Latest / The Catholic Current / Fulton Sheen: Old Errors, New Labels (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 5/22/26

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Fulton Sheen: Old Errors, New Labels (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 5/22/26 · 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.
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It's kind of fun as a matter of 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
0:37
host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
0:41
You're listening to us from the station of La Crosse Studios, your local radio station,
0:45
the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
0:50
As always, let's start with prayer.
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Name the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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Almighty God, through the intercession of Saint Ignatius the Elder, we ask that you
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pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit of discernment that might hear your voice
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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, as promised, we're going to do an occasional series on Fulton Sheen in anticipation
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of his beatification later this year.
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So many people know him, rightly so, through his television appearances, his preaching,
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his really pioneering work on radio.
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A little something about television, this is, you know, back in the days of black and
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white.
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There was a time in the 1950s where he had the most popular television show on television.
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He was, he was the bomb.
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He was, he was it.
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Things have changed since then.
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And when I taught rhetoric and homiletics, I would show my students videos of Fulton
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Sheen and say, this is the gold standard.
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This is God just showing off.
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I mean, he had the look, he had the delivery, he had the content.
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He was the complete package.
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But I don't think we really appreciate his writing.
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He wrote, I lost track, at least 60 books, maybe 64, so we could do Fulton Sheen books
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for a good long time.
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I want to focus on one called Old Errors and New Labels.
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Why that one?
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Well, first of all, because it was written originally in 1931.
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That's a long time ago, that was 95 years ago.
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And what is he talking about with Old Errors and New Labels?
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He talks about how some heresies, some errors, just keep coming back.
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They might have different names, they might wear a different mask, but at the root, they
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are the same.
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For example, relativism isn't new.
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That's as old as the hills that they say.
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The divinization of science, or what we call now the science, and people who know that
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science is a tool and not a divinity would call that distortion scientism.
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The recognition that freedom without truth becomes self-destructive, and we, oh my goodness,
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we see that every day now.
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Those things aren't really, really new.
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And you say, but gosh, Father, how can it be that he was calling shenanigans on this
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stuff all the way back in 1931?
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Because 1931 was before.
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It was before synodality, which causes people so much heartache and confusion.
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It was before the SSPX was even a gleam in the eye of Archbishop Lefebvre.
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It was before Humanae Vitae.
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It was before the Land O'Lakes Conference in 1967.
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It was even before that than which there is no witcher, the Second Vatican Council
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in 1962 to 1965.
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It was before the spirit of Vatican II.
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It was before the new evangelization.
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It was before so many things.
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And yet, here is young Fulton Sheen, brilliant, prayerful cleric and scholar, saying, here
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we go again.
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So I want to first set some context.
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And if you forgive me, I'm going to read some from my own book called Christendom Lost and
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Found, Meditations for a Post-Post-Christian Era, because I think Sheen's analysis will
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be more penetrating if we realize that we've been fighting a lot of the same battles for
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a really long time.
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So I talk about that there are various competing narratives of our own time.
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So I write this.
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The first narrative runs like this.
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From the time of Pentecost until 1965, everything in the church was fine until one day an evil
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genius flipped a switch and then everything was corrupted overnight.
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Our only hope is to find that switch and flip it back as can be seen by those with the eyes
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to see.
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So the idea that everything was fine until you know what happened in 1965, that's not
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true because Fulton Sheen was writing about a lot of these same problems in 1931.
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Let's take a look at a second narrative.
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Runs like this.
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Starting from Pentecost until Emperor Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313, which by the way allowed
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the church to come out from one of the catacombs.
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So until the giving of the Holy Spirit, until the church came out of the catacombs, all
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was well with the church.
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After Constantine's conversion and the advent of Christendom, all was in darkness until
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1965.
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Because you know, Pentecost was great because you know, Jesus.
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But then Christendom intervened, boo hiss.
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And all was in darkness until 1965 when the Holy Spirit flicked a switch and we've all
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been living happily ever after, as can be seen with those who have eyes to see.
