a head of state meeting with another head of state. I can't remember which one it was. But there was no such thing as popes or even bishops meeting with other religious leaders for interreligious dialogue. But in the aftermath, and this is really important to note, in the aftermath of World War II, a desire rose among many Catholic leaders, not really among average Catholics, among Catholic leaders, to start having these dialogues, having these discussions. They didn't really, they weren't approved yet. But the reason being, it really arose among certain theologians, certain progressive types. And the idea was, okay, we just got out of this horrific war, the worst war ever, World War II, the Holocaust. There were some religious aspects to it, but the idea is let's get together with non Catholics and talk about things in order to bring about peace. That's important to remember that that was the initial drive for interreligious dialogue. It wasn't like, let's come together and see where we agree with each other and praise each other like that. It was more of like, let's just have a communication so that we can foster peace in the world. We're going to talk about in a moment the assisi, meaning in 1986. But that was a driving force. If you look at the history of why Pope John Paul II called the assisi meeting in 1986, it was because there was like a bunch of conflicts going on in the world, military conflicts going in the world, and he wanted to have prayers for peace. That's what it was. And I do think, by the way, just to be clear, I do think that many of the people who initially called for this had good intentions. They didn't. I mean, it's good to want peace. I mean, that's what we should do. I mean, like, for example, I think it's great that the United States is having negotiations right now with Iran and not bombing them, because I think negotiations are better than killing people. So I want to be clear, I'm not saying this was all like, initially just a big movement to undermine the Catholic Church. I do think it became that. And I think some people involved, that was their intention. But I think a lot of people were just like, yeah, it's good. Let's, let's have some conversations. Maybe this will help bring about peace. And so we see John the 23rd, you know, who is the pope who called Vatican II. He probably, he was the first pope really, to have this idea of let's actually have a dialogue with other religions instead of just trying to convert them. And he specifically, though, wasn't with all religions. It was with the Jews again, obviously, in the aftermath of World War II. Remember, he was elected pope only 14 years after the end of World War II. And everything came out about the Holocaust and Nazis and all that stuff. So we're talking only 14 years. So what's 14 years ago? Like 2012. So really wasn't long after that. And so he didn't really, he didn't have anything to do with Muslims or other religions, but he did reach out to Jews and he was the driving force behind having some type of declaration from the Church about the Jews. And that of course eventually became Nostra Aetate at Vatican ii. But so that, that was kind of the beginnings of interreligious dialogue. In other words, not a effort to convert non Catholics, but instead to dialogue with them. I've already talked about on this podcast a number of times. I go into it in detail in the book Deadly Indifference about how Pope Paul vi, though he is really the Pope of dialogue, he is the one who literally invented the phrase dialogue as it's now currently used in the Catholic Church. In 1964, his encyclical Ecclesium Suam that basically introduced this whole idea of dialogue. And he meant it like just dialogue with everybody. That was like how you. That was he. He claimed in the encyclical that that's how the Church has always done things, which is totally false. But the point is he really is the Pope of dialogue. But his focus was mostly on ecumenical relations with Protestants, with the Orthodox. Remember, he's the one who lifted the excommunications, mutual excommunications. He's the one who met with the Patriarch of Constantinople and things of that nature. He also had, though he also though in his pontiff. He was pontiff for I think 15 years. He also then though did end up having relation dialogue with non Catholic, non. Non Christians, so Jews and Muslims, things like that. In fact, I believe, and this is my research, somebody can correct me if I'm wrong. I believe he was the first one really to address a Muslim group as Pope, the first Pope ever to address a Muslim group. And I want to pull up here. This was in 1969, August 1, 1969. It was to dignitaries and representatives of Islam. So before this you didn't have a situation in which. I'm going to hide the comments here for a second just so I can see the whole thing. You didn't have a Pope talking, addressing non Catholics like this, but here he does and he says dignitaries and representatives of Islam. