Latest / The Catholic Current / A Second Look at Pope Leo’s First Encyclical (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 6/12/26

Transcript

A Second Look at Pope Leo’s First Encyclical (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 6/12/26 · The Catholic Current

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This is The Catholic Current with Fr. Robert McTague.
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We've gotten to the point, which is kind of absurd, it's like a Marx Brothers movie,
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where you say synodality is the central characteristic of the church, synodality is experienced at
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synods.
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The next synod is canceled, because it's not sufficient to express synodality.
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We invent a new thing called ecclesial assemblies.
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Wait a minute, are we in a Lego land where we get to tear the castle down and then build
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a firehouse and say it's a castle?
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I mean, this is crazy.
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Praised be Jesus Christ, this is Fr. Robert McTague of The Society of Jesus, your daily
0:38
host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
0:42
You're listening to us from the station of La Crosse Studios, your local radio station
0:45
and the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity
0:50
and charity.
0:51
As always, let's start with prayer.
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Name of the Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, Almighty God, through the intercession of
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St. Ignatius of Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit of
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discernment that might hear your voice and obey your command.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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Here we are, Friday in The Catholic Current, and you know what that means.
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Let's talk about this.
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We're walking through a complex issue together.
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I'm taking a second look at Pope Leo's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which
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is ostensibly, putatively, supposedly about artificial intelligence.
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It's kind of a recapitulation, a summation, a rehashing of the church's social doctrine.
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And it also seems to be a grab bag, a potpourri, a piñata of just lots of different topics.
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And there are very many ways of approaching this, and we can go through it line by line,
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which means we'd be here for days, and I would not impose upon Engineer James that
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way because I hear that he has a life on some days, so we're not going to keep him here
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for the next 38 hours.
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I want to approach this as a professor, as someone who has written and evaluating writing
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for most of his adult life.
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I want to do this as a philosopher and a theologian, as a priest and religious, and as a broadcaster.
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And so bottom line up front, the question is, is Magnifica Humanitas, is this really
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the encyclical that we needed?
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And my humble opinion, the short answer is no.
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Now it's true, you can find true and good things in this encyclical.
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It's also true that there are some real head scratchers, and there's a whole lot of, well,
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if you stand on one foot and tilt your head and close one eye and turn to north by northwest,
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then you can see that looking beyond the words, what the Pope really meant was, we can do
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that, and we have a lot of experience of doing that in recent years, at least since the resignation
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of Pope Benedict.
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I want to begin to do something different.
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I want to make some initial comments about what the avoidable limitations of this encyclical
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were, and then offer an outline, a sketch, a proposal of the encyclical that we did need.
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Or better said, if we were going to have an upgrade, if this is just the beta test version
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and we're going to have Magnifico Humanitas 2.0, I want to propose some indispensable
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ingredients, and there's a bunch that I just want swept into the dustbin of history.
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There is a sub-stack that was brought to my attention by a young friend recently, and
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it's called The Literate Woman, that's the name of the sub-stack, we're going to link
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to it in the show notes.
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And a couple things that she had pointed out, someone had done a study on the average number
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of words per encyclical in each pontificate, using the English text, from Leo XIII to Pope
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Francis, and starting with Leo XIII, who wrote a lot of encyclicals, I think it was 84, 88,
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his average encyclical was under 3,700 words.
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We jump ahead to Francis, and the average is almost 34,000 words.
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And then the most recent encyclical is 42,000 words.
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I will say this much, my master's thesis in systematic theology was only 15,000 words.
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So there it is.
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And why does this happen?
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Why does this happen?
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Well, both Fulton Sheen and Mark Twain, accomplished communicators, the two of them, make various
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jokes that if I had more time I would have written a shorter piece.
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It takes a lot more preparation to speak succinctly, to speak with discipline.
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I mean, anyone can just show up and just kind of wing it, and just kind of ramble.
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That takes no discipline, it doesn't take a lot of preparation, it doesn't take a lot
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of skill, and honestly, it doesn't do people much good.
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Now when I was teaching rhetoric, and then when I was teaching homiletics, I'd ask the
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seminarians, do you go to the pulpit because you have something to say, or because you
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have to say something?
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Now, as someone who spent a lot of years sitting in the pews, I noticed that very often it
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seemed that father or deacon would go to the pulpit just because that was what was on the
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menu.
