Latest / The Catholic Current / Fulton Sheen’s Darker Prophecies (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 6/19/26

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Fulton Sheen’s Darker Prophecies (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 6/19/26 · The Catholic Current

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This is The Catholic Current, with Fr. Robert Mottaig.
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I will say this, it sounds like an enormous cataclysm, and I suppose in one sense it is,
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but in another sense, being converted is not that bad, it's kind of fun as a matter of
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fact.
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I'll give testimony to that.
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Really the nature of our faith is that all of us have to be converted every day.
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Every morning you get up and you become the convert again.
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Well you know the great Renaissance Saint Philip Neri, he started every morning with
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the Lord, watch out for Philip, he may betray you today.
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Praised be Jesus Christ, this is Fr. Robert Mottaig of the Society of Jesus, your daily
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host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world, and the world to Christ.
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You're listening to us from the station of The Cross Studios, your local radio station,
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and the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity
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and charity.
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As always, let's start with prayer.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Almighty God, through the intercession
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of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit
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of discernment that might hear your voice and obey your command.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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Hey friends, here it is Friday at The Catholic Current.
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You know what that means, you and me, let's talk about this, walking through a complex
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issue together.
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And today's topic, I hope this will appeal to you, or at least stir your imagination,
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Fulton Sheen's Darker Prophecies.
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Now you know Fulton Sheen is going to be beatified.
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I've been a big fan of Fulton Sheen for a long time.
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He died when I was a freshman in college.
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I was sorry that I didn't meet him.
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I remember hearing my father talk about his Good Friday sermons and his popular TV shows
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when I taught rhetoric.
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I showed some excerpts from his TV shows and so on.
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But I want to dig back prior to his being a media star.
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Now he was an early adopter of radio throughout the 20s, starting in the 20s, and then was
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the number one guy on television in the 50s, but he was also a very prolific writer.
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He was a prayerful man, of course.
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He was a very, very learned man, was the Dean of the School of Philosophy at the Catholic
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University of America, my alma mater, before my time, obviously.
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And he foresaw a lot of things.
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And I think there are treasures waiting to be found in Fulton Sheen's writings.
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And I think that his work from the 30s and 40s deserves more attention, and in some ways
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I think might be more valuable than what he did in the 50s and 60s and 70s.
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Our friends in the Diocese of Rochester may agree with me or may not.
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If you know, you know.
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So there's a paragraph or two from Fulton Sheen running around talking about the ape
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of the church.
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So by ape he doesn't mean a gorilla in a suit.
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To ape means to mimic, and to mimic dishonestly.
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In other words, it's more kind of a pretense than the real church.
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So this is from his book called Communism and the Conscience of the West, which was
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republished by TAN Books a few years back, but it was originally published in 1948.
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So it's after the horrors of World War II.
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People still remember the horrors of World War I.
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The Cold War is starting, the Soviet Union is becoming an enemy, and people have lots
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and lots of hope in what was called the Atlantic Charter, which was the basis for the United
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Nations.
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I want to put parentheses around all of that and focus on the fact that Fulton Sheen was
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a very learned, very well-read man, and he knew a lot of literature and a lot of history.
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And he really did believe in the truth between good and evil, and he saw in his time that
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the very great coming conflict was between Christendom and Communism.
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And so there's a lot of talks here about Marxism, and he was a lousy philosopher, a lousy economist,
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and a horrible human being.
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And the poster child for Communism then would have been the Soviet Union.
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The Soviet Union is no more.
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And I think the center of Marxism has really transferred to the West, and what we would
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call now cultural Marxism, which has given us woke culture, cancel culture, DEI, etc.,
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and a lot of sexual aberrations as well.
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There's so much here.
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But let me just jump in.
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If you've got your own copy of his book Communism, the Conscience of the West, the tan edition
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that came out a few years ago, going into page 11, where he talks about Satan's works
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and purposes for human history.
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Remember, Satan hates humans because he hates God.
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And one of the ways he offends the Creator is by harming and corrupting his creatures,
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especially those who are made in his image and likeness.
