Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.57 - Faith Under Fire: Kelsey Reinhardt on Hope Amid Church Struggles | Catholic Church | Reform | Persecuted Christians | Crisis

Transcript

Ep.57 - Faith Under Fire: Kelsey Reinhardt on Hope Amid Church Struggles | Catholic Church | Reform | Persecuted Christians | Crisis · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

• 0:00
  Kelsey Reinhardt, You have a ton of experience.
• 0:02
  You were the head of Executive Director of Media EWETN, EWTN6,
• 0:07
  different press offices around the world.
• 0:09
  What was that like for you it? Was a phenomenal experience.
• 0:14
  I every time I'm in Washington, DCI stop in and see my former
• 0:18
  novice mistress since I spent a number of years in religious
• 0:21
  life. And I asked her once sister Mary
• 0:23
  Angelo, why do you think I've been given this window into the
• 0:27
  global church? And she said, well, I'm sure
• 0:29
  it's something to do with making the beauty of that global church
• 0:33
  known. And so it's definitely a context
• 0:36
  and a, and a role that I take with me.
• 0:39
  It was an enormous, enormous job flying around the world, six
• 0:44
  different news agencies and seven languages, but an
• 0:49
  incredible experience. So I heard you that you have a
• 0:53
  cool story about starting something in Iraq.
• 0:56
  What was that all about? That's right.
• 0:58
  Probably one of the things that I'm most proud of in my career
• 1:01
  was travelling to Erbil, Iraq a number of times in order to
• 1:05
  found a news agency, a Catholic News agency in Arabic for
• 1:09
  persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
• 1:11
  And the idea was to be able to to to broadcast to the global
• 1:16
  community if something happened again in a similar vein to what
• 1:19
  happened in 2014 with the the ISIS invasion and the Iraqi
• 1:24
  genocide that resulted. And this was a really powerful
• 1:28
  experience visiting there. You know, you came face to face
• 1:32
  with the martyr to church. And there was 11 evening at
• 1:37
  dinner. I one of the times that I went
• 1:40
  to visit right before we launched the, the news agency
• 1:45
  Iran had actually launched 12 ballistic missiles at the US
• 1:48
  Embassy in her bill and the CEO VWTN Michael Warsaw said, you
• 1:53
  know, Kelsey, you don't have to go.
• 1:55
  And I said, you know, Michael, every one of these journalists
• 1:59
  that we've hired has put their life on the line in order to
• 2:02
  tell the stories of Christ and the gospel and the the Christian
• 2:07
  community in the Middle East. And I know that I don't have to
• 2:11
  go, but I want to go because I want to, to participate in the
• 2:15
  risk that they are also participating in.
• 2:19
  And I said, I don't think I could look myself in, in the
• 2:22
  face in the mirror, you know, having said, yes, it's worth
• 2:26
  risking your life and it's not worth risking mine to do this
• 2:30
  mission. And so I went and I got special
• 2:33
  permission from the Archbishop of Erbil, Archbishop Warda, to
• 2:36
  stay at a convent because when you check into hotels, you know,
• 2:40
  you have to surrender your passport.
• 2:42
  And there's a lot of publicity. You know, it's a very public
• 2:45
  act. And so I stayed at this.
• 2:48
  I stayed at this convent. And one evening over dinner, I
• 2:52
  was speaking with the sisters. And I said, you know, sisters,
• 2:56
  who are some of your favorite Iraqi Saints?
• 2:59
  And the sister who spoke English the best reached her hand across
• 3:03
  the table, and she grabbed mine. And she just paused.
• 3:06
  And she said, we don't have Saints here.
• 3:10
  And I was taken aback. And I was wondering where it was
• 3:14
  going to go. And then she said, you know, we
• 3:16
  just have martyrs. And then the rest of the
• 3:20
  conversation, I get chills just reminding myself of this.
• 3:23
  The rest of the conversation was her explaining the martyrs that
• 3:28
  they knew and they loved, you know, some of the people that
• 3:32
  they had secretly baptized into the church for fear of honor
• 3:35
  killings, some of the sisters who had been martyred in the
• 3:40
  ISIS genocide, some of the experiences that they had going
• 3:45
  back to, you know, this is the living memory of a church,
• 3:48
  right? This church in Iraq was founded
• 3:50
  by the Apostle Mark. So the very first Bishop.
