Latest / The Catholic Current / Fulton Sheen on War and Tyranny (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 5/29/26

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Fulton Sheen on War and Tyranny (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 5/29/26 · The Catholic Current

0:00
This is the Catholic Current with Fr. Robert Mottag.
0:05
What would the daily disciplines of a disciple look like?
0:08
Oh, I think the Church has spelled out pretty clearly Word and Sacrament.
0:13
And then this is one area that I still can say that I wish that my Catholic brethren
0:19
could show the zeal that I have seen amongst my Evangelical brethren for the Word of God.
0:25
We still have too many of us who treat the Bible as if it has a sticker on the front that says,
0:30
Don't try this at home.
0:34
Praised be Jesus Christ, this is Fr. Robert Mottag of the Society of Jesus,
0:38
your daily host for the Catholic Current,
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As always, let's start with prayer.
0:53
In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
0:55
Almighty God, through the intercession of St. Ignatius of Loyola,
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we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us,
1:00
a spirit of discernment, that we might hear your voice and obey your command.
1:04
In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1:07
Well, friends, here we are Friday. You know what that means.
1:09
Let's talk about this, you and me.
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We walk through a complex issue together.
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You know, I had done a series on tyranny by popular demand,
1:16
and that was very well received, thanks be to God.
1:18
And I have been doing a series now on Fulton Sheen,
1:21
in anticipation of his beatification later this year.
1:25
So I said, well, let's mash them up. Let's have the two together.
1:27
So this episode is called Fulton Sheen on War and Tyranny.
1:31
And I want to very, very highly recommend to you a book of his,
1:36
still in print, just got it recently.
1:38
And here's the interesting thing.
1:40
It was published in July of 1941.
1:46
Why is that important?
1:48
The Second World War had already begun,
1:51
and America had not yet become involved in it.
1:55
It was a fascinating time period.
1:57
But listen to the title of the book, and then the subtitle.
2:01
A Declaration of Dependence.
2:04
Trusting God Admits Totalitarianism, Paganism, and War.
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How?
2:12
Well, why a Declaration of Dependence?
2:15
Because, you know, we're Americans.
2:17
You know, Declaration of Independence and Liberty and all that.
2:21
Well, he says you don't want to become a pendulum without a clock.
2:26
And that Declaration of Dependence is to say that we are creatures
2:32
who are dependent upon our Creator for our very existence.
2:38
God uses infinite power to call us into existence out of the nothing.
2:45
We are dependent upon God who sustains us in existence.
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If God withdrew his act of sustaining, we would just wink out of existence.
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And we are dependent because we don't make our own nature.
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I don't decide if I'm going to be a human being or a Klingon or an elf or a dwarf.
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I'd probably choose a dwarf if it were up to me.
3:11
But we don't get to choose that.
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Just like we don't get to choose whether or not we're male or female.
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So we have a nature designed by a good, provident, wise, intelligent Creator
3:26
which means embedded in us is a natural law.
3:31
Things we can't not know.
3:35
And our nature, which has fallen with the opportunity for redemption,
3:40
is dependent upon God's grace for perfection, correction, and fulfillment.
3:49
Now what does this have to do with what he says about totalitarianism, paganism, and war?
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I want to start with the paganism first.
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What does he mean by paganism?
3:59
He doesn't mean people going back to the good old days of worshiping Thor and Odin,
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although some people try to do that.
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Funny thing, I forget where it was in Scandinavia. Maybe it was Sweden.
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There's the new cult of the neo-pagans, and they want to worship the Viking gods, etc.,
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and practice Viking rituals, except for the Viking funeral ritual
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where you burn a body on a pile of wood because, you know, carbon footprint and climate change and so on.
4:28
By paganism, he means a resolute turning away from the living God
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and making works of human hands and invested them with a kind of divinity.
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So by paganism, what he really means is idolatry.
4:48
And this is where Doug Wilson, prolific author and a guest on this show, said,
4:54
If God is not above the state, then the state becomes God.
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And this is where we have totalitarianism.
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This is where we have limitless tyranny and armed with tools that Fulton Sheen could not have imagined.
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So when you have pagans bringing about the conditions for totalitarianism,
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then you have war, because there is war of conquest.
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When you reject God, those hungers and appetites and longings, they don't go away.
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And what was meant to be filled by God, we try to grasp from something else.
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And also, when the imperfect state, trying to conduct its affairs apart from the logos of God, is going to fail,
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you need to have somebody to blame.
5:44
You need a scapegoat.
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And that brings about war.
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And some people figure out that war is a really good business.