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So please indulge me as I read some long passages from Sheen.
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I wish I had Sheen's voice.
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I don't.
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It's just me.
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But here we go.
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Starting page 11, he's talking about Satan's seeming love for humanity and his glib talk
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of freedom and equality.
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He will have one great secret that he will tell to no one.
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He will not believe in God.
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Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even
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the elect.
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So he says, we're being set up.
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And he says, sometime, he wasn't sure when, but sometime, there would be the ape of the
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church, the false, dishonest imitation of the church.
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He says, Satan will set up a counter-church, which will be the ape of the church.
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Because he, the devil, is the ape of God.
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It will have all the notes and characteristics of the church, but in reverse, an emptied
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of its divine content.
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It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will, in all externals, resemble the
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mystical body of Christ.
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In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man, in his loneliness
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and frustration, will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give
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him enlargement of purpose.
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But at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity, then will be verified
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a paradox.
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The very objections with which the men in the last century rejected the church will
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be the reasons why they will now accept the counter-church.
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So he's saying, be alert.
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You're going to be lied to.
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You're going to be bamboozled.
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And there's going to be something that looks like the church and sounds like the church,
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but if you look more closely, you will see it isn't the church anymore.
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I could give a biswillion examples about that, but instead, I will make mention, a friend
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of mine who does some work in Catholic media is attending a Catholic media conference,
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and he's given me some updates, and he said, there's not a single mention of Christ.
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He says, lots of mention of truth, the common good, ecology of truth, and disarming our
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words.
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And then one of the clerics speaking at this conference said, the church is for a better
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world.
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Aw, a better world, how sweet.
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Isn't that nice?
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Who can object to that?
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But let's jump ahead a little bit.
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Let's jump ahead to Sheen's book, page 172, because he says that there will be a loss
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of personal morality, but we can cover that with an emphasis on social justice, of social
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morality.
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So if we're all running soup kitchens and getting hysterical about climate change, we
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don't have to talk about the Sixth Commandment.
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That's the deal.
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I've been saying this for years, and I must be smart because apparently Fulton Sheen agrees
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with me.
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Listen to this.
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He says, the loss of personal morality is compensated for by an intense devotion to
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social morality.
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Social conscience takes the place of individual conscience.
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That is why the followers of the new demonic mysticism feel that by blaming others, they
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relieve themselves of blame.
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By liquidating certain persons guilty of injustice, they dispense themselves from the
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guilt of their own personal injustices.
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That too is why in all totalitarianism, there goes hand in hand a great passion for social
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reform with a complete disinterest in the need of individual reform.
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By lifting the beam out of their neighbor's eyes, they need not be concerned with the
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moat in their own.
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Sex then becomes the new theology.
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Acceptance of an ideology becomes the measure of the good life, rather than loving relationship
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to life and truth and love.
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Denial of morality necessarily widens the area of evil, and every increase of evil clamors
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for a repressive power on the part of a dictator.
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And that's why I think of Britain a lot these days, because by golly, Great Britain now
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is arresting more people for social media thought crimes than the top ten other nations
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combined for arresting people for thought crimes.
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More than China, more than Turkey.
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Now remember, Sheen saw this in the late 40s, and he attributed the corruption of the church
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to the temptation offered by Marxism to have Christ without the cross.
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Do you think he was wrong?
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Do you think he missed the mark?
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Or is he describing what we're living in our own time?
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That's what we'll talk about in the next segment.
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I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day at the Catholic Current.
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It's Friday, it's time for Let's Talk About This.
13:27
Today we walk through a complex issue together.
13:29
We're talking about Fulton Sheen's darker prophecies, and we're using as a point of
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departure his book, recently republished, called Communism and the Conscience of the
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West.
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I'm going to be doing more about Fulton Sheen as we get closer to his beatification.
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We talked about a paragraph of his that has become famous now, about the ape of the church,
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the false pretender of the church.
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It looks like the church, sounds like the church, but really isn't the church.
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Some people say, oh father, there you go again with your histrionics, with your hysteria.