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So in other words, the church began in the time of Christ either emerging from his pure
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side on Calvary or with the giving of the Holy Spirit.
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Some people go back and forth about that.
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But then the church was buried alive until 1965 when the Holy Spirit gave birth to the
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church again.
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Here's a third narrative.
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It goes like this.
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The history of the church is long, complex, and nuanced.
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Saints and sinners have always been at work in the church.
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There was never a golden age in the church until the Holy Spirit offered us one in 1962
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to 1965.
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But that golden age was nearly strangled in the cradle by misunderstanders of Vatican
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II and its spirit.
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The golden age arrived in 1978 and continued throughout the pontificate of John Paul II.
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Since that time, we have been basking in the glow of the new evangelization, as can be
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seen by those with the eyes to see.
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So 1962, 1965, Vatican II really, really was best council ever.
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And then, then, the misunderstanders of the Second Vatican Council, those who claimed
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the spirit of Vatican II, misapplied all the aggiornamento, all the updating, etc.
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But now, since the arrival of John Paul in 1978, we have not the spirit of Vatican II,
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but the really, really, real Vatican II.
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Well, and that leads me to a fourth narrative that runs like this.
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Everything about the second narrative is true, that we had a rebirth with the best council
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ever.
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But that good work of the Holy Spirit, Vatican II, was crushed in 1978 to 2005, known as
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the time of the Cracovian captivity, or the pontificate of John Paul II.
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And then, from 2005 to 2013, the interregnum of the hermeneutic of continuity with Pope
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Benedict XVI, the really, really, real Vatican II has been gifted to us.
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And since 2013, the Holy Spirit is in charge again, and we are now progressing from glory
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to glory, as in fact we are, as can be seen with those with eyes to see.
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So that's what I wrote in 2022.
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And then we have to add a chapter, the era of synodality begun under Francis, continuing
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apparently under Leo XIV.
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And now, with synodality, we have the authentic heirs and interpreters of the Second Vatican
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Council.
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And remember, the documents of Vatican II, according to Cardinal Fernandez, cannot be
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corrected.
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And now, the full flower, the greatest fruit, the inevitable outcome of the Second Vatican
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Council is synodality.
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So if the Church was born at Pentecost, and born again at Vatican II, it will be born
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a third time with the advent of synodality.
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And mark your calendars, because we're having the ecclesial assembly in 2028, which will
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be even more, even more synodal than the synod on synodality.
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Look at, it's going to be amazing.
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And then, Fulton Sheen clears his throat and is waving back at us all the way back
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from 1931 and said, no, not so fast.
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We've been here before.
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And Fulton Sheen wants to call shenanigans on all of it.
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And I believe firmly that we need to start rereading Fulton Sheen in anticipation of
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his beatification.
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And we're going to look at Vatican II and the aftermath, and now synodality, in a very
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different light.
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I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host for today here at the Catholic Current.
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Here we are, Friday, let's talk about this.
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I'm talking about Fulton Sheen's book called Old Errors and New Labels, published in 1931.
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Why am I focusing on this?
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And it's not just because I think we need to get ready with appreciation for his forthcoming
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beatification, because I think this book has something to teach us in the here and now.
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Stupidity doesn't come out of nowhere.
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Error and heresy don't come out of nowhere.
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There are roots to them, there are fathers and mothers of errors and heresies and stupidities
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and nonsense and so on.
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And there's plenty of blame to go around.
14:06
So I said in the last segment that there's a view of church history that the world and
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the church began on or about 1965.
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And what does a book from 1931 have to do with that?
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And I say, no, no, no.
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Old errors and new labels.
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And what we're seeing now is modernism changing masks, changing costumes.
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Now we know that Pope St. Pius X, who was the first pope to be canonized in about 400
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years, until we had a kind of industry of canonizing popes in recent years, how blessed
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we are, Pius X said, modernism is the synthesis of all heresy.