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That's just what you did.
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They really didn't have anything to say, they just kind of started, and they continued,
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and they stopped.
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And I mention that because I once was at a university cocktail party, and a university
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president said to his colleagues, Father McTague's sermons are really distinctive, they have
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a beginning, a middle, and an end.
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And I said, you know what, that doesn't happen by accident.
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And in my book on preaching, here is my formula for preaching.
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Good preaching is like mortal sin.
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Both require grave matter, sufficient reflection, and full consent of the will.
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Neither happens by accident.
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Let me add to that something that I would tell my students, which a professor told me
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when I was a junior in college.
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He said if you can think it, you can say it, and if you can say it, you can write it.
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And the real acid test for whether or not you understand something is whether or not
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you can write it clearly.
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Now I would tell my students, you want to avoid what I would call the raisin bran approach
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to writing an essay.
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Do you remember the TV commercial for raisin bran cereal, where the distinctive feature
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was the raisins rather than the bran?
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He said, we put two big scoops of raisins into every box.
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Well, okay.
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Well, if you just take two big scoops of philosophy words and dump them on the page, you haven't
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written a philosophy essay.
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And if you take six big scoops of theological words and dump them on the page, you haven't
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written an encyclical.
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I also know, too, that beginning speakers focus on what do I want to say, what do I
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want to say, what do I want to say.
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And that's the work of an amateur, that's the work of a beginner.
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You always start instead with who is my audience, what can they hear, what can they understand,
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what can they remember?
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And if you're really good, you'll ask, what do they need?
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And in that small space, then you ask yourself, what do I want to say?
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Now this was, I don't object to popes and cardinals and bishops having ghostwriters.
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I understand that a Roman document may have had the help of committees.
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But someone needs to be the editor-in-chief and begin to reconcile these things and realize
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that some of what was added to this document was undisciplined, it was gratuitous.
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I mean, did we really need to have another apologia for slavery?
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Which reminds me, I want to let Mr. Engineer know in the break that I have a book that
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I want to add as a resource that gives the real history of the church and slavery.
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And the church actually did a better job than what this document would suggest.
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You know, do we really need to quote Gandalf?
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Do we really need to make hagiographical references to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela
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and Benazir Bhutto?
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You know, and then references to the climate and et cetera, et cetera.
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And you know, women treated as minorities.
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This was self-indulgent.
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This was self-indulgent and it was undisciplined.
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And candidly, people are busy, people are distracted, people are stressed.
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So one of the ways that you win an audience over in person, on video, via audio, and in
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writing is you respect the limitations on their time and their attention.
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So you give a message that is taught, that is T-A-U-T, that is taught, that is clear,
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that is rigorous, that is memorable, and that is actionable.
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And having read through this document, I hope there's a plenary indulgence available
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for that, but having read through this document, the only action that seems to be called for
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that I can really notice is dialogue.
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Apparently, we just need to talk more and more and more and more.
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And oh, and maybe some encountering and some accompaniment as well.
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Does this sound flippant?
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Yeah, it sure does, but I think this is an indication of my exasperation.
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I think we needed something different from what we've got.
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We'll talk about that more in the next segment.
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I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
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On this Friday, we're taking a second look at the first encyclical by Pope Leo XIV called
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Magnifica Humanitas, which is supposedly about artificial intelligence.
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It's about a lot of things, honestly.
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I think it's about too many things, and I made a reference to a substack called The
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Literate Woman, which I have enjoyed reading and is worth a look, and she says this.
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She says, gosh, this is a document that was obviously written by a boomer.
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Pope Leo is 70, so he qualifies as a boomer.
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I'm almost 65, so I'm at the very tail end of the boomer generation.
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And she says that people of that age group see technology and artificial intelligence
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and social media as morally neutral tools that can be used for good or for ill.
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But if you talk to people from Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they'll say, oh my gosh, no, this has
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been a nightmare for us.
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We grew up with this.
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We don't remember a time without it.
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We're defined by it.
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I've had a number of Zoomers, Gen Z folks, in their early to mid-20s, say, Father, I
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wish that I wake up one morning and everyone's iPhone didn't work and we could just get back
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to having normal lives the way that we used to.
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So this woman had urged, or had wished, that Pope Leo had taken kind of a sterner approach
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to artificial intelligence and technology.