• 3:54
  It was a church built upon martyrdom and he, she was alive
• 3:58
  in their memory. And I, I, you know, I was very
• 4:00
  haunted by the Chaldean liturgy. It, it almost had the air of a
• 4:06
  funeral sense about it, you know, where that veil between
• 4:09
  life and death and sadness in heaven is so thin that you can
• 4:14
  see through to the other side. I and I and I think that that
• 4:18
  liturgy is is born of those martyrdoms celebrated over
• 4:21
  centuries. That's incredible.
• 4:24
  I just got chills hearing that now.
• 4:26
  Why do you think it is that that history is so unknown, untalked
• 4:32
  about in the West? It's.
• 4:35
  A great question. You know, there is certainly a,
• 4:41
  a, a divide that you see between the societies.
• 4:44
  Just linguistically, it's very difficult to to have that
• 4:48
  interface it, it was a very closed society.
• 4:51
  Recall, too, when that sister was speaking, she talked about
• 4:55
  how actually, ironically, in 2003 when the US invaded, it was
• 5:03
  the first time that her community had heard the
• 5:06
  universal call to holiness, that sort of like internal
• 5:10
  proclamation. Like, you know, they'd already,
• 5:12
  they'd always assumed that martyrdom was the universal call
• 5:16
  to holiness. The way that they lived that
• 5:19
  was, was very much a reflection of that.
• 5:21
  I've never seen a more penitential length than the way
• 5:24
  that these sisters, you know, they wouldn't take a drop of
• 5:26
  water before noon and and there was no meat at any time during
• 5:32
  Lent. So it was a very austere time
• 5:34
  that I visited them. But they said, you know, we, we
• 5:37
  first learned, you know, about the universal call to holiness,
• 5:40
  that you could be a St. in these other, you know, ways of just
• 5:45
  charity that, that they felt like the United States opened
• 5:50
  that up. At the same time, you know,
• 5:53
  they, they really understood that it was the initial 2003
• 5:56
  invasion that unleashed upon the Christians in that country the
• 6:01
  tremendous suffering that would become the next 20 years.
• 6:04
  I mean, the sisters talked about bodies being thrown over their
• 6:08
  courtyard wall into the cloistered part of the convent
• 6:11
  because that was an easy place to dispose of them.
• 6:15
  I think there was also a form of intimidation happening.
• 6:17
  So we don't talk nearly enough about what's happening to
• 6:21
  Christians in the Middle East, and it's a conversation that I
• 6:24
  think has to continue. Well, it it's silent to such an
• 6:29
  extent that I wonder if it's intentional and even the person
• 6:33
  the subsequent persecution of Christians after the US
• 6:36
  invasion, like was that was that not for just you kind of wonder
• 6:40
  if the what extent is these things were intentional.
• 6:44
  Yeah, And there are heartbreaking stories coming out
• 6:46
  of it. You know, I felt very
• 6:48
  privileged. I have this crazy father Johan.
• 6:53
  Everyone calls him Crazy Papa Wix.
• 6:56
  They don't even call him by his name.
• 6:57
  They just call him Crazy Papa Wix.
• 7:00
  And in 2004, he actually heard about the Iraq war and heard
• 7:08
  about a couple of things that were happening in Washington,
• 7:11
  DC, bought a bike affixed across on the back of it and pedaled
• 7:16
  from Gillette, WY, my hometown, to Washington, DC, in protest.
• 7:20
  And he said that every pedal stroke was a prayer for the
• 7:25
  Iraqi people. And he stopped at every Catholic
• 7:28
  Church along the way, prayed the rosary, had some miracles
• 7:33
  happen. It was a very unprepared for
• 7:35
  trip. He didn't plan it.
• 7:37
  He just woke up one night felt like the Holy Spirit was calling
• 7:40
  him to do this, and then left the next day after learning how
• 7:43
  to change a bike tire from my 8th grade RT.
• 7:46
  So when I was in Iraq, I I felt like have having been explained
• 7:54
  that connection between the 2003 invasion and the persecution of
• 7:58
  Christians. I felt like, wow, there, it is
• 8:01
  no accident that I am here. I felt like the pedal strokes of
• 8:05
  my father. All of those prayers for these
• 8:08
  people were were why I was entrusted with this mission to
• 8:12
  start this news agency and to try and reclaim in the public
• 8:17
  sphere this conversation about the persecution of Christians in
• 8:20
  the Middle East. I hope that message goes out to
• 8:24
  to a lot more people, including our leaders, although you know,
• 8:28
  I mean, if history is any is any gauge, then not super optimistic
• 8:32
  about protection of Christians around the world.