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Please calm down, because remember, no matter what you say, it can't be as bad as you say
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it is.
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That seems to be, I've been hearing that since I was at least five.
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That having been said, let's grab a little note that just came up from Morate Celli today,
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on my feed.
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A report from Italy.
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I'm just going to read it as it is.
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We want to bring to your attention the story of a group of pilgrims traveling through Italy
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with a priest of the priestly fraternity of St. Peter.
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The group was denied the celebration of mass at the shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo, Padre
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Pio's church, and subsequently at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.
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At Loreto, they were initially denied as well, but the priest fortunately managed to convince
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the local authorities of his permission to celebrate the mass.
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At San Giovanni Rotondo, the group had to make do with having their mass said in a hotel
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basement following the denial.
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Now in Loreto, they encountered a station for dialogue and listening, staffed by a habitless
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nun wearing a Roman collar, and it looks like the way it's set up, almost as if it's
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an attempt to have you believe that she's there to hear confessions.
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Oh, but of course, she's not here to hear confessions.
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It's just for dialogue and listening.
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And then also at Assisi, there were orthodox folks offering a divine liturgy there, but
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this fraternity priest was forbidden from offering the traditional Latin mass.
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So this isn't an SSPX priest.
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This is a fraternity priest against whom no one has any objections, we're told.
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And yet, at Padre Pio's church, Basilica of St. Francis, and then at Loreto at least initially,
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they were denied, but there was a nun acting as if she were hearing confessions, and there
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were also orthodox offering their liturgy there.
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So yeah, I think we are in a time of crisis, at least in a time of crisis.
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I'll leave it to your judgment as to whether or not we're living in the age of the ape
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of the church, the pretender to the church.
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But Fulton Sheen, getting back to him, talks about that we really are in a time of crisis.
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He saw it, the phrase he used was catastrophe.
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And what he saw was that Christendom was negotiating with Marxism, first I think in the person
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of the Soviet Union and Stalin, later in the person of academia and their Frankfurt School.
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It's a whole other topic for another time.
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But right now, I would say Fulton Sheen still saw the barbarians outside of the gates.
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I think now the barbarians are not only inside of the gates, but they have a lot of the keys
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and the checkbook and our department chairs, and may even occupy places in the cadres of
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the people who should really know better club.
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But he says that this catastrophe is a vindication of the victory of God, and the catastrophe
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is a kind of mercy because it will wake up those who can be awakened, and it's going
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to purify everything else.
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Let me pause for a moment.
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When I was about five years old, and you had to go wash your hands before dinner, suffice
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to say, I washed my hands like a five-year-old boy, which means I basically spashed soap
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and water on my palms, and my father would look at my hands, and he said, go back and
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wash your hands properly, or next time I'm going to wash your hands for you, and you're
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not going to like the way that I wash your hands.
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And I think that's where we are now.
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They got us, all right, gave you chances, gave you chances, gave you chances.
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Now we're in the, and find out part of the equation.
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So if you're following along in your recently republished handbooks edition of Fulton Sheen,
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Communism and the Conscience of the West, I'm going to be reading extensively from pages
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26 and 27.
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Sheen writes this, because the signs of our times point to a struggle between absolutes,
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we may expect the future to be a time of trials and catastrophes for two reasons.
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Firstly, to stop disintegration.
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He notes, godlessness would go on and on if there were no catastrophes.
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What death is to a sinful person, that catastrophe is to an evil civilization, the interruption
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of godlessness.
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Why did God station an angel with a flaming sword at the Garden of Paradise after the
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fall?
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If it were not to prevent our first parents from entering the Garden and eating the Tree
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of Life, which if they ate, would have immortalized their evil.
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God will not allow unrighteousness to become eternal.
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Revolution, disintegration, chaos, must be reminders that our thinking has been wrong,
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our dreams have been unholy.
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Evil truth is vindicated by the rune that follows when it has been repudiated.
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Let me stop for a second and make an observation.
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I have a lot of affiliation with curmudgeon literature and the curmudgeon community.
