Latest / The Catholic Current / Does the Pope Understand Europe? (Michael O'Shea) 4/7/26

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Does the Pope Understand Europe? (Michael O'Shea) 4/7/26 · The Catholic Current

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This is The Catholic Current, with Fr. Robert Mottaig.
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The insight for our time that we need to gain from Augustine is if we're not returning to
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Hey, friends, here we are in the octave of Easter.
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I hope you've had a very blessed celebration of Easter, and I hope you received many graces
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throughout the Easter season.
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I want to ask a hard question for this timely Tuesday.
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Does the Pope understand Europe?
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And you say, well, Father, that's kind of an odd question.
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Why would you ask that?
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Well, there's a lot of reasons why.
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And one of the reasons I would ask was because I found a recent article in an online journal
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called the European Conservative, and it's called Pope Leo Lampedusa, which is the name
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of an island, and the Camp of the Saints, which is the name of a French novel.
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And I have the author here with me today.
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He writes for the European Conservative.
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He's a writer and a translator in Polish, and he's a former visiting fellow at the Dan
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Yoube Institute in Budapest.
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Michael O'Shea, welcome to the Catholic Current.
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Hey, thank you, Father.
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Happy Easter.
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Happy Easter to you.
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I notice in your article, you point out some, I didn't connect the dots at first.
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You know, the United States is celebrating its 250th anniversary this July 4th.
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I was a boy, an early teen, 50 years ago when the Bicentennial of America was a very, very
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big thing.
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Everybody was caught up on it.
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Everybody was excited about it.
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Fifty years later, the vibe seems to be very different.
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And I know that Vice President J.D. Vance invited Pope Leo, the first American pope,
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to be in the U.S. on July 4th.
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I can understand the pope apparently declining that invitation, not wanting to be used for
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political reasons, but he's got to be somewhere else that I, I don't think he talked to
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another American about this.
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Can you fill us in on this, please?
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Yeah, so the pope's schedule came out recently and Lampedusa appeared on the schedule for
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July 4th.
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So immediately, people made that mental leap.
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And of course, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
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I'm sure the pope does not even make his own schedule.
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But it's hard not to make the mental leap to the symbolism there.
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As I state in the article, I think it's very reasonable to skip the United States at that
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time.
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In this era we live in, no matter which party is in power, something like that is going
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to be deeply politicized and uncomfortable for a pope.
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But Lampedusa seems to be a rebuke on that very day.
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It's hard not to interpret it that way.
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I imagine there are a lot of people who don't get what Lampedusa is.
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It's not, I don't mention Lampedusa every day before breakfast.
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Fill us in on that, please.
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Yes, it is an island off the coast of North Africa.
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I believe it's the southernmost of a string of small islands that is Italian sovereign
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territory off the coast of Africa.
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And so for decades now, many decades, it has been a destination for migrants from Africa
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and the Middle East trying to enter Europe.
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And of course, once you set foot on Lampedusa, you are on European Union soil.
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And the process of removing a person, the legal process, the political process of removing
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a person once he or she is there is a year's long one and probably is never going to take
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place.
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Right.
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So, I mean, it seems to me, popes haven't been enthusiastic about America in a while,
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except when Peter's Pence arrived and then all is forgiven for at least a couple of days,
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it seems to me.
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I know that I wanted to talk about not only, gosh, where is the pope here on July 4th in
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2026, but the attitude of, on the air I refer to, there's a club called the People Who
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Should Really Know Better Club.
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And from time to time, I refer to the senior Catholic cadres of the People Who Should Really
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Know Better Club.
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And when it comes to unrestricted immigration into Europe of military age men from hostile
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cultures from North Africa and elsewhere into Europe, the senior Catholic cadres of the
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People Who Should Really Know Better Club are very enthusiastic.
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And the people who pay for it in blood and treasure are not so enthusiastic.
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Could you fill us in on that, please?
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Yeah.
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I think in the Catholic Church, we desperately need a recalibration of the way that we look
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at this, which is why I've written articles like this one and others.