5:52
I'm going to ask Mr. Engineer to look for a book called War is a Racket.
5:58
I'm blanking on the author's name.
6:00
He was a Marine Corps general, won the Congressional Medal of Honor twice, received every major medal 15 times,
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lived through World War I, and in the 1920s, late 1920s, he wrote a book called War is a Racket.
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And he just saw for himself that there are people who get rich by running the war machine,
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and we have to be very skeptical about that.
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So why am I talking about this particular book?
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Well, I think it's timely.
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First of all, we seem to be, if not formally at war, because the United States needed Congress to declare war,
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but rather, we're certainly involved in a kinetic military conflict in Iran.
6:47
Things are still not entirely settled with Venezuela.
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And it looks like any day now, maybe this will change by the time you hear this.
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I'm recording this in advance before I travel.
6:57
But any day now, things might get kinetic between the United States and Cuba as well.
7:02
So we're going to have to wait and see on that.
7:04
So there is that.
7:06
Also, July 4th is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
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Now, I was a boy.
7:13
I was in junior high school during the American bicentennial.
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And back then, it was a really, really big deal.
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There was just a great groundswell of patriotism and celebration and enthusiasm.
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And if you lived through it, you know what I'm talking about.
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And if you haven't lived through it, I'm kind of sorry, because it was exciting times.
7:37
It was a really exciting time.
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And on television every evening, there was the bicentennial minute.
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There were postage stamps.
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There was all sorts of exciting and wonderful things.
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And 50 years later, it's just not the same.
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It's just not the same.
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So that concerns me.
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And also, very candidly, as we seem to be moving into an era of church life called synodality,
8:10
about which I will have a great deal to say in the coming weeks,
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a lot of the errors that Fulton Sheen is warning about 85 years ago are now being celebrated as virtues by synodality.
8:29
And what Fulton Sheen denounced as paganism and idolatry today,
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if I'm reading especially the different reports of the Synodal Study Group Number 9,
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I think we're turning our back on a Christian understanding of God and man.
8:50
Part of the appeal of Christianity, in Fulton Sheen's view,
8:54
was that we had a reliable measure of the true, the good, and the beautiful.
9:01
We had a vivid measure of ought and ought not because we had intelligence,
9:10
and because we have revelation, we have the deposit of faith,
9:14
and we measured everything in light of that.
9:17
And if I understand Synodal Study Group Number 9 correctly,
9:23
no, no, no, no, no, the lived experience of individuals can allow us to re-evaluate human nature,
9:34
human reason, and even revelation and the deposit of faith.
9:41
So there was, for example, a time when we knew that, you know,
9:44
sodomy is really bad for the human body, that's not what it's made for.
9:48
And sodomy is not good for family life, for begetting of children,
9:54
and it's really not pleasing to God for all sorts of reasons.
10:00
And according to Synodal Group Number 9,
10:05
in their interviews with people's testimony,
10:09
testimony which the Associated Press referred to as searing,
10:14
it's all up for grabs now.
10:17
So a couple of guys talked about their intimate same-sex lives to a group of Synodalists,
10:24
and we now have to rewrite revelation,
10:28
because I think that falls under the description of what Fulton Sheen would call paganism,
10:36
what Fulton Sheen would call idolatry,
10:39
and it surrenders the distinctive blessings of the Catholic faith that God intended for the whole world.
10:49
And when we mess around with idols, we invite God's judgment.
10:56
Pound, which is what I'll talk about in the next segment.
10:59
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
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Here we are, and let's talk about this.
13:29
We're talking about Fulton Sheen on war and tyranny,
13:32
and I'm using as a point of departure a book still in print.
13:36
I just got a new copy.
13:37
You need to get this, trust me.
13:39
It's called The Declaration of Dependence,
13:42
Trusting God Amidst Totalitarianism, Paganism and War.
13:46
He is so absolutely clear.
13:49
This book is not a slog.
13:51
It'll take you just a couple of hours to read.
13:55
And again, why am I bringing this up?
13:57
Well, because we've been talking about tyranny a lot
13:59
in anticipation of Fulton Sheen's beatification,
14:02
and I also think that the time that we are living in.
14:06
And he wants to talk about revolution and the spirit of revolution.
14:12
Now remember, this was published in July of 1941.
14:17
Most people listening to him had lived through the horrors of World War I,
14:24
the bizarre confusion and tragedy of the Great Depression,
14:28
the Weimar Republic, etc.
14:30
And World War II has started to cook off.
14:34
American involvement hasn't happened just yet.