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So it was either Nicholas Davila or Dean Abbott or John Senior who said, we're not being punished
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for modernity.
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Modernity is the punishment.
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So the mess we're in now is actually an indication that God is still in charge, because he can't
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let evil go on forever.
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Let me take up reading Sheen again.
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He says, the chaos of our times is the strongest negative argument that could ever be advanced
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for Christianity.
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Catastrophe becomes a testimony to God's power in a meaningless world, for by it God brings
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a meaningless existence to naught.
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The disintegration following in an abandonment of God thus becomes a triumph of meaning,
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a reaffirmation of purpose.
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Adversity is the expression of God's condemnation of evil, the registering of divine judgment.
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A hell is not sin, but the effect of sin.
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So these disordered times are not sin, but the wages of sin.
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Catastrophe reveals that evil is self-defeating.
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It cannot turn from God without hurting herself.
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I'll pause again in my reading of Fulton Sheen, and I think of the late great Cardinal Pell
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who had said, the vindication of the church's sexual morality is the misery of people who
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refuse to live it.
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And I remember I taught a course many years ago called Sex, Life, and Love, and I asked
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the students to close their eyes, and I said, now, think of all your friends who are promiscuous.
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And now, ask yourself how many of them are happy, and most of them opened their eyes
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with tears in it.
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Let me take up with Sheen again.
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The second reason why a crisis must come in order to prevent a false identification of
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the church and the world.
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Our Lord intended that his followers should be different in spirit from those who are
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not his followers.
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John's Gospel, I've taken you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
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Sheen goes on, though this is the divine intent, it is unfortunately true that the
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line of demarcation between the followers of Christ and those who are not is often blotted
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out.
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Instead of black and white, there is only a blur.
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Mediocrity and compromise characterize the lives of many Christians.
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How?
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There is no longer the conflict and opposition which is supposed to characterize us.
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Christians fit in all too well in a world that is in rebellion against God.
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This is Father McTague talking, this is Mike Loss on Fulton Sheen.
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We fit in, we belong, we say nice, anodyne things like, we want to make the world a better
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place and social justice and more free stuff for everyone to infinity and beyond.
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And I know that we want to be liked.
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I know that a rather corrupt songstress, Katy Perry, was invited to the Vatican several
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years back to talk about meditation.
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Really?
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Really?
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In Spain, one of the bishops there has opened his cathedral and set up screens in the sanctuary
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next to the altar and the blessed sacrament so that people could watch the World Cup.
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Really?
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Where the holy sacrifice is offered, where calvary is made present again, the local archbishop
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has turned his cathedral into a kind of a sports bar.
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What is there to be said at this point?
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I think back to a very prominent law school affiliated with a very prominent self-identified
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Catholic university, and the students were shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that
24:27
their health insurance didn't pay directly, directly for abortion and contraception.
24:35
And a reporter said to this law student, you know you go to a Catholic school, right?
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And he says, well yes, of course I go to a Catholic school, but I didn't think I went
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to that kind of Catholic school.
24:47
And remember, Christians who fit in get praise from the court gestures and they get coin
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from Caesar.
24:57
Christians who fit in get grants.
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Christians who fit in can be financed like NGOs.
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Fulton Sheen saw this coming.
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Rather than, oh yay, the Christians are here, we're going to feel so much better about ourselves,
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I think Sheen was saying, oh gosh, the Christians are here, the Catholics are here, they're
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going to preach Christ crucified again.
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I think it's been happening a lot lately.
25:30
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTigue, your host here every day of the Catholic Current.
25:34
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audio
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as a podcast.
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Wherever you can find audio, you can find us.
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Follow us on your favorite platform, write a five-star review.
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Let's take it around the world.
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We can't do it with you.
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We cannot do it without you.
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Let's do this good work together.
26:02
I want to hear from you.
26:03
Fulton Sheen is being beatified.
26:06
What are your thoughts about this?
26:08
What do you hope for?
26:09
What do you think is the most important part of his legacy?
26:12
Let us know, please.
26:13
Go to thestationofthecross.com, askfather.