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And if we think about who is the stranger in our midst, well, in reality, it is the
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European man whose culture and neighborhoods have been changed beyond recognition, whose
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daughters and wives and sisters are now in danger of walking out alone on the street,
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who's subjected to crime, to real estate prices that are unmanageable, whose children are
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having to move abroad because finding a home and a job to support a family is simply not
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in the cards.
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And to make matters worse, this person, this European man, is often shunned and criticized
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and rebuked in the media and among the politicians.
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This person can go to the voting booth and make his decisions known, but it's a facade.
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There's really no ability to vote against this.
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It's been done against the will of the European people.
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And so, you know, I think we need to have some deep soul searching and ask ourselves,
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you know, who is the stranger?
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Is it the person who's being emphatically welcomed by the politicians and the media
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and the NGOs and the bureaucrats, or is it the person who's been left behind?
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And, you know, I hope that that soul searching is something that we can manage as a church
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in short order here.
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Jeffrey Averbeck Well, you know, by analogy, because I've
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talked about immigration issues in the United States, a couple things come to mind.
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Jeffrey talks about the young men in the United States who can't start businesses or
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buy homes or families because their economic opportunities are being crushed by low wage,
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low skill labor, and whose housing markets are being priced out of existence because
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of the floods of people who shouldn't have been in the country in the first place.
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And likewise with emergency rooms and medical services, et cetera, et cetera.
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Nobody gets misty-eyed about that.
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And nobody, nobody, nobody ever, ever, ever, as far as I know, goes out of their way to
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be photographed with the families of Americans who've been raped and murdered by people who
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should not have been in this country in the first place.
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I remember a very prominent member of the Catholic hierarchy had mass at the southern
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border of the United States, and he's photographed, you know, putting a consecrated host through
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the fence.
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Oh, you know, look at me, I'm being dramatic, look at how pastoral I'm being.
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But he's, as far as I know, never buried a murder victim, someone who had been killed
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here in the United States.
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Now would it be cynical of me, I know we've just got about two minutes left here in this
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segment, to say that one of the reasons there's so much enthusiasm for welcoming the right
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kind of stranger is because that's where the money is?
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Yeah, I do believe that the vast majority of cogs in the machine make these short-term
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decisions for financial reasons.
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Now of course there are powerful people, billionaires, who do have ideological reasons.
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That's a real thing, I don't deny that for a second.
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There are people, you know, among the NGO class who have ideological reasons.
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But I think in the vast majority of cases, it's people making short-term financial decisions
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for their own benefit.
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They're not thinking about the inheritance for their children and grandchildren.
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In many cases, they probably, you know, don't recognize any God greater than themselves
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or anything along those lines.
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So it's all transactional.
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And I think decades of that, you know, decades of this late-stage liberalism that we are
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living in right now has led us to this point where people will gladly mortgage away the
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future for some very petty short-term financial gains.
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Well, you know, I'll close up this segment with an observation that someone in a position
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to know told me several years ago.
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He says, Father, you have to understand, there's no money in fighting abortion.
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There's a lot of money to be made in promoting open borders.
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And I don't want to sentimentalize the opening of borders.
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I don't want to demonize people.
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But there are causes, there are effects, and there are consequences.
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And innocent people suffer as a result.
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And I fear that we've got so sentimental about this issue that we can't think about it clearly,
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which is one of the reasons why we want to have this kind of conversation.
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It's important, it's critical, it's a moral obligation, and it's another example of us
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trying to be more than merely relevant.
10:52
Friends, we come back.
10:53
We are going to continue our conversation with author Michael O'Shea.
10:57
We're asking the question, does the Pope understand Europe?
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On this timely Tuesday, I'm asking the hard question, does the Pope understand Europe?
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My guest today is author Michael O'Shea, who wrote a very stimulating essay, shall we say,
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recently in the European Conservative.