• 8:35
  Well, I do think, you know, since we are in the midst of a
• 8:38
  conclave and since my boss at Catholic Vote has just been
• 8:42
  named the US ambassador to the Holy See, I do feel like there
• 8:45
  are a few years I might bend on this subject.
• 8:49
  And certainly there is a question, you know, what's
• 8:51
  happening in Nigeria, what's happening in the Democratic
• 8:55
  Republic of the Congo. There are places around the
• 8:58
  world where the what's happening in China.
• 9:01
  There are places around the world where significant enough
• 9:05
  that this needs to be raised to a higher level than it is right
• 9:09
  now, within the Church and also within the US government.
• 9:15
  Yeah, so you're, you're at Catholic vote now.
• 9:17
  You're the head of media and evangelization.
• 9:20
  Your president just got a cool new gig.
• 9:23
  Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 9:25
  Yes, he has been nominated to be the US Ambassador to the Holy
• 9:29
  See. He's passed out of committee and
• 9:31
  is just awaiting his vote on the Senate floor for confirmation.
• 9:35
  And this is a really prestigious post.
• 9:37
  It's a really incredible honor for Brian to be nominated and
• 9:43
  I'm excited to see the the vitality and the thoughtfulness
• 9:47
  that I've seen with his long tenure at Catholic Vote as a Co
• 9:52
  founder of Catholic Vote put to use in this context.
• 9:55
  So I definitely think that the persecuted Christians will be on
• 10:00
  his agenda in some form or fashion to to assist.
• 10:06
  So with your direct experience with Brian Birch, what do you
• 10:10
  think are the pros and cons of of him being in the position of
• 10:15
  the Ambassador to the Holy See? Well, I, I just see that he's
• 10:19
  going to be a great representative of the US
• 10:23
  government to the church. He's a faithful son of the
• 10:25
  church. He has nine children.
• 10:28
  So he's certainly going to bring a vitality to that
• 10:32
  ambassadorship that has, it's been a while since we've seen
• 10:35
  someone with that young come over to Rome.
• 10:39
  So he'll have four children who are still in his house with him.
• 10:42
  And I think that that witness of having lived the Church's
• 10:46
  teachings, having having fought for the the faith in the public
• 10:53
  square, which is what he did during his tenure at Catholic
• 10:56
  Vote, I think that that's going to bring enormous, enormous good
• 11:02
  to what happens over in Rome. I don't know what the agenda
• 11:05
  will be. I don't know if there's any cons
• 11:07
  right now in terms of the position.
• 11:10
  I think right now everyone's just looking forward to the
• 11:12
  hopefulness of of what this disappointment portends.
• 11:17
  So what? What was his take on the now
• 11:20
  deceased Holy Father, Pope Francis?
• 11:24
  Well, Brian was certainly a faithful Catholic and so, you
• 11:29
  know, he supported and loved the Holy Father Catholic vote ran,
• 11:34
  you know, number of things. We run a a very large newsletter
• 11:37
  in the United States. So he ran a a number of articles
• 11:41
  promoting his his perspective to the world.
• 11:45
  Obviously there were elements of of dialogue.
• 11:49
  I think Brian maybe was quoted in the New York Times as not
• 11:54
  having liked the Holy Father's comment about Catholics breeding
• 11:58
  like rabbits, but I certainly he was he was a faithful son of the
• 12:03
  Church and respected the office immensely.
• 12:08
  Sure. Well, I would love to hear your
• 12:09
  speculation on the conclave. Well.
• 12:13
  Speculation in conclave never, never portends the way that you
• 12:17
  think that it will. But I certainly think that the
• 12:21
  the conversations around what is most important for the church
• 12:27
  are extremely important. There is a financial crisis at
• 12:31
  the Vatican. I think more importantly, there
• 12:34
  is a a crisis of ambiguity. People right now need clarity in
• 12:43
  order to live their lives. You've seen that in England, in
• 12:46
  LA and France, record number of people were making baptisms and
• 12:51
  and becoming Catholic. That's at the same time that
• 12:54
  we're losing, you know, 8 out of every 10 Catholics, something
• 12:59
  like that. For every, for every 10
• 13:02
  Catholics that enter, 8 leave. So there certainly is a crisis
• 13:07
  in the United States of, of understanding what the church
• 13:10
  teaches and putting that into practice.
• 13:12
  The conversations that are happening right now in the
• 13:14
  general congregations as to what type of Pope the the Cardinals
• 13:18
  would like to elect are extremely important.