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So let's talk a little bit about modernism and modernity.
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And by modernity I don't mean things like indoor plumbing and antibiotics and electric
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lights.
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I like all of those things.
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When I was an undergrad and I had a course on the introduction to modern philosophy,
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it was a historical survey, and my professor at the time who directed my philosophy master's
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thesis asked the question, what is modern about modern philosophy, which is a brilliant
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question.
15:27
And here's my answer.
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Well, here are the hallmarks of modern thought.
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What I call a progressive evacuation of the personal from both God and man.
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So rather than theism, God is personal, he is creator, he is provident, he is involved
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in his creation, not only through revelation, but through natural law.
15:55
We go from that to deism, you know, God is the impersonal great monad in the sky, the
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blind watchmaker who put it together and then let it go to, nah, there's nothing supernatural
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at all.
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And likewise, the evacuation of the personal from man, we go from man as made in the image
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and likeness of God, and that is his glory and his boast and his claim, to we're just
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descendants of apes with imposable thumbs and big cerebral cortexes, we're just bags
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of nerve endings and appetites waiting to be tickled and fed.
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And rather than history going somewhere under a providential guidance, we're just on a rock
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hurtling through empty space, we're just an episode between two oblivions.
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And so how you view human life and divine life and history, et cetera, et cetera, it
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looks really different depending upon whether or not you're a modernist or not.
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Well, Father, what about postmodernism?
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Well, postmodernism, it's post in the sense that it is sequential, it came after modernism,
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but in some ways, and this is in Richard Lawler's book called Postmodernism Rightly Understood,
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it is hypermodernism, exaggerating the worst aspects of modernism.
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And I want to draw a link between the temptations of modernism and the different types of moral
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agency in Aristotle and the Nicomachean Ethics.
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Hey, do you think Father was ever a professor of philosophy?
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I don't know, sounds like it today.
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Let's listen and see if he really was.
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And I hope Mr. Engineer laughed when I said that.
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Aristotle said that the virtuous person does the right thing the right way for the right
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reasons as a matter of habit.
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And he can do that because there's a harmony between his passion and his reason.
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He rightly desires what is rightly desirable, chooses the right means to the right ends,
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and thereby achieves his ultimate destiny.
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But as you know, sometimes there's a conflict between reason and appetite, and sometimes
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we want things that are not good for us, or we want good things too much, and this is
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how we end up with gluttony and drunkenness and so on.
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And sometimes we have to say no to things we really want in the hopes that eventually
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we'll become disciplined and ultimately virtuous.
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And then there's a third type of moral agency called lacking self-control, or the unfortunate
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term incontinent.
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So this is the guy who knows that one drink is his limit.
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And he says, you know what, I'm going to hate myself in the morning, let me have another
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one.
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And then there is the vicious man, the man characterized by vice.
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And he's just out of control, he's all appetite.
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You know, he's got DUIs, he's driving on a suspended license, and he just takes his alimony
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money and his rent money and puts it on the bar and says keep them coming.
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But there's a subset of the vicious man called the crafty man, and the crafty man uses his
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reason as a servant of his passions.
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So as I tell my students, the vicious man wants to get drunk, the crafty man wants to
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get you drunk.
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And so postmodernism takes modernity's exaggerated dependence on reason and technology, but uses
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it as a servant of his completely out-of-control passions.
19:57
So now we decide that God's put us in the wrong body, we've got to stip stuff off, or
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God has put us in the wrong species, so let's put on costumes, and God put unfortunate limits
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on us, so let's put that chip on our brain, etc., etc.
20:15
So where does modernism and postmodernism fit in with all this?
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So the synthesis of all heresies, says Pius X, is modernism.
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It really is a dishonoring of God and man.
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And postmodernity says, let me help you with that, hold my beer, I'm going to run with
20:35
it even more.
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I'm going to ask Mr. Engineer to add to our show notes the essay I wrote called The Brief
20:42
History of Our Annihilation.