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Michael, we both admire Theodore Dalrymple, and as we're talking about what's being done
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to Europe, I think of a book that he published, oh gosh, 2015, 2011 or so, called The New
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Vichy Syndrome, here we go, 2011, Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism.
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Now there was a cautionary but sunshinier book by George Weigel called The Tube and
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the Cathedral that said, yes, Europe is forgetting its identity and its Catholic heritage, but
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with just a little bit of tweaking, and if we Vatican II extra hard, we're going to be
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fine because John Paul wrote strongly worded letters.
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But there's another book that called shenanigans that was prophetic in a way that most people
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could not have imagined today, and it goes all the way back to 1973, it's a very controversial
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novel.
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I'd probably get booted off college campuses for even mentioning its title.
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It's called The Camp of the Saints, you've read it in English and Polish, I know the
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original work was in French, can you tell us about that please?
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Yes, it's a dystopian novel from the 70s and it envisions a European civilization that
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is too tired and too nihilistic to propagate itself, and at the same time, the desperate
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poverty in India, specifically the Ganges River Valley, leads a fleet of 1 million
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migrants to migrate to the French Riviera.
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And the story traces the reactions among the French intellectual class, among the average
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people on both continents, and the European civilization's complete inability to come
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to terms with this or to take any steps to stop it.
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And well, you know, I won't give away the ending in case listeners haven't read it.
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I haven't read it myself, I got the new English translation, it was very highly recommended.
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But he was calling this in 1973, and this brings me to George Weigel's analysis going
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back to 2004-2005, where he said, you know, Western Europe, after 1945 and the rebuilding
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from the war, entered into a period of peace and prosperity really arguably unparalleled
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in human history.
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And it was precisely then that the Europeans said, you know what, we're not going to have
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kids.
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And he said people like that, in peace and prosperity, decide not to have children, see
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themselves as having no debt to the past, and no obligation to the future.
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What do you make of that analysis?
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Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely true.
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And one of Satan's tricks, I think, is that in comparison to the regimes of the last century
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that we know are hideous, the Nazi regime in Germany, and the Stalin's regime in the
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Soviet Union, and various other communist regimes, they really didn't try to hide what
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they were very much.
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It was so clear on the surface that these were hideous regimes.
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And liberalism, specifically the variant of liberalism that we are living through right
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now in the West, I think is equally evil, equally contemptuous of human dignity, equally
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contemptuous of truth, beauty, and goodness.
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But it speaks in terms of openness, and tolerance, and human rights.
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And like I said, it's one of Satan's tricks, I believe.
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History will make clear how hideous liberalism has been as well.
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But in the current time that we're living through, I think we still very much need to
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come to terms with it.
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Well, you know, I think of, you know, people talk about, in the United States, you know,
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they talk about both open borders and stolen land.
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And I said, well, if borders don't mean anything, and they're just lines on a map, then you
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really can't talk about stolen land.
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And when we talk about preserving native cultures, apparently that never refers to native European
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cultures, for example.
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That just strikes me as odd.
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And I think ultimately, one of the reasons why there seems to be a disinclination to
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defend Europe is because of Europe's history as a Catholic venue, as the root of Christendom.
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I remember some years ago now, you know, when they're putting together the Constitution
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for the European Union, and the preamble was talking about the roots of European identity,
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it was the Polish delegations who said, hey, you know, you haven't mentioned Christianity
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at all.
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And that would be like trying to have a history of China never mentioning the emperor.
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You don't have to like the emperor, but you got to acknowledge he's got a role to play.
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So you might even be an atheist, but you can't meaningfully speak of European culture without
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mentioning Christianity.
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But that seemed to be the determination.
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Is it too much to say, on your view, that one of the reasons for the hostility, the
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disinclination to stand up for Europe is precisely because of Europe's close association with
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the faith?
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Oh, yes, I think that's fair.
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And I think that the church over the years has made a lot of accommodations to the ideology
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of liberalism.
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And I think it's also fairly uncontroversial to say that the church is at its best when
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it is countercultural.