• 13:21
  I would submit that one of the most important is actually how
• 13:24
  the church handles sexual abuse. So my experience covering Latin
• 13:30
  America and Africa is that there is a tremendous crisis happening
• 13:34
  in those areas, one that's maybe not as well recognized as much
• 13:38
  more in the shadows than the US bishops crisis in around in and
• 13:45
  around Boston in the early 2000s.
• 13:48
  So certainly the, the influence of religious orders and
• 13:53
  provincials seem to be where a lot of the same dynamics were
• 13:58
  happening. Priests were being transferred,
• 14:00
  people were not accountable for having abused persons.
• 14:05
  And so I definitely think that 0 tolerance Pope and a Pope that
• 14:09
  has no, no dalliance with this form of protection of evil is,
• 14:14
  is is going to be essential to, to the future.
• 14:17
  We see that the church is growing in places like Africa,
• 14:20
  but you know, Africa needs a sustained catechesis and Africa
• 14:25
  and, and Latin America. I think we'll we will see that
• 14:30
  they they have struggled with abuse in ways that that might
• 14:33
  shock us. Can you just help clarify that?
• 14:37
  So what would the how would the zero tolerance policy look
• 14:40
  different from the current or I guess former policy?
• 14:44
  I mean that the the, the, the Holy Father who's elected needs
• 14:48
  to have had 0 tolerance as in like no compromise with this
• 14:52
  form of evil in his management. Certainly there are there are
• 14:58
  Cardinals who have very significant questions around
• 15:04
  their past reporting of abuses and their past handling of abuse
• 15:11
  cases in their diocese. And you know, I would submit
• 15:15
  that that that's an unwise person to elevate.
• 15:20
  I'm not a cardinal and I won't be participating in the
• 15:23
  election. But certainly the the aftershock
• 15:27
  of having elected a person who has when there are many
• 15:30
  Cardinals who do not have any states on their record, the
• 15:33
  aftershock of having elected such a cardinal could be
• 15:36
  devastating. OK.
• 15:40
  So yeah, I'm just wondering if you could clarify that a little
• 15:43
  bit more. What?
• 15:45
  What exactly would a 0 tolerance policy look like?
• 15:49
  A0 Tolerance policy would look like no tolerance for the abuse
• 15:55
  of children. So a priest would not be allowed
• 16:01
  to continue in their position, having been found to have abused
• 16:07
  children. Priest would not be given a
• 16:10
  second chance. Priest would not be moved to
• 16:13
  another place in the diocese. Priest would not be.
• 16:17
  You know, I think of, I think of the very famous case of Father
• 16:20
  Rupnik who is accused of abusing over 20 consecrated nuns.
• 16:26
  He's still a priest. The entire female congregation
• 16:30
  that he abused for a number of years was disbanded and the
• 16:34
  Mother Superior was sentenced to a life of penance.
• 16:37
  Father Rupnik remains a priest who celebrates Mass.
• 16:41
  So 0 tolerance looks like 0 tolerance.
• 16:46
  There is no party with evil. There is no compromise here in
• 16:51
  terms of in terms of who continues to operate as a priest
• 16:55
  once they have credibly been found to have abused minors,
• 17:00
  consecrated, violated the, you know, significantly the the 6th
• 17:04
  commandment. So you're saying remove their
• 17:07
  faculties, they they can't perform the ministerial
• 17:10
  functions. OK, gotcha.
• 17:11
  And then if a person in leadership like you mentioned, a
• 17:14
  cardinal has, I guess I covered it up in some way, then they
• 17:20
  should also be, well, yeah, they should also be removed from
• 17:23
  their position. Then they should be disqualified
• 17:26
  from their their position. You know, I mean certainly
• 17:30
  disqualified from leading the entire faithful worldwide.
• 17:35
  I would hope so, yeah. I would hope so too.
• 17:38
  It hasn't. Let's just say historically that
• 17:40
  hasn't been the first time that that that hasn't been the case.
• 17:44
  We've had some terrible Renaissance popes, which I guess
• 17:47
  perhaps like paradoxically, actually gives me hope in the
• 17:50
  church that we're not in the worst times.
• 17:53
  Certainly the church can't survive that.
• 17:55
  But I do think, you know, I mean, for instance, you know,
• 17:58
  Father Rupnik could have been laicized during the tenure of of
• 18:02
  Pope Francis. So we do.
• 18:04
  We do see that even in the last pontificate, a policy of 0
• 18:08
  tolerance was preached but not necessarily executed.