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but how can we express our deep satisfaction in meeting you and our gratitude to you for granting our lively desire to greet in your presence in your persons the great Muslim community spread throughout Africa. You thus enable us to manifest here our high respect for the faith you profess. I want to repeat that what was saying. He wants to manifest his high respect for the faith, the Muslim faith that they profess. And our hope that what we hold in common may serve to unite Christians and Muslims ever more closely in true brotherhood. Then he goes on and. And then he says, okay, last paragraph. May the shining sun of peace S U n not S O M. May the shining son of peace and brotherly love rise over this land. Talking about Africa bathed with their blood by generous sons of. Of the Catholic, Christian and Muslim communities of Uganda to illuminate all of Africa. May this, our meeting with you respected representatives of Islam, be the symbol of and the first step towards that unity for. For which God calls us all to strive for his greater glory, for the happiness of this blessed continent. Okay, so this really is the. Sets the tone for all interreligious dialogue. You note there if you read the whole thing. But I read, you know, the important parts. He doesn't do anything but praise the Muslim representatives. He doesn't say a word about any deficiencies they have. He doesn't say a word about. He doesn't mention Jesus Christ. He doesn't mention the need that only unity. Unity only comes through Jesus Christ. He simply just says. Talks about the unity between them. And again, I want to read that one line there. His. He manifests his great. His high respect for the faith you profess. He doesn't say, I, I show my respect for you as images of God who have dignity. As images of God. No. He shows high respect for the faith, for Islam itself. I don't know why you would have respect for Islam itself. It's a false religion. It's a false religion that teaches. It teaches against the Trinity. It teaches against our Lord Jesus Christ. It has a history of persecuting and killing Catholics for centuries. I don't think you'd ever hear St. Francis of Assisi saying, I want to give my high respect for the faith they profess. Again, not saying you don't have respect for every human person with dignity, but that doesn't mean you respect the faith. But that's exactly what he says. And so this really sets the tone. Paul VI sets the tone. But again, Paul VI was more interested in ecumenical relationships and not interreligious dialogue. It really is sad to say, John Paul ii, who really takes it to the next level. John Paul ii, he was the Pope of interreligious dialogue. The Pope vinyl Religious dialogue, bar none. Even more so, I would argue, than Pope Francis. He made it a major part of his, of his pontificate. I could give all my qualifiers how there are many things I love about John Paul ii. He helped me convert, blah blah blah. Go to find another podcast where I say that all that doesn't mean I can't find things critical in problematic and things he did. And interreligious dialogue is by far in my mind the worst part of the John Paul II pontificate. He There's. We saw a massive increase in irreligious dialogue statements in the first 15 years of JP2's pontificate. So compare that to the 15 years of Paul VI. He doubled the number of statements he made on interreligious dialogue. Doubled from what, what Paul VI said. So that's, that's one thing. Also, he met with Muslim groups or Muslim representatives more than 150 times during his pontificate, more than 150 times during his pontificate. And to my knowledge, not once, not a single time in those 150 plus meetings he had with Muslims did he once call them to conversion, did he once urge them to become Catholic. And I say this as somebody who literally got a book that listed all of his statements made to Muslim groups when I was researching my book Deadly Indifference, I should have a little bell that rings every time I mention the book, like ding. You know, just deadly indifference by now. Okay, sorry. But I went through and I tried to find if somebody can find a time where John Paul II publicly and directly addressed Muslims and urged them to convert or invited them to convert, anything like that, please let me know, put it in the comments. I'd be happy to take back what I just said, but my research, and it was very extensive, I didn't find a single instance of this happening. And I think that's scandalous. Now I also want to note that this is what's interesting. When, when John Paul II talked to Christians, when he talked to Catholics, he did tell them about the need to evangelize. He did. And John Paul VI did the same thing. When Paul VI or John Paul ii, when they talked to Catholics, they would at times urge them to evangelize, to be missionaries, to be, to talk about the faith, to share the faith, to get people to convert, things like that. They both did that. But when they themselves talked publicly, at least to non Catholics like Muslims, they did not themselves evangelize. They did not themselves proclaim. There's this big debate that happened in the church still Kind of going on between proclamation versus dialogue. Even though Paul VI in invented this idea of