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And so when you see that we are lining up on the same side as governments and politicians
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and NGOs and corporate interests, and corporate journalists, I think we should ask ourselves,
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why is that?
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Is that not a red flag?
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If we are lining up on the side of the most unrestrained forces of capitalism, are we
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really thinking about people's human dignity in the right way?
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And I hope that within the church, we will have those conversations and undergo that
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kind of soul searching.
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Well, I do think there does need to be some soul searching.
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I think we have been frightfully, frightfully naive about anti-Catholic bigotry in the United
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States and also in Europe as well.
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There seems to be a lot of corporate guilt being thrown around.
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Recently, Doug Wilson, who's been a guest on this show, has written some things about
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Christian nationalism.
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And he was asked a hypothetical question of, you know, 500 years from now, if America were
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a Protestant republic, would you allow Marian and Eucharistic processions?
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And he said no.
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And people lost their minds.
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And I said, he's talking about a hypothetical of 500 years in the future.
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You know what Doug Wilson's not doing?
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He's not burning down churches.
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And he's not slitting the throats of priests.
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And we do know who is inclined to burn down churches and slit the throats of priests,
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but we're not allowed to mention that by name.
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So I think that we are facing a tremendous, again, the European anti-Catholic bigotry
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is rooted in an animus towards Christ.
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And that's why we're in the situation that we're in.
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But wouldn't you expect, you know, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to have a little bit
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more sympathy towards Europe?
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Yes.
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I understand in, you know, in the Pope's line of work and some of the cardinals in the Vatican
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that it's not possible, reasonable to expect them to walk around the cities of Europe on
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a daily basis.
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But I do want to, in my small, humble way, to bring to people's attention just how bad
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it has gotten.
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And maybe from that standpoint in the, hopefully I will live a long life, but maybe in the
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fairly near future, we could have a European Pope again, and that will be beneficial.
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But yes, I mentioned in my article how bad it was in Rome even 10 years ago.
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And with each passing year, it gets unbelievably worse.
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And you can throw a dart at a map of Europe, really, and find the decay, the crime, and
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the squalor, and the antisocial behavior.
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And yeah, I do think, especially over a certain age, there's an element of not understanding
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how bad it has gotten.
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And I do, it's not, there's a long story to be told, but I do still hope in my heart that
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Pope Leo will be a bridge to a younger generation of priests.
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And this young generation of priests gives me tremendous confidence.
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And yeah, I hope and pray Pope Leo will be that bridge.
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Well, I, yes, I would like that very much as well.
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I happen to like civilization, and I happen to like truth, beauty, and goodness.
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And I'm going to say something very unpopular that we're going to be kicked off of college
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campuses.
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Truth, beauty, and goodness are embodied in the God-man Christ.
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The Logos, the eternal word of the Father, is Christ.
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So if you want a civilization that lasts, that doesn't sacrifice children to demons,
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for example, and provides for the education of females, and is not enthusiastic about
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slavery or rape, then by golly, you're going to need to promote Christ, and you're going
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to need to win people over to the kingship of Christ.
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And I think our generation really does depend on that.
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And for reasons I cannot fathom, the clerical members of the People Who Should Really Know
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Better Club are not willing to make statements like the statements that I just made.
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And I find that surpassing strange, and I think we're all very, very ill-served by that.
24:28
And I'd also say that there are people who think that the Catholic view of economics
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is more free stuff for everyone to infinity is mathematically not possible.
24:40
And also, if you kill the goose that lays the golden egg, you have one big dinner, and
24:47
then you starve.
24:49
And when I look at the economic collapse of Germany that's taking place, for example,
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this bodes very ill indeed, and I think that Europe is going to be entering into a very
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hard demographic winter, and the Church will suffer catastrophically if that is allowed
25:11
to happen.
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And I really, really am praying against it.
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Friends, we come back.
25:16
We're going to continue our conversation with author Michael O'Shea.
25:20
We're talking about whether the Pope understands Europe, whether or not Europe can be saved
25:25
from itself.
25:27
I think those are not unreasonable questions.