• 18:12
  So who? Who do you think are the front
• 18:14
  runners for for Pope? The front runners right now,
• 18:20
  what I'm hearing are broad categories more than front
• 18:24
  runners. Obviously there are some
• 18:27
  Cardinals who've made a campaign at this beginning point, but I
• 18:32
  from what I'm hearing, the Cardinals really want someone
• 18:34
  who speaks Italian, who knows their way around the Kyria.
• 18:37
  There are a lot of challenges that will be facing the Kyria
• 18:41
  and it's reform. This was true even upon the
• 18:44
  resignation of Benedict the 16th.
• 18:47
  And they also want someone who has advanced studies, a sort of
• 18:53
  precision within the proclamation of the faith.
• 18:56
  They're they're hoping to to have that.
• 18:59
  And then I've also heard that they're not looking for the
• 19:01
  quote UN quote eternal pontificate.
• 19:03
  So Archbishop Patriarch of Jerusalem Pizza Bala has been a
• 19:09
  a fan favorite sort of on Twitter for a number of people.
• 19:12
  And he represents the East and is an Italian, but he's only 60
• 19:18
  years old. And so I've read some some media
• 19:21
  pieces on him, you know, saying, well, I think that seems
• 19:26
  unlikely given where the Cardinals are at because of how
• 19:29
  much they would like a pontificate.
• 19:30
  That's shorter since there isn't a great consensus yet about what
• 19:35
  what sort of long term needs the church has for a pontificate.
• 19:39
  But those are the categories, generally speaking, that I'm
• 19:43
  hearing the Cardinals talk about the the clarity and and
• 19:47
  proclamation, the need for Italian and a suitable age.
• 19:52
  OK, yeah. And what influence will, because
• 19:56
  there's a lot of, let's say, like cultural disagreement in
• 20:00
  the, in the Cardinals, political disagreement, perhaps especially
• 20:03
  some of the ones that were appointed by Pope Francis, which
• 20:05
  is actually a lot of them. So what?
• 20:09
  What? What effect do you think the I
• 20:11
  guess polarization among the views of the Cardinals will
• 20:14
  have? Yeah, well, it is interesting
• 20:17
  because 80% of the Cardinals were elevated to the to the
• 20:22
  cardinal it by Pope Francis. But there is a certain way in
• 20:27
  which it goes beyond Conservative and Liberal in in a
• 20:31
  number of places. So, you know, what's interesting
• 20:34
  is that in the West we have a crisis in, in a lot of different
• 20:39
  areas, including transgenderism, abortion, transhumanism.
• 20:44
  There are a lot of moral debates that carry a lot of weight in
• 20:48
  Western society right now. And people need clarity on those
• 20:51
  issues. When you travel to places like
• 20:54
  Africa or Malaysia or Myanmar, you know, I'm my African team in
• 21:01
  at EWTN would laugh when I would say I would explain, you know,
• 21:06
  listen, we're having this problem with US society.
• 21:09
  Men think that they're women and they want to compete in women's
• 21:11
  sports. And they laughed, you know, so
• 21:14
  funny. I can't believe that anyone
• 21:16
  would ever think that. So, you know, it is refreshing.
• 21:22
  So a number of these Cardinals who are appointed on the
• 21:25
  peripheries are very naturally conservative.
• 21:28
  They exist inside Muslim societies or alongside Muslim
• 21:32
  societies. They exist in, in societies that
• 21:35
  are untouched by some of the debates that are having in the
• 21:37
  West. So I do think that there is a
• 21:40
  doctrinal unity that's perhaps naturally conservative because
• 21:45
  the deposit of faith is naturally conservative that
• 21:48
  these Cardinals would represent, despite the fact that they're
• 21:51
  quote UN quote, the liberals elected by Pope, Pope Francis.
• 21:56
  So I, I do think it's a bit unhelpful to kind of brush too
• 22:01
  broadly with, with those terms. But I, I would say though, that
• 22:06
  there is a real split. And we do see that in Germany.
• 22:10
  You know, Germany has has teetered here on the edge of, of
• 22:15
  schism with some of their stances.
• 22:18
  And the synodal way that was undertaken in Germany aims to
• 22:22
  over overturn and really Protestantize the Catholic
• 22:26
  Church in Germany. And so there's going to be a
• 22:29
  significant need for discretion and, and prudence from the new
• 22:34
  Pope and how that situation gets handled.
• 22:37
  And then there's also the question of liturgical unity.