26:16
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We are in the midst of a Friday episode.
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Let's talk about this.
27:30
And we're looking at Fulton Sheen's darker prophecies.
27:34
And I'm taking this from his recently republished book called Communism and the Conscience of
27:39
the West.
27:40
And in this brief, Fulton Sheen thinks that the West, Christendom, which was built on
27:47
Christ and his cross, is going to be deceived by communism to surrender the cross and have
27:57
a crossless Christ.
28:00
And that's going to appeal for a lot of different reasons.
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And a lot of people who should really know better are going to go along with it.
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And then it's going to get ugly, and it's going to get worse before it gets worse.
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And Sheen says this is a sign of God's mercy.
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He said, look, if you can defy the moral law and defy the natural law without consequence,
28:26
then we live in a make-believe world.
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We live in a cartoon world.
28:30
We live in a simulation of our own making.
28:33
And so he talks about what he calls the reversal, that we have to recognize that we are being
28:42
contested for and that we have choices to make.
28:47
And again, if you've got your own copy of Communism and the Conscience of the West,
28:51
I've got the new hardcover from Tan Books.
28:54
This is from page 167.
28:56
He says, the situation resolves itself down to this.
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Modern Christians have truth, but no zeal.
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Materialists have zeal, but no truth.
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They have the heat, but no light.
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We have the light, but no heat.
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They have the passion, but no ideals.
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We have the ideals, but no passion.
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Neither of us is perfect.
29:19
They sin against the light.
29:20
We sin against love.
29:23
Which of the two is more pleasing to the eyes of God?
29:26
Our Lord told this story.
29:29
And then he quotes from the parable of the two sons from Matthew 21.
29:33
Let me read to you a few lines.
29:35
A certain man had two sons, and coming to the first, he said, son, go work today in
29:39
my vineyard.
29:40
And the answering said, I will not.
29:42
But afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went.
29:46
And coming to the other, he said in a like manner, and the answering said, I go, sir.
29:50
And he went not.
29:51
Which of the two did our fathers will?
29:54
That's from the parable from Matthew 21.
29:57
Fulton Sheen continues.
29:58
Our blessed Lord implied that it was the son who was at first unwilling to go, and
30:04
then afterward went, who merited praise from him.
30:07
In a like manner, it is we who claim to believe in Christianity, and in the existence of God,
30:14
and in the moral law, who nevertheless act not out of those beliefs who are to be condemned.
30:22
Our crime is our unfulfilled Christian duty, our sprinkling the fires of passion with the
30:29
cold waters of indifference, our mediocrity which blinds us to the fact that the day of
30:35
broad-mindedness is over, and that all humanity is in search of a soul.
30:42
Pow!
30:43
That's Fulton Sheen putting the smack down.
30:48
That is Fulton Sheen putting the smack down.
30:51
We have choices to make.
30:55
There are the nominal Christians who go along to get along, and then there are the anti-Logos,
31:03
the anti-Christian people, and because for now at least, they're the cool kids, and they
31:10
have the money, they're the court jesters for Caesars, so we suck up to them.
31:18
Fulton Sheen says, you know what?
31:22
We really shouldn't do that.
31:23
That really is a very, very bad idea.
31:29
So what's left for us?
31:33
What are we to do?
31:34
Let's jump ahead to page 218, 219.
31:41
Fulton Sheen talks about a coming catastrophe, and he says that catastrophe is to be
31:48
welcomed because it shows God's sovereignty, that he can be mocked for just so long, and
31:58
then there are consequences.
32:00
Listen to this.
32:01
He says, catastrophe is the condition of greatness.
32:05
The church is like a lamb that is shorn of its wool every springtime, but it lives on.
32:11
The particular season in which we live then is the time of the shearing of Christ's lamb.
32:17
And perhaps even the shepherds shall have only iron staffs.
32:22
It is always the business of the church to utilize defeat.
32:28
Wow, that's powerful, bold stuff.
32:31
This is where you find out whether or not you really believe.
32:35
And jumping back to page 32 of this book, Fulton says something that's chilling.