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My guest today is author Michael O'Shea.
27:29
We're talking about a recent article he wrote for the European Conservative.
27:33
Michael, I preach.
27:35
I've been preaching for a long time, and part of the charm of parables is that you have
27:40
a make-believe story that succinctly puts together a lot of necessary truths all in
27:49
one place, and real life is a lot messier than that, but there's a news story that
27:56
I think perfectly, in its details, encapsulates everything we've been saying about the ongoing
28:04
collapse of Europe and the failure of church leadership to defend Europe, and it has to
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do with a young lady in Spain.
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It's one of the most tragic stories I've seen in many years.
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Twenty-five-year-old Noelia Castillo, can you tell us about that horrible story, please?
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Yes.
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So, first of all, may God grant repose unto this young woman's soul.
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Amen.
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May He hold her in the palm of His hand, and I hope that her memory will inspire some good,
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and maybe in our own humble way, we can help inspire that, but yes, this young woman was
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taken from her parents when she was still a child, and the state put her in a setting
28:47
where she was gang-raped by migrant men, and then, in her despair, afterwards, she attempted
28:55
to take her own life, and suffered some severe injuries, was partially paralyzed, if I'm
29:00
not mistaken, and then accepted the state's offer for euthanasia, and then her father
29:08
was fighting against it, and there are some murky details about potentially she had changed
29:16
her mind near the end, whether she had or not, apparently the state had already determined
29:23
where her organs would go, and was not willing to have her change her mind, even if that
29:27
were the case.
29:28
So, it really is just an encapsulation of the moral depravity of Western liberalism.
29:36
Virtually every single inhumane element of this prevailing ideology captured in this
29:43
one real-life news story, and again, God bless this poor young woman's soul.
29:48
Oh, it is heartbreaking, I know that in her second suicide attempt, I think she had thrown
29:55
herself out a window, and she ended up in a wheelchair as a result, and found life to
30:01
be unbearable, but apparently, everyone, except maybe her father, failed her.
30:08
They failed her, and I say, where are the feminists, where are the people having rallies
30:17
and yelling, say her name?
30:21
The church leaders rhapsodize about the vulnerable, but I haven't heard lots of people speak about
30:30
that.
30:31
I haven't heard anything about the visiting cultural enrichers who violated her, I haven't
30:38
heard anything about them being held to account, and I haven't heard anything from the government
30:44
of Spain to say, gosh, you know, did we do this wrong, are we the bad guys on this one?
30:52
Has anyone in charge offered to reconsider anything?
30:55
Oh, well, the government of Spain is bleak right now, let me tell you.
31:02
Think back to what we were discussing earlier about the stranger in our midst, this young
31:06
woman, Noelia, if she is not the stranger in our midst, I don't know who is, and I urgently
31:14
implore any fellow Catholics who will listen to think about it in these terms.
31:21
This is a young woman who urgently needed support and needed charity, and it would
31:30
have been deeply counter-cultural for the church to take up her cause, and I hope in
31:36
the future, well, maybe in her small way, she will inspire that kind of prioritization
31:42
in the future.
31:43
Right.
31:44
I hope this is a tragedy that can be redeemed, and we do want to pray for the repose of her
31:50
soul and the consolation of those who mourned for her, and also, candidly, that all who
31:56
failed or violated her will be brought to swift justice.
32:03
This is an outrage.
32:04
I mean, if there's ever, you know, we talk about crimes that cry out to heaven for redress,
32:10
certainly her voice reaches the heavens as well.
32:13
So it seems to me that we've got really a kind of cult of sentimentality, you know,
32:21
welcoming the stranger, welcoming the other, hospitality, and yet people who are inconvenient
32:30
to the narrative are brutalized or silenced.
32:33
I remember it was a summer or two ago where a young girl was arrested, I believe it was
32:41
Ireland or Scotland, I forget which now, because visiting misunderstanders of the religion
32:49
of peace were following her younger prepubescent sister and menacing her and filming her and
32:58
so on, and she produced weapons to defend her child sister against her would-be assailants.