• 22:40
  I think that the the question of liturgical unity will also
• 22:43
  remain an important one. There has been a worldwide
• 22:46
  growth in Lefebrites. So as the traditional Latin Mass
• 22:51
  has been eliminated or reduced in different places and a bit of
• 22:56
  an exodus has occurred, and we're seeing growth in areas
• 22:59
  that we shouldn't want to see if we want to preserve the unity of
• 23:03
  the Church. And I think that that will
• 23:05
  remain an important part for the conclave and the Cardinals to
• 23:08
  decide what is the role of the Latin Mass within the Catholic
• 23:13
  Church. Yeah, that's a great question.
• 23:16
  There's a non schismatic version of the fibrites which is called
• 23:19
  SSBXI. Was in, I was actually in Rome
• 23:22
  for a Holy Week. Went to this incredible Tenebury
• 23:25
  service on Good Friday. I I just cannot.
• 23:27
  It was, it was otherworldly. I can't describe it any other
• 23:30
  way. Turns out it was an SSBX
• 23:32
  service. Well, the, the mystique and the,
• 23:38
  the transcendental nature of that liturgy, what's typically
• 23:43
  called the extraordinary Form is, is astounding.
• 23:46
  And you see this, I, I see the connection between the liturgies
• 23:50
  in the East in that it, it's that veil between heaven and
• 23:54
  earth is so much, so much thinner in those liturgies.
• 23:58
  The symbolism is so rich. We really, we are catechized by
• 24:02
  symbols in the. And so it it's not surprising to
• 24:07
  me that this is a form of Catholicism that is growing in
• 24:11
  in across the world. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:14
  I think everyone should experience it.
• 24:16
  It. I mean, they can decide whether
• 24:17
  they want to that form of liturgy or not.
• 24:19
  But if you haven't experienced it, you're, you're missing
• 24:21
  something. So, OK, Kelsey, you've been
• 24:24
  dancing around this a little bit.
• 24:27
  You've said who is not a likely candidate?
• 24:30
  What are the general characteristics of a good
• 24:33
  candidate? So.
• 24:33
  So who are the actual likely candidates in your opinion for
• 24:38
  Pope? Well, as I said there, there are
• 24:43
  a number of likely candidates and I I don't know that it's
• 24:47
  worthwhile to get into the questions.
• 24:48
  Certainly Cardinal Paroline has made an explosive burst onto the
• 24:55
  scene today. The Italian news reported that
• 24:58
  his signature was on the controversial document that
• 25:03
  allowed the Vatican to lose over 100 and €100 million on a on a
• 25:11
  financial deal in in London. So certainly every cardinal will
• 25:15
  have seen that walking into the conclave.
• 25:17
  I think that that's a potential transformative movement.
• 25:23
  So he's he certainly was afforded one of the front runner
• 25:26
  positions before the general congregations began.
• 25:30
  And I think that there are a number of others who've been
• 25:34
  campaigning or interested in this position, but I don't know
• 25:39
  that it's really worth it to to discuss, you know, who thinks
• 25:44
  that they will be Pope and who these front runners are because
• 25:47
  the the old saying always holds true.
• 25:50
  You walk in to the conclave as Pope and you come out a
• 25:53
  cardinal. So I think I think that there
• 25:57
  are really interesting psychological dynamics that
• 26:00
  change wants. These Cardinals are locked in a
• 26:04
  route and Cardinal Sacco, who is himself Iraqi and a patriarch of
• 26:11
  the Chaldean Church, actually said today don't expect a short
• 26:15
  conclave. We need to get to know each
• 26:17
  other. We need to understand the
• 26:19
  positions. We need to be not surprised by
• 26:22
  the position that the Pope will hold.
• 26:24
  So I think we should expect that there will not be a 2 day
• 26:29
  conclave and I think it it is likely that it will be a
• 26:34
  surprising result. What do you think about Cardinal
• 26:38
  Sarah? I think that he has a tremendous
• 26:43
  deal to share with the WI. Love his spiritual insights.
• 26:47
  I think he's an incredible man. I have also heard that it will
• 26:53
  be very unlikely for his pontificate to get off the
• 26:56
  ground. There have been rumors that
• 27:00
  French politicians are inserting themselves and in trying to
• 27:04
  dissuade candidates from voting for him.
• 27:07
  Whether or not that those outside influences ever matters
• 27:11
  is always up for grabs, but there's no doubt that he's a
• 27:17
  wise man. His book on silence is
• 27:19
  phenomenal, and certainly he has a lot to say to the West about
• 27:23
  the spiritual crisis that it's in.
• 27:25
  But why? Why would French politicians be
• 27:27
  campaigning against him? Because I think he represents a
• 27:32
  a view that is very controversial in their eyes.