14:38
And let's not forget, the Russian Revolution was taken over by Joseph Stalin,
14:43
and Stalin, remember this is before the Cold War,
14:47
Stalin was still the darling of the left.
14:53
Joseph Stalin, the greatest mass murderer in history,
14:59
maybe later outshone by Chairman Mao,
15:03
he was considered one of the cool kids by the political left,
15:07
and communism was kind of the thing.
15:11
And Sheen talks about three aspects of revolution,
15:17
and I want to walk our way through them.
15:20
And gosh, what I'd really like to do is just read the book
15:24
from start to finish in front of you.
15:27
I think there might be some copyright issues,
15:29
and Mr. Engineer has asked me not to do that.
15:32
So the other temptation I struggle with is, look, just read the book,
15:36
and then we would just play music in the background,
15:38
and Mr. Engineer asked me not to say that either.
15:40
So here we are.
15:41
So according to Sheen, the first aspect of revolution is that it is irrational.
15:50
Reason is treated as a rationalization,
15:56
and reason isn't acting for justice, but for opportunism.
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And so listen to what he says about irrationality.
16:04
And so he's writing about 70-ish years after what he calls the Council of the Vatican,
16:12
later called the First Vatican Council.
16:15
And he says this,
16:16
Irrationality developed quickly in the modern world after it lost its faith in God.
16:23
In 1870, the Council of the Vatican had to remind the rationalists
16:27
that if they used their reason, they could know God.
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What does that mean?
16:32
It was called the preambula fidei, the preambles of the faith.
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That reason, without the help of faith or grace, could figure out that God exists,
16:44
that the soul is immaterial, and that it is immortal.
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He goes on to say,
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The attitude of the Church rightly was,
16:52
reason must either be a product of divine reason or blind matter.
16:56
If it is a product of divine reason,
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it is an intellectualism that can be complemented by faith.
17:03
If it is the product of blind matter,
17:06
then its root is unreason, and its deliverances are illusory.
17:11
C.S. Lewis observed this too.
17:13
He said, look, if we're just electrical impulses in the brain,
17:19
if we're just bodies and nobody is home,
17:23
why would brain chemistry be interested in truth and integrity and honor?
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It doesn't make sense.
17:31
So Sheen goes on to say,
17:33
Once rationalism gave up God, it wilted like a plant without sunlight.
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Rationalism, after becoming atheistic, became sentimental or emotional.
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Then were born of the philosophies of individual or religious experience,
17:50
and its rallying cry would be, I feel it in here.
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And he adds the comment,
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They substituted the stomach for the head.
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Later, individual emotion became social or collective emotion.
18:03
Reason or feeling, it said, is not in man, it is in totality.
18:08
Truth is correspondence with the whole.
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Such is the irrationality of totalitarianism.
18:15
Pow! Pow!
18:18
So he's saying, look, the modern mind untethered reason from God,
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and then, again, it was like a pendulum without a clock,
18:30
and eventually you have the triumph of not just emotion,
18:35
through my lived experience,
18:37
like the guy gave testimony to the synod on his happy experiences of gay marriage,
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not only my lived experience, but you have emotion and appetite and impulse,
18:50
and eventually that becomes writ large as mass hysteria.
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So there's the tyranny, not only of the dictator or the party or the state or the dear leader,
19:02
but there's also the tyranny of the mob.
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And the mob can be gathered and whipped to frenzy with social media
19:12
in a way that Fulton Sheen would never have dreamed of, of course,
19:15
except in his worst nightmare.
19:18
So what we have, especially now with the documents coming out of the synod on synodality,
19:27
is you have an emotional variation of shut up, he explained,
19:33
where prior to that, reason and faith could say, for example,
19:38
sodomy is bad for you, it's bad for your body, it's bad for your emotion,
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it's bad for your relationship, it's bad for family life, it's bad for culture,
19:47
it's bad for civilization, and we know this because of nature and grace.
19:53
But now that we have taken reason away from its relationship, from its creator,
20:01
now that we have made reason illogical by decoupling it from the logos,
20:09
what's left but the people who shout the loudest,
20:16
by those who manipulate the mob, by those who say,
20:22
we're going to give you free stuff to infinity, even better than that,
20:27
we're going to give you other people's stuff for free.
20:31
We're going to give you the stuff of the people you don't like,
20:35
welcome envy, and we're willing to make an excuse for everything that you want to do.
20:47
I'm going to sound like a philosophy professor in just a moment,
20:50
so please stick with me. Take notes if you need to.
20:54
So these folks testifying, giving their lived experience about sodomy, etc.,
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I'm going to ask a hard question. Why did they invite those people
21:06
and not pedophiles, not necrophiles?