33:07
And the thing to do was immediately to arrest the child for defending her little sister.
33:16
Is it only ideology that's taking place here?
33:20
Is it just a form of madness?
33:22
Or do you think there's a form of wickedness that's at work here as well?
33:27
Oh, absolutely.
33:28
Well, I believe liberalism, especially in its modern iteration, is a satanic ideology.
33:35
So, to the degree that our leaders are conforming to the ideology of liberalism, yeah, absolutely.
33:43
You know, at the end of the day, I think it can probably all ladder up to the idea of
33:47
a society that rejects God, and we could argue about when that started in Europe.
33:55
I think it's safe to say at least one century, you know, a lot of people would say back to
34:00
the French Revolution.
34:02
We could argue all day about when it started, right?
34:05
But I think these are all natural effects of a civilization that has rejected God.
34:11
And there is some reason for optimism if you look at all the news reports on conversions
34:17
of young people in countries like France.
34:21
France is always at the cutting edge, isn't it?
34:23
But I have optimism for what we're seeing with young people.
34:32
I hope and pray that the upheavals that are coming will be peaceful and mostly peaceful.
34:40
But certainly, it's safe to say that if we continue kicking the can down the road and
34:47
making it some future generation's problem, it's less and less likely that those upheavals
34:53
will be peaceful.
34:54
Right.
34:55
Well, you know, as we're recording this, I'm looking at a news, you know, there is the
34:59
famous Notre-Dame de Chrétien pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres.
35:05
And it's usually held around May, around the Pentecost season.
35:09
And when they opened up registration last year on the first day, 6,000 young people
35:15
registered.
35:16
Today, 14,000 people registered on the first day.
35:24
And again, this is primarily young people.
35:28
And it's an arduous walk from Paris to Chartres.
35:31
And they pray the Stations of the Cross and the Rosary and have devotions.
35:36
And this is a real old-school, arduous, sacrificial pilgrimage with Mass and Confession and Eucharistic
35:44
adoration every day.
35:46
And you know what?
35:49
It's not like Mass on the beach on World Youth Day, you know?
35:54
The Blessed Sacrament is not kept in Tupperware like World Youth Day.
36:00
So anyway, I'll just leave that there.
36:02
So there are these very great glimmers of hope.
36:06
You know, certainly in France, the majority of ordinations now are among traditional communities.
36:14
That's also true in Germany as well, which is hemorrhaging Catholic membership.
36:19
I mean, I think the German churches are losing 500,000 members a year.
36:25
So you know, we just celebrated the resurrection of our Lord.
36:29
Christ the King cannot be defeated.
36:33
Fidelity to him is vindicated in the resurrection.
36:37
Make no mistake about it.
36:39
I really hope that we can let people know that Catholicism in general, Europe in particular,
36:52
has a culture and a heritage and a people worth defending.
37:00
Catholics used to be able to say that without hesitation.
37:04
Now not so much.
37:06
So I'm going to ask you a huge question with only three minutes left.
37:10
Why is that?
37:11
And again, the exact date of when we went wrong, is it 1789, is it 1517, is it 1914?
37:18
I don't know.
37:19
But what's it going to take for us to wake up?
37:22
Well, God.
37:23
Well, yeah.
37:24
Divine intervention.
37:25
Otherwise, we're hosed.
37:26
Yeah, for sure.
37:27
Yeah.
37:28
God willing, as I mentioned, this young generation of priests, they seem like they are equipped
37:38
if God should call many of us to be martyrs, this upcoming generation of priests seems
37:45
well equipped to lead us down that path.
37:48
And hopefully it will not be, you know, something very fraught like that.
37:54
But yeah, I think it will probably, if you look at history, if you look at the history
37:59
of our church, these kind of societal changes tend to come with great suffering.
38:05
And so let's pray that we'll all be equipped to handle it gracefully and courageously if
38:11
that's what it should come to.