dialogue, he always insisted and the churches insisted, they even have a document about this, the Vatican release a document, this saying dialogue is not opposed to proclamation, that they're two sides of the same coin type of thing. Yet never once during a dialogue did they proclaim the gospel. Did they proclaim, repent and believe the gospel, for example, like Jesus would do. So there is this dichotomy between what Pope Fr. I'm sorry, Pope John Paul II and Pope Paul vi, what they would say to Catholics and then what they would then say to Muslims. Now I get, I know what the, I know what the first objection to this is going to be. The Popes are political leaders. They're heads of state, they're talking to a group. They have to be diplomatic. I get that they have to be diplomatic. But I would just ask you, what is the fundamental role of the Pope? Is it as a head of state, is that his primary role, is the Pope's primary role as head of state, or is it as the vicar of Christ who is leading the Catholic Church, who is proclaiming the truths of the Catholic faith, maintaining them and handing them on to the next generation? What is it? Because I would argue that if his duties as head of state conflict with his duties as the Vicar of Christ, I know which one I would prioritize. Which one I think is more important. Obviously the Vicar of Christ proclaiming the gospel. I'm not saying every single time a Pope meets with religious leaders of another religion, he has to say, you guys all need to convert. I'm not saying he shouldn't do that. I'm just saying, I'm not saying he has to do it, but I am saying if you do it, if you meet over 150 times, then I think that's, that's. And you never do it. I think it's a problem. There's, there's a, I remember one time, I have it in the book. I couldn't find it when I was looking it up right before the show. Pope John Paul ii, he was talking to a group of Muslim youth. And I think it was in Pakistan or I don't know where. And he basically made it sound like his words made it sound like it's okay to just remain Muslim, just be good Muslims. I think that's scandalous. I really do. I think that's scandalous. And honestly, it's like, I just don't know why our. It's just something that our Religious leaders have done, our Catholic leaders have done now for decades. We're not willing to proclaim the gospel in these. In these situations in which we're talking to non Catholics. It's the classic Ben Shapiro asking Bishop Barron, do you think I should become Catholic? There's literally only one answer to that question, and that's yes, but of course, that's not the answer he gave because he was afraid or something. I'm not sure exactly what. And so then, of course, you have the classic the Assisi meeting, 1986, which, you know, we're all talking about the SSPX and the Episcopal consecrations that are supposed to happen next week, things like that. Well, a little history lesson is that the Assisi meeting in 1986 is kind of the direction, proximate cause of Archbishop Lefebvre consecrating bishops in 1988, because that was like the step too far for Archbishop Lefebvre. And for those who aren't familiar with it, you can obviously just, you know, ask your. Your AI or something like that for. For a rundown. But essentially what happened was in 1986, Pope, Pope John Paul II, he called many religious world leaders to Assisi, which I think offended St. Francis, to be honest. And he asked them, and he wanted this to be in response to peace. And it's important. Like, there was a major distinction in how Pope Bennett. I'm sorry, Pope John Paul II talked about this. He said, he insisted that the various representatives were. Are not, quote, praying together, but are, quote, being together in order to pray. I know that sounds a little bit like Jesuit dissimulation or like something like what is the, what is the meaning of the word is? Or something like that. But this was the distinction in Pope John Paul II's head, and I think it was a sincere one. He wasn't saying, we're praying together, we all had the same God, we're all praying together. He was saying, we're coming together. How do you put it? We're being together in order to pray. In other words, each. And that's what he did. If you know, the Assisi being how it happened was each group, each religious group got a different location in Assisi where they could pray. One scandal is, I think it was the Buddhist group put literally a. A golden statue of Buddha on top of a tabernacle in a Catholic church that Pope John Paul II let them pray in. I mean, talk about a sacrilege. And then they came together for a photo op, basically, that. That's how it Works. But it's the photo op that, of course, made the news was on the front page of the New York Times the next day. And it shows the Pope in white and all these other religious leaders standing together. And the. The result of this, as much as Pope Paul, John Paul II might have these distinctions in his own head, that we're not praying together, we're coming together in order to pray. The result was, the response was how everybody interpreted. Everybody in the world interpret it was