20:45
Now here comes Fulton Sheen.
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Now, he's 30-some years before the Second Vatican Council, and he's 30-some years after
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Pius X saying modernity is the synthesis of all heresies, and he says, you know, everything
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that we are suffering from now has been done before with different masks and labels.
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And this is why he warns us.
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He says the church knows, too, that to marry the present age and its spirit is to become
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a widow in the next.
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The church has been around for a really, really long time, and there are people with really
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great ideas and breakthroughs and discoveries, and they all just kind of go in and out of
21:39
fashion.
21:40
And what I fear very greatly is that where we are now is in a time of critical theory,
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in a time of globalism, in a time where people think that we should be just a chaplaincy
21:57
to the UN, we should be an NGO with a steeple, and we can make people like us because we're
22:08
going to conform to what the world wants.
22:14
And what does the world want?
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Really, really, really, I think what the world wants is life without the Sixth Commandment.
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That's its greatest good.
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That's its holy grail.
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They want to have sex without accountability.
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They want to have sex without consequence.
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So we're going to rewrite the rulebook under the inspiration of the spirit through the
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process of discernment and synodal listening.
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See how this is going?
22:54
See where I'm going with this?
22:57
We see this study group number nine just released its report a little while ago on emerging
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issues for synodal discernment, et cetera, et cetera.
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It's like, look, we found our way of talking into and out of pretty much everything.
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And if you use the right word fog, you'll see that we can kind of put some filters and
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gauze and some cut and paste into sacred scripture, into the deposit of faith, into natural law,
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and then presto chango, we haven't really, really, really changed the doctrine, you see,
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because some people might think that'll be bad.
23:45
But we've discovered this new attitude, this new nuance, and all of a sudden things that
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were really obvious about sexuality and marriage are not so obvious.
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And we're not going to let something like, you know, biology get in the way of what we
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really, really, really want, because as we know in the cult of self-esteem and the divinization
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of the fields, if you really, really, really want something, then of course you have a
24:18
right to it.
24:19
And we begin to ignore certain fundamental aspects of biology, among them men are men,
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try to follow me here, men are men, women are women, men and women are made for each
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other, and when men and women get together, you have, you know, the next generation.
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You have families.
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You have what the church has always taught is the basic building block of human society,
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upon which you build culture and civilization.
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And without that, you know, to borrow a phrase from the poet, welcome to the jungle.
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And I think Fulton Sheen would be waving a big red flag all the way back from 1931 and
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say, guys, we have to have a very serious conversation about synodality, because it
25:17
looks like we're heading off the cliff.
25:21
And I happen to agree with Fulton Sheen, which we'll talk more about in the next segment.
25:26
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here at The Catholic Current.
25:29
You want to stay with us for the rest of the hour, because we're still continuing Let's
25:33
Talk About This.
25:34
We're talking about Fulton Sheen, Old Errors, and New Labels.
25:37
You want to stay with us for the whole hour, because we're going to wrap up with Weekend
25:40
Readiness, reviewing the headlines in light of the upcoming Sunday Scripture, so be all
25:44
prayed up for Sunday Mass.
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We are talking about Fulton Sheen old errors and new labels based on a book by the same
27:31
name going all the way back to 1931.
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The new labels, what we would call modernism in his time, what we would call post-modernity
27:44
and synodality as popularly presented, he says that this is just kind of a pagan revival.
27:55
But before I get to that, I want to bring up here, this is one of my favorite quotes
28:01
from this book, because he warns us that people will try to get us to stop thinking.
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So if you have a concern, you're a conspiracy theorist, or you're a heretic, or you're a
28:17
schismatic, or you're anti-something or pro-something else that we don't like, so shut up, he explained.
28:25
He calls these ways of stopping people from thinking, he calls them thought-saving devices.
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He says this, thought-saving devices have been invented that rival labor-saving devices
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in their ingenuity.