32:43
It's a theme that I've heard often in his Good Friday sermons.
32:47
He says, every now and then in history, the devil is given a long rope, for we must never
32:53
forget that our Lord said to Judas and his band, this is your hour.
33:01
Fulton Sheen continues, God has his day, but evil has its hour when the shepherd will be
33:09
struck and the sheep dispersed.
33:12
Though we speak of the emergence of the Antichrist against Christ, think not that it is because
33:18
we fear for the church.
33:19
We do not.
33:20
It is for the world we fear.
33:22
It is not infallibility we are worried about, but the world's lapse into fallibility.
33:28
We tremble not that God may be dethroned, but that barbarism may reign.
33:34
It is not the transubstantiation may perish, but the home.
33:38
Not the sacraments that may fade away, but the moral law.
33:42
The church can have no words for the weeping women, different from those of Christ on the
33:47
way to Calvary.
33:48
And he quotes from Luke's Gospel.
33:52
Weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
33:57
Sheen continues, the church has survived other great crises in her 19 centuries of existence,
34:04
and she will live to sing a requiem over the evils of the present.
34:08
The church may have its good Fridays, but these are only preludes to its Easter Sundays,
34:13
for the divine promise shall never be made void.
34:18
He continues, never before in history has there been such a strong argument for the
34:24
need of Christianity.
34:26
For men are now discovering that their misery and their woes, their wars and their revolutions
34:31
increase in direct ratio and proportion to the neglect of Christianity.
34:38
Christians realize that a moment of crisis is not a time of despair, but of opportunity.
34:44
The more we can anticipate the doom, the more we can avoid it.
34:52
Once we recognize that we are under divine wrath, we become eligible for divine mercy.
35:00
So says Fulton Sheen.
35:03
Let me read that last sentence again.
35:06
Once we recognize that we are under divine wrath, we become eligible for divine mercy.
35:13
Friends, I have to ask you, do you believe that we're in a time of crisis?
35:22
Do you believe that we are seeing the divine wrath unfold?
35:29
Do you believe that the rain is coming to scour and purify and purge?
35:41
Or do you believe that we're living in a promised great era of peace and progress?
35:48
A group of concerned Catholics have been told it's time to move on.
35:53
I'm not so sure.
35:59
As I look at the world, and I'm a man who prays, I'm a man who studied, I try to stay
36:07
informed, and as I look at the world, Christians and non-Christians alike, and Catholics especially,
36:15
I can't help believe that we are in trouble.
36:21
When the Archbishop of Detroit, who has shown a particular elan for closing down parishes
36:31
and making the traditional Latin mass less accessible, goes to the opening of a multi-million
36:37
dollar mosque in his archdiocese, and he says this, there is no place where I feel more
36:45
respect, fraternity, and kindness.
36:49
From the moment I entered this beautiful site, I felt a profound divine presence.
36:58
I wonder how he would feel at an SSPX chapel, or a Fraternity of St. Peter chapel.
37:09
I wonder how he feels before the Blessed Sacrament and his own cathedral.
37:15
At the chrism mass in his cathedral, when he's surrounded by his presbyterate, when
37:20
he's surrounded by priests who are meant to be his sons, and they all offer mass together,
37:28
does he feel less respect, fraternity, and kindness there than when he enters a mosque?
37:36
I wonder.
37:38
I just wonder.
37:40
So I do believe we are in a time of crisis.
37:45
I do believe that the church is afflicted.
37:51
And I do believe firmly, and I say this knowing full well that I am a sinner who has to work
37:59
at his salvation in fear and trembling, just as St. Paul recommended, I do firmly believe
38:04
that senior Catholic cadres of the people who should really know better club are imperiling
38:10
souls.
38:11
They are saying things that are not true.
38:15
They are saying things that are half true.
38:18
And they are left leaving unsaid the things that need to be said.
38:23
So I think that we are in a time of crisis at the level of civilizations.
38:32
I want to go back to page 219 of Fulton's Sheen.
38:38
He says, civilizations are cyclic.
38:41
They are recurrent.