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And you might say, well, because that's different.
21:14
Yes, go on, tell me how they're different.
21:17
Well, these actions that we approve of sodomy have a nature and a moral quality
21:23
that are different from horrible perversions like pedophilia and necrophilia.
21:30
Okay, so actions have natures. Where did those natures come from?
21:37
If you say they're man-made, or because we like it,
21:41
then you've got no rational basis for closing the door to the pedophiles.
21:47
If you say actions have natures, then you say where did they come from?
21:54
If not from man, then the creator of nature, God,
21:58
the eternal word of the Father, the Logos,
22:01
through whom and for whom all things were made,
22:03
has pronounced on the moral nature of certain actions
22:09
and the natural law written in our bodies, inscribed in our souls and consciences,
22:15
things that we can't not know,
22:18
and then confirmed and amplified and illustrated through revelation,
22:22
in which case you say, well, what does nature and grace say about, for example,
22:29
the nature of marriage, the begetting of children, the protection of children?
22:37
What does it say about homosexual acts?
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But Father, it hurts some people's feelings to talk about nature and grace.
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Well, then you'll need to take that up with the author of Nature and Grace.
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I'm just the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger.
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I'm a being of reason and a recipient of grace.
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I am consecrated to the Lord as a religious.
23:07
I'm a son of St. Ignatius of Sioula because of the spiritual exercises,
23:11
and I'm ordained to be configured to Christ to hand on intact the gospel and the sacraments
23:16
that are Lord entrusted to the church he founded.
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So I have no choice in the matter than to say these things
23:23
and then let the chips fall where they may.
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And I really do think, at the risk of putting myself in good company,
23:29
that Fulton Sheen would agree with me here.
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Actions have natures.
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Some of them are intrinsically good.
23:38
Some of them are intrinsically evil.
23:41
Some are always required.
23:43
Some are always forbidden, whether we like it or not.
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And if we decide to ignore reason and revelation
23:56
to cater to the preferences of certain people
24:00
who may otherwise be very nice and play the harmonica
24:04
and are charming dinner companions,
24:06
they are undoing the fabric of civilization
24:12
by ignoring human history,
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by ignoring human bodies,
24:17
by ignoring human reason,
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and by ignoring divine revelation.
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And one of the things that Fulton Sheen makes clear throughout this book
24:29
is when we uncouple human action, individual and communal,
24:36
from the sources of reason and revelation,
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we bring upon ourselves as an inevitable, natural, just,
24:47
and even merciful, potentially, consequence,
24:52
we bring upon ourselves divine judgment.
24:57
And Fulton Sheen says, and that includes war.
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As I am recording this, I am mindful of the fact
25:06
that it is both the feast day of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J.,
25:09
the doctor of the church,
25:11
and is also the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.
25:15
So let's pray for the intercession of both,
25:18
that we might receive the illumination of intellect
25:23
and receive more deeply the gift of revelation
25:27
so that we can repent while there is still time.
25:31
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague,
25:33
your host here every day here at The Catholic Current.
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After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
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Here we are this Friday.
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Let's talk about this.
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We're doing a periodic series on Fulton Sheen.
27:30
We're talking about Fulton Sheen on war and tyranny
27:33
based on his book called
27:35
The Declaration of Dependence,
27:37
Trusting God Amidst Totalitarianism, Paganism, and War.
27:40
I said, my first choice would just be
27:42
to read the whole darn book to you.
27:44
That's not an option.
27:46
So where do we go from here?
27:48
There's just so much.
27:50
There's so much.
27:51
I'm going to turn to page 84
27:54
and listen to what he says
27:56
and offer some comment on it.
27:59
Fulton Sheen writes,
28:01
Too long have we who call ourselves Christians
28:04
been nourished on the diluted sentimentalism
28:08
of reliberal Christianity
28:10
that stripped Christ of his justice
28:13
and left him as a mere teacher
28:16
of humanitarian ethics on a mountaintop.
28:20
Pow!
28:22
Pow!
28:24
And that was in 1941.
28:28
He said that.
28:30
He says on page 85,
28:32
We're living in such a period of history now,
28:35
the sad hour wherein we are gathering
28:38
the bitter fruits of our apostasy from God.
28:42
So the apostasy really is twofold.
28:45
First of all, in the abandonment of reason
28:48
and secondly, in the abandonment of the deposit of the faith.
28:52
So when we, under the spirit of a false ecumenism,
28:58
take Christ and put him as just one voice among many,
29:03
as just one claimant who has one seat at the table,
29:09
that's an apostasy.