• 27:39
  What he says is the West has to recover its roots and those
• 27:43
  roots are Christian. And if we look at his positions,
• 27:49
  they are in defiance of where mainstream French politicians
• 27:54
  find. Themselves.
• 27:57
  OK, well, I can't say that it made my impression of French
• 28:02
  politicians any worse than it already was.
• 28:06
  Earlier you alluded to the abdication retirement, I don't
• 28:10
  know what you call it, of Pope Benedict the 16th.
• 28:12
  Why? Why do you think that he stepped
• 28:14
  down from office? Well, I, I think certainly we
• 28:20
  can take him at his word that he didn't feel as though he could
• 28:24
  continue the office in, in the way that it needed to be
• 28:28
  shepherded and LED. It does require a tremendous
• 28:32
  amount of strength. If you've read his biography,
• 28:35
  you know that since one of his visits to Mexico, he was
• 28:39
  essentially cursed with insomnia, the ability to, to
• 28:45
  perform day in and day out when you cannot sleep, the amount of
• 28:49
  stress and the weight. I mean, there is a reason that
• 28:52
  the, the Chapel of Tears is the 1st place that the cardinal who
• 28:56
  says Ecepto goes to is, is named that.
• 29:01
  I mean, it's, it's a weighty office.
• 29:03
  It's, it's something that requires tremendous strength,
• 29:07
  tremendous vitality and a psychological resilience that
• 29:13
  becomes more and more difficult with age.
• 29:16
  So I think he saw that he, that reform was needed in the Curia.
• 29:20
  I think that he saw, you know, that his own health was
• 29:24
  deteriorating significantly. And I think he thought that
• 29:28
  according to his own representations, that someone
• 29:32
  else could do this with more strength and gusto than he.
• 29:37
  Yeah, I had similar impression. What?
• 29:39
  What kind of reform would be needed in the carrier?
• 29:44
  Well, there's a lot of financial corruption.
• 29:47
  We've mentioned the financial crisis that's happened.
• 29:52
  The Vatican is I think a $90,000,000 deficit in the last
• 29:59
  year or so, if I'm not mistaken. And you know, when people,
• 30:06
  apartments and other real estate have been seized from people who
• 30:13
  work in the Kiria in order to to farm those out in order to get
• 30:16
  rent and what not, people begin to look for other ways of, of
• 30:21
  funding their lifestyle. And I think that that's been a
• 30:24
  difficulty. I think that certainly, you
• 30:30
  know, the oversight that's needed for that.
• 30:32
  Cardinal Pell attempted to ring warning bells around the
• 30:37
  financial situation of the Vatican.
• 30:40
  And they took him out. I.
• 30:43
  Don't think you can say that the man died under a surgery under
• 30:48
  under a the knife of a surgeon, not necessarily the knife.
• 30:51
  Well, they put him in jail, I mean.
• 30:53
  Well, OK, all right, they did. That's true.
• 30:57
  The, the, the jailing there was was highly significant to his
• 31:02
  health and a very unfortunate circumstance.
• 31:06
  So I think that the, the question also too of, of how
• 31:12
  long it takes to develop competencies in order to, to run
• 31:18
  these offices in a, in a very professional way is, is
• 31:22
  important. You know, if there, if there
• 31:25
  does need to be a, a certain reignition of the zeal of the
• 31:28
  faith and, and charity and principles like that, the
• 31:34
  living, the outward living of the faith of, of Kira members
• 31:37
  needs to be examined or looked at.
• 31:40
  Then I think that takes a. It takes a long time to find to
• 31:46
  find zeal, and it takes a long time to find competent people.
• 31:51
  So to create one or or to find one is is no small task.
• 31:57
  Is there any cardinal who's emphasizing curial change and
• 32:01
  cleansing? Yes, a number of them are not
• 32:05
  necessarily curial change, but this is the reason that most of
• 32:09
  the Cardinals are saying he has to speak Italian.
• 32:13
  There's also a difficulty right now that's been left behind by
• 32:16
  the Francis pontificate in that the governance of the Church has
• 32:19
  really suffered. Canon law is contradictory and
• 32:24
  confusing with some of the the most proper bureaus of the Pope.
• 32:28
  And so there have been a number of of acts that were just pen
• 32:34
  and paper by Pope Francis that contradicted governance styles.
• 32:38
  And so, you know, part of the reform of the curious.
• 32:41
  OK, So what is the system that we will be using?
• 32:44
  What takes precedence here? You know, are lay people allowed
• 32:48
  to lead dicasteries? That's a question that's been
• 32:51
  raised in the general congregations.