38:42
They go through the same phenomenon of birth and death and never come to life again.
38:47
Religion, however, is a continuous upward linear movement rising to new heights after
38:53
the decay of each particular civilization.
38:57
As a Christian civilization grew out of the decay of the Greco-Roman world, so a new Christian
39:02
order will grow out of the decay of historical liberalism and communism.
39:08
What we are witnessing in our day is not the decline of the church, but rather the death
39:13
of a civilization that has been egocentric and has been trying to make selfishness a
39:19
success and to balance opposing forces by tolerance understood as indifference to truth,
39:27
or by having recourse to external organizations to compensate for the loss of personal vitality
39:34
and virtue.
39:36
So says Fulton Sheen.
39:39
Remember, this was written in 1948.
39:44
He saw a lot of it coming.
39:48
He saw a lot of it coming.
39:51
And here we are now in our time in God's providence.
39:54
This is the time that God asks us to become saints.
40:01
No one becomes a saint by accident, and no one becomes a saint alone.
40:09
Friends, we need to immerse ourselves in what the church has always taught.
40:15
We need to rage a ruthless war against our own personal sin.
40:20
We need to be fully and thoroughly sacramentalized, and we need to encourage each other as members
40:27
of the body of Christ.
40:29
It is the only way forward.
40:31
It is the only way to survive until Christ's victory is made fully manifest.
40:37
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here today of The Catholic Current.
40:41
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41:01
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41:09
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41:10
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41:47
Praise be Jesus Christ.
41:51
This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic
41:55
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41:58
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Support us at thestationofthecross.com.
42:23
Here we are, the last segment of Friday.
42:24
You know what that means, you and me.
42:26
Weekend readiness, reviewing the headlines of the week in light of the upcoming Sunday
42:29
Scriptures, so we'll be all prayed up for Sunday Mass.
42:33
What are some of the stories that I'm following?
42:35
Well, the one that really has me just completely wrapped around the axle is the horrifying,
42:44
horrifying report finally released by Parliament that gave an honest account of the decades-long
42:55
rape war against Christian white girls in Britain, because that really is what it is.
43:02
Next Friday, I'm going to talk about this in length and in detail.
43:06
On Wednesday, I'm going to do a podcast and a video teasing that longer podcast, and the
43:11
gloves are coming off, and we're going to name names and point fingers and render garments.
43:18
So I think about that.
43:20
You know, recently they had a celebration on the White House lawn, because it was June
43:26
14th was Flag Day, because it was the President's birthday.
43:30
It's also my 29th anniversary of ordination, and they had all sorts of events and an Ultimate
43:36
Fighting Championship and so on.
43:38
Well, it turns out a group of malcontents were planning for a mass casualty event with
43:45
armed drones attacking dignitaries and politicians and ordinary citizens on the front lawn of
43:51
the White House, and the leader of the group was a Mexican illegal alien who was a dreamer.
43:59
He was part of that DACA group of, oh, but think of the children.
44:04
You know, this young man who, oh, granted, brought here illegally by his parents, who
44:07
came here illegally, but he's grown up to love this country ever so much, and therefore,
44:15
and think of the children.
44:17
And so, yeah, his visa expired a couple, two, three times.
44:23
Previous administration allowed him to stay.
44:26
He got lost in the shuffle, and now he was planning for a mass casualty event on the
44:34
front lawn of the White House, because reasons.
44:38
Huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
44:42
Surely, that must be it.
44:45
Meanwhile, there has been some discussion about Steven Spielberg's latest movie, some
44:52
call it his last gasp, called Disclosure Day, and it's about, it turns out, aliens have
44:57
been here all along, and the government knew it, and this was supposed to shake the faith
45:02
of all believers, but especially Catholics, but, but, but, but, but.
45:07
I'm going to link to John Horvath of Traditional Family and Property.
45:12
He has a good review of that, and he says, look, it's same stuff, different day with
45:20
Spielberg.
45:21
You know, we're in trouble, but by golly, we don't have to turn to God, because the
45:25
aliens are going to save us.