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Fine-sounding phrases like, life is bigger than logic, or progress is the spirit of the
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age, go rattling by us like express trains, carrying the burden of those who are too lazy
28:54
to think for themselves.
28:57
And one of the things that Catholics need to do is they need to learn to think for themselves,
29:03
and they need to learn to think as Catholics.
29:09
And someone you know wrote a book about that, that you might find helpful, Real Philosophy
29:16
for Real People, Tools for Truthful Living.
29:19
And for the record, you buy the book, not a penny goes in my pocket, I'm not a shill
29:24
here, but I've put together some tools that you're going to find valuable.
29:27
So I'm going to be reading from the last chapter of his book, Old Errors and New Labels, and
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it's called Peter or Pan, and Pan is the pagan god.
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And I'm just going to read and comment and run out the clock this way.
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Fulton Sheen says this, the story of the development of new paganism is the story of the prodigal
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son.
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The younger son in the parable is Western civilization, who in the 16th century goes
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to the spiritual father of Christendom and asks for a share of the substance garnered
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through the centuries.
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The spiritual father gives Western civilization a share of that capital in the shape of the
30:11
necessity of a church, the divinity of Christ, inspiration of sacred scriptures, the existence
30:17
of God, and the necessity of religion.
30:20
So what he's talking about is Martin Luther, troublemaker, who put a lot of dominoes in
30:27
play with the so-called Reformation.
30:32
And he's going to claim that the Protestant Reformation really led to modernism, and modernism
30:41
and later post-modernism have been parasitic upon Christendom.
30:47
He continues, in the 16th century, it spent its belief in the church, in the 17th century,
30:55
it spent the inspiration of scripture, in the 18th century, the divinity of Christ,
31:01
in the 19th, the existence of God, and in the 20th, the necessity of religion.
31:08
I've said something similar in my essay in Crisis Magazine called, The Brief History
31:14
of Our Annihilation, where we just kept rejecting and rejecting and rejecting fundamental elements
31:22
of Christendom and what's left.
31:26
He says, at the present day, and mind you, he's writing in 1931, at the present day,
31:33
the capital is all gone, and now it is feeding on husks under the names of New Thought and
31:40
Progress.
31:42
What if we called, rather than New Thought and Progress, we talked about the spirit of
31:48
Vatican II, and at least an exaggerated sense of synodality, what then?
31:56
Well Sheen continues, it was not so long ago that the father of Christendom could depend
32:02
upon those sects, S-E-C-T-S, that called themselves Christian, to help defend the great fundamental
32:10
truths of Christianity, such as the divinity of Christ, and the necessity of the salvation
32:16
of the individual soul.
32:18
Because let's not forget, at the time that he was writing, all Christian communities,
32:25
Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, rejected artificial contraception.
32:33
And what Luther and Calvin, and those like them, said about contraception, hoo boy, he
32:40
goes, that day is past, many of the best known preachers are today teaching nothing but a
32:48
glorified humanism, and there are but a few who would dare to speak of divine justice
32:54
or retribution.
32:55
So says Fulton Sheen, and as I read his warnings about a glorified humanism, and you'll be
33:02
listening to this, it says here on May 22nd, which is after May 15th, and as I record this
33:11
it is before May 15th, 2026, and what happens on May 15th, 2026, Pope Leo will release his
33:20
first encyclical with the title of, translated from the Latin, Magnificent Humanity.
33:29
I would imagine, I hope, that what Pope Leo will be talking about in that document is
33:36
different, very different, from what Fulton Sheen calls glorified humanism.
33:43
Let's continue with Sheen, he writes, we are therefore practically forced to carry on the
33:49
battle for Christian truth alone, and this is something new in the history of Christianity.
33:56
Pow!
33:57
Pow!
33:58
Pow!
33:59
Pow!
34:00
Pow!
34:01
He said there was a time when on basic moral issues, Christian communities of every stripe
34:04
stood side by side.