they're coming, they're praying together. That essentially all these religious leaders who are all equal are praying for peace. That's nice. That's what most people. I think that's how most people react to like, oh, that's. That's nice. That these religious leaders all coming together to pray. They're all. They're all praying together for peace. That's great. But what that does. It also says. What? That the Pope is no different than any other religious leader. He's just one among many. Because that's what that picture shows. That picture, that famous picture of the Pope, John Paul ii, with all the other religious leaders shows we're just all together. There's no difference. That's the message that was sent, and that's the message that Archbishop Lefebvre knew was being sent. And, you know, if you. If you read about the history of this, that was like, basically the last straw, where he's like, okay, we got. We got conscript bishops. I'm not defending or. Or I'm not condemning or condoning Archbishop Lefebvre here, but it was a big deal, the Assisi meeting. It still is a big deal. So then after John Paul II set the stage, kind of set the model for interreligious dialogue, it just continued. I will say Benedict XVI pulled it back a little bit. He pulled it back a little bit. But then, of course, it just went completely bonkers under Francis. But honestly, there was very little Francis did when it comes to interreligious dialogue that was contrary to anything John Paul II did. I would say probably the biggest thing was the Abu Dhabi Declaration. This was in 2019, I think it was. Let me look. That. Yeah, I think it was 2019. Yeah, 2019. The Abu Dhabi declaration. That was a joint. This is important to remember. That was a joint declaration. A joint declaration with Pope Francis and the Sunni Islamic leader Sheikh Ahmad Al Taliab, who is the Grand Imam of the Al. Of. Of Al Azhar. I don't know exactly what that means, like, who. Where that is or anything that. But the point is it was a great, it was a high ranking Muslim leader, an imam, a grand imam, and it was a joint declaration. That's important to note because one of the things about it is it starts off by saying that they're writing that they're writing this in the name of God, but they're saying this jointly. A Pope, when he writes in the name of God, is writing in what name? Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's literally the name it's given in scripture that God has given in scripture. When Jesus says, go out and baptize people in the name of the Father, in the name of the one name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that is the name of God. Pope Francis is saying he's writing in the name of God, but he's doing it with an imam. Has the imam converted to Catholicism because the name of his God ain't Father, Son and Holy Spirit? That's for darn sure. The name his God is Allah, which I know the whole thing like that there's, that there's Arab Christians who also call him Allah. I'm not getting into that. I'm just simply saying it's not Father, Son, Holy Spirit. So right from the shoot we have a deeply problematic text. And of course, and then it talks about the problems of religion, but it doesn't define kind of what religion is in the sense of it just talking about religion, like all religions, like there's no difference. But to a Catholic, there's Catholicism and then there's religions, other religions. There's the one true religion, the Catholic faith, and then there's all these other religions that are all false on different degrees. They're false. I'm not saying they're all false equally, I'm just simply saying that they are. They all hold some false teaching. And, and of course the most famous thing, the most infamous thing I should say about this document, Abu Dhabi document, is where he says multiple religions are essentially willed by God. It says multiple religions are willed by God, which is obviously. Now there's ways you can explain that, you can whiteboard it to make it not heretical, permissive will, active will, things like that. But ultimately the way it's written, the average person reads it and comes away thinking, okay, all religions are. Multiple religions are willed by God. Now Pope Leo, just continue on with the popes. Pope Leo essentially is following the footsteps of both John Paul II and France. He doesn't seem to be as out there as Francis, but he's following footsteps of John Paul ii. When it comes to religious style, he talks the same, he says the same type of stuff that JP2 did. So what's happened is, leads to a trickle down effect from Paul VI, John 23, but really Paul VI through John Paul II through Francis Leo. You see is remember all the bishops of today, they were formed during the pontificates of Paul VI and JP2, maybe a few of Benedict, the younger ones, but this is how they grew up. This is where when they went to seminary, this is how they were being taught. They saw this is what the Pope does. And so for them, it really inserted into their mind that this is how you talk to Muslims, this is how you talk about Islam. You never criticize it, ever. But note that most Catholic