45:27
Well, very different, Mr. Horvath says, from turning to the sacred heart of our Lord, and
45:33
given that this is, you know, June, the month devoted to the sacred heart, we should probably
45:42
do that, rather than wait for the aliens to rescue us.
45:49
I already mentioned about the Archbishop of Detroit, there was another story that I found,
45:55
I think it was in Assisi, because reasons, and it's the big anniversary of the birth,
46:04
the death of St. Francis of Assisi, the local basilica decided to have a sit-down dinner
46:11
with hundreds and hundreds of people, wine was served, there was mood music, a good time
46:17
was had by all in the basilica, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, where the Holy Sacrifice
46:26
of the Mass is offered.
46:28
Now, religious communities have been giving food to people who've needed food since the
46:34
time of the apostles.
46:37
There is certainly nothing objectionable about that, but to do it inside the basilica?
46:46
It seems to me that there's a growing comfortableness with repurposing our places of worship for
46:54
something other than worship.
46:56
Suffice to say, I think that's very bad.
47:00
There's supposedly a memorandum of understanding that's being signed this week between the
47:04
United States and Iran, and that's going to really, really, really end the war this time,
47:09
and really, really open the strait of Hormuz this time, and depending on who you ask, you
47:15
know, the good guys won, however you define good guys and winning, and I'll just say,
47:23
we'll see, but I do know that the longer that the Straits of Hormuz remains closed or constricted,
47:30
it really is bad for the whole world, and I have an obligation, of course, to talk about
47:35
good news, and so I will mention that a six-year-old boy in Norway has found a Viking sword that's
47:45
about 1,300 years old, and I think that is the dream of every boy, is to find some really
47:52
cool artifact buried in the ground, and that's why you dig in the dirt.
47:59
And then also, an American, daughter of Irish immigrants, Mary Theresa Tallon, has been
48:06
named venerable by the Holy See, they acknowledge the heroic virtue of this woman who was the
48:13
foundress of the parish visitors of Mary Immaculate in New York, and then also, significantly,
48:19
18 servants of God who were martyred during the Spanish Civil War have been acknowledged
48:26
as venerable, so they're one step closer to sainthood, so we're grateful for those things
48:34
as well, and I certainly would mark myself remiss if I didn't acknowledge that.
48:40
If you're following the Nova Sota calendar of the Pauline Rite, we're here at the 12th
48:45
Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary 94, and my goodness, if you're in a dark mood, read
48:52
from Jeremiah 20, Jeremiah said,
48:56
I hear whisperings of many, terror on every side, denounce, let us denounce him, all those
49:01
who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine, oh boy, I have been there.
49:09
And he says, but the Lord is with me, mighty like a champion, my persecutors will stumble,
49:15
they will not triumph, in their failure, they will be put to utter shame.
49:20
Let's jump ahead to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 10, Jesus said to the 12th, fear no
49:27
one, nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.
49:34
Our Lord is referring here to the general judgment, it's a basic principle of natural
49:39
law that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done, to remind everyone
49:46
that we live under the rule of law, and ultimately we need to see that God's justice is in fact
49:56
just, and his mercy is in fact merciful, and you just can't pull a fast one on God.
50:05
God is not fooled, God will not be mocked, God has the last word.
50:12
Friends, I, maybe it's a sign I'm getting older, I do want to see the face of God and
50:20
live.
50:21
I want that for you too, and so does God.
50:26
Let's help each other do that, may God's holy name be praised now and forever.
50:30
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of the Catholic Current, join
50:33
us on Monday for another episode of the Catholic Current.
50:36
Great guest, great topic, lively conversation, that's how we roll here, the Catholic Current
50:40
and the Station of the Cross, where we are committed to being more, so very much more
50:46
than being merely relevant.
50:49
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audio
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51:01
attention of the listeners so that these conversations get the attention they deserve.
51:06
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51:09
take it around the world.
51:10
We can do it with you, we cannot do it without you.
51:13
Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, we invite you, God bless you, Father,
51:17
Son, and Holy Spirit, go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.
51:24
Amen.