34:07
That is no longer the case, so I'm morally certain that Mrs. Meleli, recently visitor
34:16
to Rome, I won't say pilgrim, visitor to Rome, having recently occupied the cathedra in Canterbury
34:24
Cathedral, she's not going to help us regarding abortion, euthanasia, same-sex attraction,
34:35
the defense of marriage, she's not going to help us with contraception, is she?
34:42
I don't think so.
34:44
I don't think so.
34:46
So are we going to turn to the orthodox to talk about the indissolubility of marriage?
34:54
Look up for yourself what they say about the indissolubility of marriage.
35:01
So what Fulton Sheen was saying in 1931 was that we're on our own.
35:10
Now I know, I know, I know, the rallying cry is no synodality without ecumenism, no ecumenism
35:17
without synodality, let's take that at face value.
35:21
But the idea, the very idea that other Christians who are not Catholic are going to be our besties
35:31
in fighting the new paganism given birth through modernism and post-modernism, that's, shall
35:40
I say this delicately, that's fanciful.
35:45
That is fanciful.
35:47
I don't think so.
35:50
So what do we do?
35:51
Well, you know, Fatima, Fatima, Fatima, and when Our Lady appeared in Japan in Akita 50-some
36:00
years ago, she basically said, look, I didn't go to Fatima as a tourist, there was nothing
36:05
there.
36:06
So penance, penance, penance.
36:08
We have to become holy.
36:11
We have to convert.
36:12
We have to repent.
36:14
We have to double down on what the church has always taught.
36:18
We've got to become saints and teach our children to do the same.
36:24
And for my brother priests who are listening, we need to up our game.
36:28
We need to up our game because the walls have been breached and other Christians are not
36:37
going to be much help.
36:39
We are on our own.
36:41
And he said this is something new in the history of Christianity.
36:44
So let me read some more from Fulton Sheen.
36:46
In our day, the religion of Christ is facing a crisis such as it has not faced probably
36:51
since Constantine.
36:53
By that, I mean that up to this time, the church has been engaged in a kind of civil
36:56
war in which a Christian idea has battled with a misunderstanding of a Christian idea.
37:02
None of the great heresies of the first 1600 years of the Christian era denied the existence
37:07
of God, et cetera, et cetera.
37:09
He says, but now we're faced with something novel.
37:12
And he said, it's not just the civil war of Christians throwing stones at each other,
37:20
but what Belloc called an invasion.
37:23
And the invasion, he says, the new invading force, according to Sheen, is what he calls
37:29
the new paganism.
37:31
Friends, you just got to read this whole book.
37:36
And so the new paganism, he says, really is a form of godlessness.
37:43
So I'm just going to read to you from the last couple of paragraphs.
37:47
Sheen says, if that condition of godlessness is ever to be averted, if paganism is ever
37:54
to be thrust back, it can be met with only one force in the world.
37:59
Now listen to this.
38:01
Paganism is to be thrust back.
38:02
It can be met with only one force in the world, and that is the church.
38:07
And by that word, I mean, he says, the church, not churches.
38:15
So singular, not plural.
38:17
The church, singular, is the only thing in the world that knows anything about paganism.
38:24
She was born not of paganism, but in paganism.
38:29
He says, she saw it grow.
38:31
She saw its gods dethroned.
38:34
She saw its state worshiped.
38:36
But she also saw it decline.
38:37
And we know, and all history knows, that the only reason paganism declined was because
38:43
of the civilizing and supernatural power of Christ and his church.
38:49
The church assisted at the deathbed of paganism.
38:54
The last god that was overthrown was cast to earth by a convert to Christ from paganism.
39:01
Now is then, the church is the only force that knows it.
39:04
And when the modern world calls it new, we remember it as something old.
39:10
Sheen goes on, as the modern world looks upon it as something progressive, we, the church,
39:17
look upon it as the degradation of barbarism.
39:22
We know that if it must be crushed again, as it was crushed of old, by a surrender of
39:27
our lives and our blood, we are willing to do it.