bishops aren't as smart as JP2. They're not even as well formed as JP2. And so they don't have those distinctions. Like I do think JP2 had the distinctions in his mind. And they were good natured, they were sincere. He did not understand, for a man who totally understood optics in so many ways, he didn't understand the bad optics of something like the Assisi meeting. Maybe he did understand that's what he want, I don't know. But these, the. But what's happened is, is that now these bishops, they are just wholly confused about how about how Catholics should view Muslims and the is and Islam, the religion of Islam. And they positively now admire Islam because they see the Muslims being very confident, they're very apologetic, they're very timid and weak about their faith, but the Muslims aren't about their own faith and they think it's part of Catholicism to praise them. And of course, because of the rejection of outside the church, there is no salvation. Many of them are pluralists or at least very excessive inclusivists where they think that these Muslims are going to be saved anyway, so why would I even ask them to convert? And so you get to a point where you're like the Archbishop of Detroit, where you're literally praising them and acting like it's a true religion. I also think there's another factor though. This is part of my analogy, my metaphor, whatever it is at the beginning about the popular kids who are picking on people and beating them up and you don't want to be one of them. I think a lot of bishops are afraid. I think they're just downright afraid of Islam, of Muslims. And the reaction they will get is if, if they actually speak out. And you see this from the one instance, literally, to my knowledge, maybe there's another One. I can't, I can't think of one. The one instance since the 1960s, in 60 years, the one time a pope has dared to say anything that's even slightly critical of Islam. That, of course, is Pope Benedict XVI and the Reigensburg address where he spoke in Germany, I think it was in 2006. And he was quoting a middle, a medieval Byzantine emperor. That says something to the effect of wherever Islam is, you see something, nothing new or good or anything like that. I can't remember the exact quote. The point is he wasn't saying that. If you read the actual talk, he's not saying he even agrees with it. He just quotes it. Well, this gets out and there's literally riots in the streets. And the Pope Benedict had to kind of pull back from it. And I understand on one level, Pope's being afraid of this, but then you have just regular bishops, I think they're just terrified. And think about what bishop we're talking about. That was at mosque. It was in Detroit. Now, I don't know my Michigan geography, so if I'm wrong about this, you know, feel free to correct me in the chat or in the comments. But I'm pretty sure Dearborn, Michigan is in the Diocese of Denver. And if it is, or even if it isn't, even it's close by, that, of course, is a heavily Muslim area. And I think that the, the archbishop is afraid. I don't think it's as much he's afraid for his own personal safety. Maybe he is, probably is. But I think he's afraid there's going to be some reaction that there's going to be riots, that maybe Catholics will be attacked, maybe churches will be burned down or something like that. But of course, this is just cowardice because the reason we're in this situation is because we can't, we aren't speaking out. We're not saying anything about the against Islam. And so they're, they don't even know how to handle the slightest criticism, not even criticism. Just saying we want you to convert. We believe Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. We believe he is the Son of God, the second person of Blessed Trinity. And we want you to believe that as well. That's it. If that causes riots, so be it. That's just your job. That's just your job as a successor to the apostles. I, I But all ultimately, I think fear is part of it. And I think what's happened is many of these bishops, they've kind of accepted a second class status among religions. If you, if you look at any of these interreligious meetings, dialogue meetings, Catholics and non Catholics, the Catholics almost fall over all over themselves apologizing for what they believe. They, they don't just, they never speak out and say, here's what we believe. It's more like, oh yeah, we, we really love what you say. You're great, you're great. We're sorry if in the past we ever say anything that might offend you. So I mean, it's just, it's ridiculous. Like I said, it's effeminate, cowardly behavior. And so they, they accept kind of this dimitude, I think that's how you pronounce it, of being second class citizens to Muslims when they're talking with them. And it's, it's really scandalous and it's, it's sad. So what should be done? I do think, by the way, there should be some diplomacy in political matters. I accept that the Pope is the head of state. And so if he's meeting, for example, with the King of Jordan, for example, or, or Saudi Arabia or something like that, I, I get that he's not necessarily at that moment