29:11
When senior Catholic cadres
29:14
of the people who should really know better club
29:18
say foolish things like,
29:20
Nobody has a monopoly on truth, you know.
29:24
But we have received he who is the way,
29:29
the truth, and the life,
29:31
the only means of salvation,
29:35
and we have an obligation and an anointing
29:41
to make him known and loved,
29:43
to hand on his truth intact, whole and entire,
29:48
to hand on his sacraments according to his mind,
29:53
and to make disciples of all nations.
29:56
And one of the things that I can't help but hear
30:01
the resemblance that the apostasy
30:05
that Fulton Sheen is denouncing in this book,
30:09
published in 1941,
30:12
seems an awful lot like what is being celebrated
30:16
in these different study group reports
30:19
coming out from the synod on synodality.
30:22
And that's why I know many people are praying
30:24
with uplifted and open hands,
30:26
hoping that proper authorities will intervene
30:30
and offer corrections while there is still time.
30:34
And I really do hope that happens soon.
30:37
You know, friends, we have been on such a downward trajectory
30:40
for such a long time.
30:42
Leo XIII and his encyclical,
30:44
Eterni Patris, which I think was promulgated in 1883.
30:49
Mr. Engineer, could you look that up real quick, please?
30:53
Eterni Patris by Leo XIII, I think it was 1883,
30:58
was defending the validity of the viability of faith
31:04
in front of modern skepticism.
31:07
And then, a little more than 100 years later,
31:10
John Paul II in Fides et Ratio
31:14
is defending the validity of reason
31:17
against the irrationality of the postmoderns.
31:22
So in every age, every age,
31:27
the Church is the last man standing.
31:31
And thank you, Mr. Engineer, it was 1879, duly noted,
31:35
100 years before I graduated from high school.
31:39
And so, where are we now?
31:42
Are we the last man standing?
31:45
Or are we the last one to arrive at the party
31:51
of the world and worldliness?
31:54
Are we the last ones to arrive at the madness
32:01
of the irrational revolution?
32:04
I think these are not unreasonable questions.
32:07
I think these questions have to be asked.
32:10
And what is the remedy?
32:15
What is the remedy?
32:17
Well, we have to admit that when we cooperate
32:21
with nature and grace, we receive God's judgment
32:25
as a blessing.
32:27
And when we fail to cooperate with God's grace and nature,
32:32
either through commission or omission,
32:34
we receive judgment as a correction,
32:38
and God forbid, at the end of days, as a punishment.
32:41
So Fulton Sheen writes this.
32:43
It's from page 95.
32:46
He says,
32:47
If the signs of the times are that we have abandoned Christ,
32:51
let us not add sin to sin by calling God cruel,
32:56
because he allows us to burn our hands
32:59
if we put them over a fire.
33:02
And he adds,
33:03
Judgment is stress because God's love means something.
33:08
It is not spineless indifference to sin.
33:13
Spineless indifference to sin.
33:16
What then would Fulton Sheen say about the advocates
33:21
of dialogue and accompaniment and listening and pastorality?
33:30
Aren't these just better euphemisms
33:33
from what Fulton Sheen has denounced
33:36
as a spineless indifference to sin?
33:39
And he says, of course, because this is what Sheen always did,
33:44
was he preached Christ crucified.
33:48
He says,
33:49
The fires that burned on Calvary's hill
33:52
were really fires of his wrath against evil.
33:56
The flames enkindled by the fierceness of his love for men.
34:00
Now listen to this.
34:02
This is where Sheen puts the smack down.
34:05
God will not be dethroned.
34:09
Injustice and hate will not conquer,
34:12
though it costs the life of his divine son.
34:15
And in that memorable hour,
34:17
when as he laid down his life and uttered the cry,
34:20
it is finished.
34:24
Something snapped in the universe.
34:28
Something was finished.
34:31
The power of sin to work the final rune of any man or any nation.
34:38
Evil, sin, and injustice end on that cross,
34:45
but nowhere else.
34:47
I swooned when I read that.
34:49
Why don't people write like that anymore?
34:52
Why don't people preach like that anymore?
34:58
And if people hear those words from the pulpit,
35:02
if they read those words today,
35:06
who will applaud?
35:08
Who will denounce?
35:10
And who will say,
35:11
What's he talking about?
35:14
Let's continue with Sheen on Christ as the remedy for,
35:19
Christ crucified as the remedy for all our ills.
35:22
He says,
35:23
Evil, sin, and injustice end on that cross,
35:25
but nowhere else.
35:26
He goes on to say,
35:27
They can survive in parliaments,
35:29
battlefields, and classrooms,
35:31
and can remain for a time an element of such force
35:35
that no human power or device can master them.