38:13
Well, you know, I'll say something now in the air that I've said from the pulpit for
38:17
years.
38:18
If we're entering a time in the life of the church, we're going to find, to the surprise
38:25
of many, that even lukewarm Catholicism will be as too costly as it is insufficient.
38:35
You know, the idea that at St. Typical's, their business model is, you know, we sell
38:40
a subscription to anti-hell insurance that has to be renewed weekly.
38:45
But if you let God interrupt your weekend on Saturday or Sunday for 49 minutes and you
38:49
throw a couple of bucks in his tip jar, then if you die that week, God owes you heaven.
38:54
And I think a lot of people are not inclined to take that bet anymore.
39:00
And when things get really difficult and painful, as we saw with COVID, a lot of people who
39:08
should know better are going to fold.
39:11
So my hope, again, especially with the example of someone like Noella Castillo, please dear
39:17
God, let it be that she did not suffer and die in vain, but that people will say, the
39:24
world has lost its mind.
39:27
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was right all those decades ago.
39:31
We have forgotten about God.
39:33
Now is the time to return to Christ.
39:37
What the world needs now is for the church to be the church, the church militant, and
39:44
not an NGO with its people.
39:46
You know, somebody said, you know, the bark of Peter is meant to be a battleship rather
39:51
than a cruise ship.
39:52
So I think if we put aside the cult of self-esteem, and I think if we put aside our interest in
39:59
performative virtue signaling, then I think things will be a lot better.
40:04
But ultimately, we're going to need the grace of God in a big way.
40:09
Michael Asche, God bless you, your very good work.
40:12
Thank you for a fascinating conversation.
40:14
And I really do look forward to next time.
40:17
Thank you, Father.
40:18
Happy Easter.
40:19
Have a great day.
40:20
Likewise.
40:21
This is Jesuit Father Robert McTigre, your host every day of the Catholic Tarot, and
40:23
you want to stay with us for the rest of the hour.
40:25
Coming up next, you know how we end Timely Tuesday with timely thoughts, you and me reflecting
40:30
on what we've heard today.
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42:29
Well here we are, the last segment on a Tuesday.
42:31
You know what that means, you and me sharing timely thoughts, reflecting on what we've
42:35
heard today.
42:36
I was talking with Michael O'Shea, who wrote a very provocative essay in the European Conservative,
42:42
but whether or not the Pope understands what's going on in Europe.
42:47
So two things, in brief, Europe is in a mess, and Europe has been a mess in a long time,
42:54
because it's betrayed the faith, and senior Catholic cadres of the people who should
42:59
really know better club, have not been helping, and time is running out for Europe.
43:06
That having been said, hey you know what, it's also Tuesday in the octave of Easter.
43:12
I don't think we need to go full gloom and doom mode just yet.
43:19
I'm willing to put my Irish melancholy on a leash, if not a shock collar, and you know
43:26
there really is some good news.
43:29
The Nigerian army just rescued a bunch of Christians who had been abducted by misunderstanders
43:41
of the religion of peace.
43:44
There's an uplifting story from a new website I've discovered called thegoodnewsroom.org,
43:49
and I asked Mr. Engineer to bookmark that for us, and it's about how the Franciscan
43:55
Friars of the Renewal in Manhattan have a movement called the Catholic Underground,
44:00
which features Eucharistic adoration once a month, standing room only, filling the church
44:06
month in and month out.
44:08
So God, our Lord, continues to be at work, and he does good work among good people, and
44:18
he continues to work for the conversion of sinners like me.
44:24
I will say that I had a very, very blessed Holy Week with solemnity and dignity and reverence
44:34
and beauty, and I had much of Holy Week with a community that really prizes beauty and
44:42
reverence, and their music was exquisite.
44:46
Their genuine joy on Easter Sunday morning was incandescent, and it was a very great
44:53
healing consolation for me as a priest to be with people who walk through our Lord's
45:01
final days with him with tears and with ashes, and then greeted him in his victory on Easter
45:09
Sunday morning, and they plan to live accordingly.