going to call them conversion. I'm not saying he shouldn't. I'm just saying I don't think it's that big a deal. I understand prudence plays a role in these things and he is a saddest state whether we like it or not. And you know, and so he has to deal with that world. But I do think, though, not every single time the Pope talk to non Catholics does he need to be diplomatic. He can say I call you all to the greatest gift of all, which is Jesus Christ. I mean, he can do that. And I think acting like these other religions are true, I mean you have some things they believe that are true, but it doesn't make them true religions like the Archbishop of Weisenberger of Detroit did where he basically acted like Islam was a true religion. Stopped doing that. And here's the real thing is I just think the hierarchy should stop engaging in interreligious dialogue meetings. Just cold turkey, 100% stop. Why when the Pope travels to a country, does he always have to address non Catholics? Why can't he just talk to the Catholics and encourage them, build them up? I mean, that's his job. Because he's not doing his job of me. Okay, so take a step back here. A Pope kind of has two jobs if you think about it ultimately. One is to build up Catholics to encourage them to, to to foster their faith, and two, proclaim the Catholic faith to non Catholics. It's kind of the twofold mission in a certain sense. And you see that in the fact that the, the Pope's successor, both St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Peter's kind of represents the establishment, the institution and building it up and things like that. And then St. Paul is the missionary. Not that St. Peter wasn't a missionary, but you know what I mean. So when he goes to another country, for example, why does he have to engage in dialogue with non Catholics when essentially all he's doing is he goes there, he says, you guys are great, keep doing what you're doing. Let me pat you on the back, I'll see you later. That's what they do. Now if he's going to those groups to say Christ is Lord, accept him, repent and believe the gospel, okay, I totally think that's great. But I think it's fine. If a Pope just went to a country and just spoke to Catholics, there's nothing wrong with that. Also, these bishops just stop being involved in interreligious means. Stop going to things like this if you're just going to go to a mosque in order to tell them how great they are and how they have a real religion. Stop it. Just, just stop it. We also need to teach Catholics, obviously. I've said this before. Why extra ecclesium. Sorry, I was thinking of ecclesium suam. Outside the church, there's no salvation. Why? That's true. Why Islam is false. We need to make that very clear. That Islam is false. That's not the true religion and it does not lead it. Following Islam does not lead you to heaven. And honestly. Okay, I know people are going to laugh at this. I, I accept it. Maybe consider buying deadly indifference for your bishop or your pastor. I'm serious. I know this is like self promoting in a way, but I wrote, I spent a lot of time on this book for exactly this reason. So people would, so especially pastors and you know, priests and hierarchs, that they would understand what the church teaches here and why we went astray, why we stopped emphasizing the proclamation of the gospel. So maybe by deadly indifference for your bishop, for your pastor, for one of your priests, encourage them to read it and so they understand that maybe we shouldn't be involved in this. Maybe we shouldn't be involved in interreligious dialogue so much. Maybe we should be more about proclaiming the gospel. Okay, let me jump on the live chats Tuesday afternoon. So we have our live Chats. Let me pull them up here. Richard says the Archbishop should invite the imam to a new church dedication to say a few words. Are there any new churches in Detroit? Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. I mean, the Catholics are shooting them down, are shutting them down. And yeah, invite him. I bet you he would. I bet you he would be. Nice imam. But he wouldn't be saying. He wouldn't be talking like the Archbishop did. Croaky says it's physically impossible for oil and water to mix. Spiritually impossible. Christianity is on the mix. That's a good metaphor. I. I think it's a good metaphor. Absolutely. You know, saying that there's all this big emphasis, like saying things that. That are true about other religions. Yes, it is a true statement. There is one God and it's true that Muslims believe there's one God. So they are right about that. That does not mean, though it's spiritually compatible or that it's a true religion like Christianity is. It simply does not mix. The two just don't mix. They have fundamentally different ideas of who God is and of what it means to be a disciple of God and, and how the universe works. Everything. It's com. It's fundamentally different. It's not compatible. Phoenix XP says a Benedictine priest protested this act inside the church and they had him arrested. JP2 was not innocent. I did not know this. Wait a minute. Are you talking about the last week?