35:40
But under the piercing light of the cross,
35:43
they die.
35:45
For in that cross,
35:46
there is no sentimental affection.
35:48
There is the sternness of a great love,
35:51
the severity of a great tenderness,
35:53
the revolution that is a restoration,
35:56
the call to all men to repent,
35:59
to follow a course of life,
36:03
exactly the opposite of what they are doing now.
36:09
So says Fulton Sheen.
36:10
Friends, this is not an exhortation to pastorality,
36:16
to paradigm shifts,
36:18
to new ways of ministry.
36:22
This is not about accompaniment.
36:24
This is preaching Christ crucified.
36:27
Ave Cruc spes unica.
36:29
Hail to the cross, our only hope.
36:32
And then Sheen brings it home.
36:35
Will enough of us get back to that cross to save the world?
36:40
Will enough of us be so dedicated to the truth
36:43
as to begin to sacrifice what we once enjoyed,
36:46
to pray where we once sinned,
36:48
and to love those whom before we hated?
36:52
If there are enough of us to be the leaven of society,
36:58
then society shall be saved from its judgment.
37:03
And I believe firmly this parallels
37:05
what Our Lady asked for us at Fatima
37:07
when she said,
37:08
penance, penance, penance.
37:10
So we have to make intercession
37:13
for those who do not yet know about Fatima,
37:17
and make reparation for those who really should know.
37:22
God, Fulton Sheen is so good.
37:24
I can't improve on him.
37:27
Listen to this.
37:28
He says,
37:29
You can plant acorns on glass, but they will never grow.
37:32
You can put fish in alcohol, but they'll never thrive.
37:35
There must be a proper climate and environment
37:38
for the flowering of any seed.
37:40
Now, mindful that he's writing in 1941.
37:42
He writes,
37:43
Nazism, fascism, and communism
37:46
are to a great extent the creations of a civilization
37:50
that has reputed the moral law of God.
37:54
They represent the sickness of the world
37:56
in its most virulent form.
37:58
They are the vomit of a stomach already dechristianized
38:02
and therefore brutalized.
38:04
Unless there had already been a breakdown
38:06
of morality, education, family, and social justice,
38:09
these isms could not control people.
38:12
The people must, to some extent, be ready to be controlled.
38:17
And then he says,
38:18
But there must be conversion.
38:21
He says this,
38:22
What good will it do to defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin?
38:27
He adds,
38:28
I am very sorry to defend the liberals by including Stalin.
38:31
Unless we are prepared to build a different and better world
38:35
than the one that is collapsing.
38:37
Shall we build another godless world
38:40
on top of this world war as we did in 1918
38:45
or one in Christ Jesus?
38:47
Our call is not to realize certain democratic ideals
38:50
but to accept the one divine reality.
38:54
We are invited to go not to somewhere
38:57
but to return to someone.
39:00
And of course, this is certainly the message of Our Lady of Fatima.
39:06
We cannot walk away from God indefinitely.
39:12
We cannot reject our status as creatures of a creating God indefinitely.
39:20
And His offer of grace through His Christ
39:23
is the best and final offer of God Almighty.
39:28
There is nothing better.
39:31
We can't say to God Almighty,
39:33
What else you got?
39:36
And God forbid that any soul will say,
39:42
You know what?
39:44
I think I'm going to reject reason.
39:46
I'm going to reject natural law.
39:48
I'm going to reject the deposit of the faith
39:51
because someone's testimony to lived experience
39:55
which contradicts human nature and revelation
39:59
kind of gives me feels.
40:02
When you put it that way, it sounds frightfully irrational.
40:07
And what is irrational is anti-human
40:10
and because of the incarnation,
40:13
what is anti-human is in fact anti-Christ.
40:18
We'll be talking about this in the coming weeks and months.
40:21
Meanwhile, think on these things today.
40:23
Take them to prayer and talk about it with those you love.
40:26
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague,
40:28
your host here every day, The Catholic Current.
40:30
You want to stay with us for the rest of the hour.
40:32
Coming up next, Weekend Readiness,
40:33
reviewing the headlines of the week
40:34
in light of the upcoming Sunday Scripture.
40:36
So be all prepped up for a Sunday Mass.
40:38
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40:40
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40:43
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40:45
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40:47
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40:50
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40:52
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40:54
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40:57
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40:58
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41:00
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41:02
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41:03
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41:20
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41:23
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41:26
Go to thestationofthecross.com
41:29
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41:32
and help influence the conversation.
41:50
Praise be Jesus Christ.