39:31
We know that conflict will come.
39:34
If it comes, we know not.
39:35
We know nothing of the details, nothing of the alignment of forces.
39:39
We know the kind of swords that will be unsheathed.
39:42
But there is one thing that we know, and that is that in the struggle with the powers of
39:47
darkness and the errors of paganism, and that warfare of Peter and Pan, if truth wins, we
39:55
win, and truth can't lose.
40:00
Friends, so says Fulton Sheen, friends, take heart, truth can't lose.
40:07
Augustine said 1,600, 1,700 years ago, no barbarian can rob Christ.
40:17
Christ is victorious.
40:19
The decision for us is will we join him in his victory.
40:25
Think on these things today, take them to prayer, and talk about it with those you love.
40:30
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day, The Catholic Current, and
40:33
you want to stay with us for the rest of the hour.
40:35
Coming up next, reviewing the headlines of the week in light of the upcoming Sunday Scriptures,
40:39
so you'll be all prayed up for a Sunday Mass.
40:42
Be part of the conversation, follow what we're following by following us on Gab.
40:46
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41:07
Back in just two minutes, please do stay with us.
41:22
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41:34
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41:37
Go to thestationofthecross.com, slash, ask, father, and help influence the conversation.
41:51
Praise be Jesus Christ, this is Father Robert McTigge of the Society of Jesus, your daily
41:54
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41:58
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42:01
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Support us at thestationofthecross.com.
42:23
Well here we are friends, Week in Readiness, you and me reviewing the headlines of The
42:26
Week in Light of the upcoming Sunday Scriptures, so be all prayed up for Sunday Mass.
42:31
However, this is being pre-recorded well before you are listening to it, because I'm going
42:37
to be on the road for almost two weeks.
42:40
Please do pray for my safe travels, I don't like traveling, I'm really tired of some guy
42:45
from TSA with a blue glove sticking his finger in my collar to see what I'm hiding in there,
42:51
and it's just disruptive of my whole life, but it's for a good cause, so please do pray
42:56
for me.
42:57
So I can't talk about the headlines of the week because they haven't happened yet, and
43:01
I want to save my gift of prophecy for when I really need it.
43:05
So let's focus on the fact that the world is crazy, and Fulton Sheen was saying, this
43:11
isn't good, it's the new paganism, we better watch out.
43:15
And we didn't listen to him, and here we are.
43:19
And my goodness, this coming Sunday will be the Feast of Pentecost, the Solemnity of Pentecost.
43:28
Well what's that about?
43:31
And what do you think of when you hear Pentecost?
43:36
Well I think back to, I won't even mention the state where this happened, but I was traveling,
43:43
and I found myself at a variation of St. Typical's on the Feast of Pentecost.
43:50
And you know, the interaction between the priest and the congregation, and the liturgy
43:58
adapted to maximize their participation so that we could be in a fully co-responsible
44:07
church.
44:08
The following dialogue took place.
44:12
I boomed out from the preface, the Lord be with you!
44:17
And the people of God and all of their census fidelium in having claimed their baptismal
44:25
dignity responded thunderously.
44:31
I continued this dialogue of deep calling unto deep, following with, lift up your hearts!
44:40
And the people of God as one, exercising their baptismal priesthood, entered with a thunderously.
44:49
And then I concluded with, let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
44:55
And on the Feast of Pentecost, when the breath of God, when the life of God descended upon
45:01
the assembly as tongues of fire, in anticipation of a fully synodal church, the baptized said
45:10
this, thanks for an accurate liturgy, we couldn't have done this without you.
45:18
And I said to myself at the time, this is why the Protestants don't take us seriously.
45:26
This is why the Muslims are not afraid of us.
45:29
And this is why when we tell our young people, the Eucharist is the source and summit of
45:34
our lives, they don't believe us because we apparently don't believe it either.