• 40:53
  Speaker B: The, The.
• 40:53
  Speaker A: The in Detroit or JP2s? It's easy. I don't think JP2 was innocent. I mean, I'm saying that right now. I mean, I think I. I like JP2 in a lot of ways. I think he did a lot of good things for the church. But I'm just saying that. I'm also saying though, that when it came to interreligious dialogue, he was. He was a horrible example and made a lot of prudential mistakes. Katie Smith. Couldn't agree more. The bizarre appeasement our Catholic leadership has for Islam and Muslims is extremely disturbing. I pray often for the Holy Spirit to help me understand it. I just don't get it. It's almost like hero worship. Honestly, I don't think we are going to get it. Katie, I'm sorry to say you're absolutely right. And maybe the Holy Spirit will reveal it to you. And if he does, please let me know because I don't get it either. It just. I really do think it's a. More of a sociological issue than a theological issue. By that, I mean, it's like and that's why I gave start off with the example of the kid, the, the weak, the kind of unconfident unpopular kid who just wants to suck up to the, the popular kids and the football players, stuff like that so he doesn't get beat up. And so he looks, you know, he kind of gets, he, he gets popular by association. He himself is not popular because he thinks he is because he's associated with the popular kids. He's like the water boy form and things like that. I feel like that's somewhat what these Catholic bishops, their sociology is. They feel very inferior because they're not confident in what they believe and they see these Muslims who are confident and so they kind of, they end up wanting to be the water boy for them, which is sad. Timothy J. Williams why? Because most of the bishops are not Catholic. I mean, I wouldn't say that, but I think when they do things like this, they're definitely not acting Catholic, they're acting contrary to the faith. Elizabeth says, last time I checked, I don't think God willed the religions that did the human sacrifice. He sent his own mother there to get them to stop or they go out. But yeah, there's a great book by Warren Carroll about arlegualupe. I am blanking on the name of it now, but it's a wonderful book and he really shows how, how awful the, the, the human sacrifice was and everything at, in, in the New World. But from the, from the Aztecs and everything how orleague Guadalupe really was the answer to that. Yeah, absolutely. God willed, actively willed one religion and as the Catholic faith, that's it in period, end of story. No others. Oh, okay. Phoenix also said at Assisi. So in Benedictine priest was arrested for protesting Assisi at Assisi. And, and I, I, I can see that very I, I under I'm sure that happened because definitely you wouldn't allow that today. You wouldn't allowed it back then. And I think it's a real scandal, a blemish on JP2's in a lot of ways. Good papacy, Very good papacy. It's a major blemish on that record, no question. So let's pray for the conversion of Muslims. Let's pray for the conversion of all non Catholics. Let's pray for the conversion of Catholic bishops who seem to worship Islam and seem to admire it more than they do the Catholic faith. And I think we should, we need to do that. So. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. Until next time everybody. God love you. And remember the poor.
• 44:05
  Speaker B: It.