41:51
This is Father Robert McTague of The Society of Jesus,
41:53
your daily host for The Catholic Current,
41:55
where we bring Christ to the world
41:56
and the world to Christ.
41:57
You're listening to us from the station of The Cross Studios,
41:59
your local radio station,
42:01
the iCatholic Radio mobile app,
42:02
where we proclaim the fullness of truth
42:04
with clarity and charity.
42:06
Here we are, the last segment of our Friday Weekend Readiness,
42:08
reviewing the headlines of the week
42:10
in light of the upcoming Sunday Scripture.
42:12
So be all prepped up for a Sunday Mass.
42:14
However, by the time you hear this,
42:17
I will be on the road.
42:19
I'm recording this in advance,
42:21
because unlike Rush Limbaugh,
42:22
I don't have Mark Stein to cover for me.
42:24
So we're recording this in advance.
42:26
So whatever the headlines of the day are,
42:28
they haven't happened yet.
42:29
So you say, why isn't Father talking about?
42:31
Because it hadn't happened yet.
42:33
So I'm going to focus exclusively
42:35
on the feast day and on the Scripture.
42:37
So if you're following the Novus Ordo calendar
42:39
or the Paul line, right,
42:40
we're looking at the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity,
42:43
Lectionary 164.
42:45
Now, having had to preach about the Trinity many times,
42:48
let me tell you, it's hard.
42:50
It's really hard to do,
42:52
especially in a brief space.
42:55
So we've been talking about Fulton Sheen today.
42:57
Fulton Sheen once gave a public lecture on the Trinity.
43:00
And after the lecture, someone said to her,
43:03
Oh, Your Excellency, thank you for your wonderful lecture
43:06
on the Trinity.
43:07
Now I understand it perfectly.
43:09
And she meant that as a compliment.
43:11
She said, Well, my good woman,
43:12
then I owe you the profoundest apology.
43:14
Because if you understand the Trinity perfectly,
43:16
then I've done it wrong.
43:18
So let's be really cautious out there.
43:20
So my brother clerics have to preach this weekend.
43:22
Let's be careful.
43:24
If you say, Hey, I've got this really clever analogy
43:26
or metaphor that explains the Holy Trinity.
43:28
No, you don't.
43:30
Whatever you thought of, that's not it.
43:32
So don't do that.
43:35
And unfortunately, the Trinity nowadays
43:37
can lead to some kind of mischief.
43:40
I remember as a young Jesuit, I was on retreat.
43:43
This was before I was ordained.
43:45
And my ears picked up because the priest
43:49
offered the opening prayer to Almighty Mother and Father
43:52
through Christ your Son.
43:54
Well, immediately, my brain took out its professor's red pen.
44:00
And I didn't think about anything else
44:02
for the rest of the Mass because I was thinking
44:04
of this nonsense that Father said.
44:06
That's why, my brother clergy,
44:08
we don't tinker with the liturgy
44:11
because it's not ours.
44:13
We dare not take the public prayer of the Church
44:16
and make it our own
44:18
because then we're substituting our private prayer
44:20
for the Church's public prayer.
44:22
And the people of God have a right
44:24
to the identifiable public prayer of the Church.
44:27
And so people say, Gosh, I wonder why he said it that way.
44:30
People are going to miss it.
44:31
They're not going to pray.
44:32
They're going to be thinking about what you did.
44:34
And that's not fair.
44:35
And that's not right.
44:36
So after Mass, I asked Father to accompany me
44:40
in an encounter and have a dialogue.
44:43
And I said, Hey, you offered the opening prayer
44:46
to Almighty Mother and Father through Christ your Son.
44:50
That means either the Mother of the Christ, Mary,
44:54
is Almighty or she's not the Mother of the Christ.
44:58
Those are the two logical options.
45:00
I'm wondering which one you meant.
45:02
And he said, Well, you know, I'm not really a theologian.
45:04
And I said, Well, obviously not.
45:06
And yet you think you're enough of a theologian
45:09
to change the Mass as you see fit,
45:14
which, by the way, is expressly forbidden
45:16
in the documents of Vatican II.
45:20
So he says, Well, you know, this is just my way
45:24
of being sensitive to people's needs
45:27
because pronoun and gender and so on.
45:29
And I said, Well, good for you that you're being sensitive
45:32
to other people's needs, but you're kind of doing it
45:35
on the church's dime.
45:37
How about being sensitive to my right,
45:41
my right, which may not be abrogated,
45:44
to have access to the identifiable public prayer
45:50
of the church?
45:52
What about that?