45:13
And really, you know, I want to do that too, and I'm pretty sure that you do also.
45:19
You know, St. Paul said, if Christ has not been raised, then we're still dead in our
45:24
sins and we are the most pitiable of men.
45:26
The fact is, the fact is that Christ is risen, sin and death and the whole earth could not
45:36
contain him.
45:38
Now the challenge for us is that we live in and through time and space.
45:46
Our vision is limited, our experience is limited, our will is weakened, our intellects are darkened,
45:53
you know, we're still suffering, we're still the church militant, not the church triumphant.
45:59
But we know by faith, we know by testimony, we know by St. John said what we have seen
46:05
and heard, that Christ our Lord is victorious.
46:11
Our risen King is our crucified King.
46:14
He drained the bitter chalice, he took on the consequences of all of our sin and rebellion,
46:20
he defeated death and Satan, and, and this is the part we overlook which makes me crazy,
46:28
and Christ reigns now.
46:33
He is sovereign now.
46:37
And he surrenders none of his sovereignty, none of his authority, none of his kingship
46:45
to his enemies.
46:48
And Christ our risen and reigning King, he will certainly return to judge the living
46:54
and the dead and the world by fire.
46:57
And he will bring to perfection those who have been good stewards of his grace.
47:04
So meanwhile, as we continue our pilgrimage on earth, we follow in the footsteps of our
47:10
risen and reigning King.
47:14
And we have to invite other people, come along with us.
47:18
You really do want to go where we are going.
47:24
Because when time runs out, this is the only place that you want to be.
47:30
The path to God through Christ is not one of many.
47:34
It's not merely a privileged way to the Godhead.
47:39
Friends, we have been entrusted by our Lord with something so very precious.
47:46
The fullness of the deposit of faith is the continuation of his ministry as priest, prophet,
47:53
and king through the sacraments, and a very great, great cultural heritage.
48:03
Over 2,000 years of Christian witness.
48:10
Let's savor that.
48:12
Let's delight in that.
48:14
Let's marvel in that.
48:15
Let's give thanks to God Almighty for that.
48:22
Think of the treasures, the treasures that have been entrusted to us.
48:28
And let's have the good sense to ask for the grace to be good steward of all those
48:35
gifts, all those treasures, all those graces.
48:39
You know, along the way, there's going to be ups and downs, and speed bumps, and divots,
48:45
and illness, and death.
48:48
All those things.
48:51
Not everyone who's on the higher rosters of the people who should really know better club
48:57
will reform with a speed or in a manner that will satisfy me.
49:02
And you know, that has to be okay.
49:05
God is still God.
49:07
The important thing, friends, is we have a good reason to live and a good reason to die.
49:14
And God, our Lord, loves us so much that he decides to save us from ourselves at a very
49:24
terrible cost to himself.
49:28
And he offers us a share in his victory, his joy, and his glory.
49:32
So let's say yes to that.
49:37
Let's say yes to that.
49:38
You know, St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about driving out, purging the old leaven
49:45
in our lives.
49:46
I had a glorious, wonderful celebration of Holy Week and Easter.
49:52
I'm still a sinner.
49:53
I still need discipline.
49:55
I still need the sacraments.
49:57
I still need to repent.
49:58
I still need Catholic fellowship.
50:02
And I take on all those tasks and disciplines and challenges with a gladder heart than when
50:08
I started on Ash Wednesday of 2026.
50:13
I really do hope the same will be true for all of you.
50:19
So friends, let us count our blessings.
50:22
Let's rally the troops.
50:24
And let's take another foot in the footsteps of Christ our King.
50:29
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
50:32
Join us tomorrow for another round of The Catholic Current, a hot topic, great guests,
50:37
lively conversation.
50:39
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51:00
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51:01
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51:03
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51:05
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51:07
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51:09
Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may mighty God bless you, Father,
51:13
Son, and Holy Spirit, go in peace and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.
51:21
Amen.
51:22
Amen.
51:23
Amen.