45:40
So on that Sunday, when we recall, presumably with gratitude, this whole building full of
45:47
the baptized, who probably couldn't tell us, or better said, enumerate the gifts and
45:53
fruits of the Holy Spirit and are distinguished between the two lists, if their lives depended
45:57
on us, these people had nearly nothing to say.
46:04
I don't know about you, but I see that as a problem.
46:10
Remember, our Lord was very, very clear at the Last Supper, He said, look, you think
46:16
you guys have been praying, but you've been praying before my crucifixion and resurrection.
46:21
You're going to pray different afterwards.
46:25
And you're going to pray really different after the Holy Spirit sets its seal on you.
46:31
You're going to pray not merely as supplicants, certainly not as orphans, not as superstitious
46:38
schemers like the pagans, but you're going to pray as sons and daughters and heirs of
46:44
a great kingdom.
46:47
So how are we doing with that?
46:50
Saint John Chrysostom said that because of the Eucharist and the Holy Spirit, we leave
46:54
mass going out into the world as lions breathing fire.
47:02
So how are we doing with that?
47:04
My perception is that the people of God, who at least what I've observed as Saint Typicals
47:12
across the country, is that while they drag themselves to the Eucharist, which we're
47:20
told is the source and summit of our lives, and now we understand because of vernacular
47:26
and participation, and we're just going to continue on this glorious trajectory via synodality.
47:34
It says so right here, not to mention Eucharistic revival is in the air.
47:38
Remember that conversation from about three years ago?
47:41
Yeah.
47:42
So much winning.
47:44
So much winning.
47:46
Where do we go from here?
47:48
Well, can we admit that we're in trouble, that we need help?
47:58
By the way, if you're following the Novus Ordo calendar, the Pauline rite, we're looking
48:02
at Lectionary 63, Pentecost Sunday Mass during the day.
48:07
I'm reminded of a congregation I used to be part of when I lived in Washington, D.C.
48:12
I lived on Capitol Hill back in the day in a basement apartment, and the congregation
48:17
used to sing a song that said, if we ever needed the Holy Spirit, Lord, we sure do need
48:22
it now.
48:23
And I would just say, amen.
48:26
We sure do need it now.
48:30
We need a holy fire.
48:35
We need the divine breath coming upon us as a strong wind driving our south.
48:43
I think a lot of us are stagnant.
48:48
We're adrift.
48:50
We don't have a sense of direction.
48:53
Some of us rightly perceive that we're heading towards the cliff and just don't know what
49:01
to do about it.
49:04
So let's do some homework.
49:07
Let's find a good catechism and look up the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit and ask,
49:14
did I see any of that in my life?
49:19
And if the answer is not so much, then maybe, just maybe, we have some repenting to do.
49:28
I think of my friend Father Zee, the original Catholic blogger going back to the 90s.
49:36
He's always saying, go to confession, go to confession, go to confession.
49:41
And I'm on 100% agreement.
49:43
Friends, we need the Holy Spirit, because as Fulton Sheen made clear, we've got a work
49:49
to do.
49:50
God is calling us to put ourselves in his hands so that he could use us as instruments
49:59
to defeat the new paganism that's affecting the church and the world.
50:05
Christ will not lose.
50:06
The question is whether or not we'll have the good sense to allow him to bring us into
50:14
his victory.
50:17
And doing nothing, just coasting, that's really not a smart choice.
50:27
And waiting around for a happy ending isn't a strategy.
50:30
May God's holy name be praised now and forever.
50:33
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTigre, host of the Catholic Current.
50:37
Please do pray for my safe travels in the coming days.
50:40
And join us on Monday for another episode of the Catholic Current.
50:44
Great topic, great guest, great conversation, because that's what we do here every day at
50:49
the Catholic Current and the Station of the Cross.
50:52
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50:57
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51:00
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51:08
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51:09
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51:11
With the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Almighty God bless you, Father,
51:15
Son, and Holy Spirit.
51:17
Go in peace and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.