45:53
Well, you know, I would love to talk with you some more,
45:56
but people inside are praying and I don't want to disrupt them.
45:59
He walked away, so I yelled after him,
46:01
Thank you for the dialogue.
46:04
I've since mellowed.
46:05
You all should have met me in my younger days.
46:07
Oh, boy.
46:08
I've mellowed now.
46:09
And then there was a time where some geniuses decided,
46:12
Well, if you say Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
46:15
Father and Son are male and therefore bad and hurtful
46:18
to people, blah, blah, blah, blah.
46:20
So we'll just call them Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier
46:23
because that's the same thing, is it?
46:25
No, it's not.
46:27
No, it's not.
46:29
So, at the risk of trying to explain the Trinity,
46:32
and why is that a dangerous thing?
46:34
Well, when Augustine was writing about the Trinity,
46:37
he had a dream of a little boy taking scoops of sand
46:43
and dumping them into the ocean.
46:46
And he says to the little boy, What are you doing?
46:49
And he says, Well, I'm trying to fill in the ocean
46:51
with my little bucket of sand.
46:52
And Augustine, in the dream, says to the little boy,
46:55
That's never going to work.
46:57
And then the little boy, who turned out to be an angel,
46:59
said, Yeah, that's like you trying to explain the Trinity.
47:01
But here's what the Church has taught.
47:03
Why can't we say Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier?
47:06
Because that's called the heresy of modalism.
47:09
And it distinguishes the persons of the Trinity
47:14
according to their external relations,
47:17
and in other words, in relation to what is not them,
47:21
rather than their internal relations by their personal relationship.
47:25
In other words, if you say Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier,
47:28
and Creator is Father, Redeemer is Son,
47:31
and Sanctifier is Spirit,
47:33
that's not right because the emphasis is on the relationships
47:37
that are not themselves.
47:39
It is proper to say that Father, Son, and Spirit are Creator.
47:42
Father, Son, and Spirit are Redeemer.
47:44
Father, Son, and Spirit are Sanctifier.
47:47
The persons of the Trinity are distinguished
47:51
by their relationships with each other.
47:54
So God the Father is fully divine
47:58
in every way that the Spirit and Son are,
48:02
without being the Son or the Spirit.
48:06
The Divine Son, God the Son,
48:09
is fully divine as much as the Father and the Spirit are,
48:15
but is neither the Father nor the Spirit.
48:18
God the Holy Spirit is fully divine
48:22
as divine as is the Father and the Son,
48:26
and God the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Spirit.
48:30
Now, try to preach that.
48:33
Try to preach that when you've got rambunctious kids
48:38
and you've got teenagers who want to express their boredom
48:43
because they've decided, or their mother's dragged them
48:46
to sit in the third row right in front of the pulpit,
48:49
and Sally's going to try to ignore you
48:51
by examining the split ends of her hair
48:54
while you're trying to talk.
48:55
So please pray for those poor souls who, by burden of office,
48:59
are required to preach on the Trinity,
49:03
because it's hard.
49:05
Here's what we need to know in a way that affects our lives.
49:09
God Almighty is a community of persons,
49:14
persons who love each other,
49:17
who want the best for each other,
49:19
and know that the best for each other is, in fact, each other.
49:23
And so each person completely pours himself out to the others
49:27
and completely receives the others.
49:31
And our Christian life, our married life,
49:34
our family life is meant to imitate that,
49:38
to prepare us for the life of heaven
49:42
where we have a share in that joyful, ecstatic sharing,
49:48
giving and receiving of love.
49:52
In which case, riding around with a bumper sticker that says,
49:56
whoever dies with the most toys wins,
49:59
just isn't very interesting anymore.
50:03
And also, over the weekend, grab yourself a good catechism
50:07
and sit down and read what it says about the Trinity.
50:11
The Trinity is our destination.
50:15
The Trinity alone is our true home.
50:20
The Trinity is the community of love for which we are made.
50:25
May God's holy name be praised now and forever.
50:28
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
50:32
Join us, please, on Monday for another episode of The Catholic Current.
50:35
A great topic, great conversation, great guests,
50:37
because that's how we roll here at The Station of the Cross and The Catholic Current.
50:42
We are committed to being so very much more than merely relevant.
50:46
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
50:49
get our resources list, download our audio podcast.
50:52
Wherever you can find audio, you can find us.
50:55
Follow us on your favorite platform, write a five-star review.
50:58
We need to attract the attention of the listeners,
51:00
so these conversations get the attention they deserve.
51:03
Through the intercession of Our Lady of Montcarmel,
51:05
may mighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
51:08
Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.