• 32:54
  You know, is there a a place reserved for holy orders?
• 32:59
  You know, some of the the move towards synodality has left
• 33:03
  unemphasized collegiality. You know, sentence traditionally
• 33:08
  were sentence of bishops. And so you know, the the move
• 33:13
  toward a Senate that allowed voting lay members.
• 33:16
  It's created a lot of confusion, and a lot of these questions and
• 33:20
  governance ultimately have to be solved so that Kyria members
• 33:25
  know how to act and how to respond in certain situations.
• 33:28
  Right now this is kind of anyone's answer.
• 33:33
  Well I hope there is a cleansing, but if there isn't,
• 33:36
  the Holy Spirit will keep this ship going.
• 33:38
  So there's hope either way. Johan, you're so funny.
• 33:41
  I hear so many people say, wow, just the Holy Spirit will take
• 33:44
  care of us. And yes, he will.
• 33:47
  But the Holy Spirit can knock and be rejected each of us.
• 33:51
  Yeah, exactly. Listen, and you know, I mean,
• 33:53
  there are there have been situations that have called for
• 33:56
  true Saints. You know, I mean, the Holy
• 33:59
  Spirit took care of us during the Avignon papacy, but I'm
• 34:03
  pretty sure the Holy Spirit was not OK with the Avignon papacy.
• 34:07
  So I definitely think that that we should have a very sober view
• 34:12
  of of what potentially could be happening in Rome as needing
• 34:18
  real reform. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
• 34:22
  That's why I phrased it as we'll keep the ship going.
• 34:25
  It's not, it's not necessarily that we're going to be going on
• 34:27
  smooth seas, but the ship will keep going.
• 34:29
  So, yeah. And in terms of need for reform,
• 34:32
  I think that's been there pretty much since since the earliest
• 34:35
  centuries. So I don't see it.
• 34:38
  I don't see it changing, frankly, if there's as long as
• 34:40
  there's as long as human nature is still afoot.
• 34:44
  Yes, yes, the the old adage the Church is always in need of
• 34:48
  reform, Ecclesias Formada is true.
• 34:51
  And that we we are many instantiations of the Church
• 34:56
  ourselves, right? Exactly.
• 34:59
  Well said. So also also continuously in
• 35:03
  need of reform. Yeah, well, well said.
• 35:07
  Kelsey. Is there anything you'd like to
• 35:08
  share with us? Yeah, you're so well informed
• 35:11
  yourself, so I appreciate it. What would I like to share with
• 35:16
  you? Well, I do think certainly
• 35:21
  there's, there's a lot to be hopeful and I always love to end
• 35:24
  on the idea of hope because it's, it's just so foundational
• 35:31
  to our faith. You know, hope isn't hope if
• 35:34
  it's seen. And, and certainly there's a lot
• 35:37
  of places where the church is active, the church is being
• 35:41
  martyred, the church is being faithful.
• 35:43
  And, and each and every day, no matter what happens in Rome, we
• 35:48
  can be participating in our sanctification through
• 35:51
  attendance and Mass and confession, frequent confession
• 35:56
  and, yeah, just renewing our vows, whatever those may be, as
• 36:00
  religious or priests or as married persons striving to
• 36:04
  live, you know, charity every day.
• 36:08
  So that would be my message. Beautiful.
• 36:13
  Thank you for that. And I'll just throw out a
• 36:14
  comment too. I think it's important that
• 36:17
  people realize that it's a huge mistake to put your trust in
• 36:22
  human beings ultimately, and our hope is in the name of the Lord.
• 36:26
  So I think that's important when we talk about church scandals
• 36:28
  and so forth, which will always be there.
• 36:31
  So no matter what, no matter who is the visible head of the
• 36:35
  church on earth, it's not going to be perfect.
• 36:39
  And that's not where our hope lies.
• 36:41
  So. There's there's certainly is a
• 36:43
  beauty to this office. Strengthen your brethren.
• 36:47
  The call of the Papacy, the call of unity within the papacy, and
• 36:52
  the respect due to the office is is unparalleled in Catholic
• 36:56
  life. And yet God has provided for the
• 36:58
  means of ordinary sanctification for every person.
• 37:02
  So we have to, I agree with you, we have to take advantage of
• 37:06
  those. Exactly.
• 37:08
  Well, I wish I could speak as refined as you do so well, thank
• 37:15
  you very much, Kelsey, and keep up the great work.
• 37:17
  Thank you, Johan. Appreciate it.