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Now I say this, and I'm sitting in a small room surrounded by miles of cable and microphones
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and lights and cameras and so on.
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So I certainly use technology.
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That's a very Jesuit thing to do.
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I mean, we've been there since the printing press and beyond, early adapters of radio
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and the like.
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I do believe these can be morally neutral tools.
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I also believe that our capacity for technological innovation very often, all too often, outpaces
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our capacity for and commitment to moral reflection and moral examination.
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Now I had mentioned last Friday that the encyclical mentions the Tower of Babel, and I had some
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issue with how the Tower of Babel image was used.
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I'll say this much.
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I've been reading and thinking and talking with people, and there's kind of a consensus
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view that I found.
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The first was that the Tower of Babel was built by people who wanted cohesion.
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They wanted integration.
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They wanted a singularity of purpose, but they wanted that without any reference to
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the mandate of God.
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So rather than answering the call of God written in our bodies and our souls and natural law,
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rather than answering the call of the Decalogue and the deposit of faith, which Christ entrusted
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to the church he founded and which was meant for the whole world, we want to have the human
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projects succeed without reference to God.
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And the new Tower of Babel, according to the people that I've spoken with, is being built
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by people who say they want peace, but they want peace through dialogue.
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They want peace by means of self-generated goodwill, and they want peace without any
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reference to the kingship of Christ.
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Now often this document links peace and justice, which is true.
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That's biblical.
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Paul VI said if you want peace, work for justice.
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Peace is not only the absence of people shooting at each other.
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St. Augustine said peace is the tranquility of order, and right order is the opposite
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of chaos.
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Now let me help you with this.
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Right order comes only from the Logos, the eternal word of the Father, the second person
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of the Holy Trinity, Christ the King.
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So all this talk about peace and justice and the civilization of love, it doesn't happen
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by dialogue alone.
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It can't because we're finite and we're sinners and we're tainted by original sin.
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And we end up dashing ourselves against the cornerstone that we have rejected if we don't
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deliberately and consciously and vocally choose to build on Christ the Rock.
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And there's lots of talk about human dignity, which I would certainly agree with, but there's
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no, I couldn't find very much linking human dignity with baptism because baptism restores
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what was lost through original sin.
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We're not the beings God intended us to be, and the principal way of beginning to correct
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that is through baptism.
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There's lots of talk about fraternity.
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Okay, fine, and we're all going to get along, but apparently the way we get along is through,
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wait for it, dialogue, and somewhere in the background is the United Nations as everybody's
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best friend.
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I'm going to pitch a crazy idea here that human fraternity is best served by membership
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within the church Christ founded.
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There we are.
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That's the basis of fraternity.
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And there's lots of talk about global order in all of this, because for sure the world
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is a chaotic and crazy place, and people do stupid and foolish things, large and small,
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but you really can't have nations and right relationship with each other without conversion
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to Christ, without conversion to Christ.
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And part of what concerns me, and I've been talking about this for decades, the modern
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mindset can't acknowledge intractable evil.
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The modern mindset can't deal with stubborn, willful, unreasonable, irrational, committed,
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purposeful evil.
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Because the universal solution to everything, according to this document, and according
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to many documents and conversations I've encountered over the years, is if we just
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dialogue and dialogue and dialogue, then by human reason alone and human effort alone,
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we will come to a meeting of minds and hearts, and it turns out that what we were looking
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for was within us and between us all along, as if we were living in a Disney movie and
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not in a fallen world.
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And what I believe firmly, and I believe it so much that I pledged service to Christ the
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King within the Society of Jesus, and asked the church to ordain me a deacon and then
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a priest, I believe the only solution, the only solution, the only solution to intractable
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evil is Christ crucified, the shedding of his precious blood, Ave Crux Spes Unica, Hail
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to the Cross, our only hope.
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And what I haven't seen clearly in this encyclical is comparable to what I haven't seen clearly
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in all the statements and documents and study group pronouncements from the synods on synodality
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and all things synodal, is the preaching of Christ crucified, turning to Christ crucified
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and risen and reigning with a spirit of contrition and with a desire for worship.
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If it's there, you gotta help me, because I don't see it.
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You can write me at thestationofthecross.com slash askfather if you think I'm wrong about
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this.
23:08
I also think that, and we'll talk about this more in the next segment, that the place of
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man on the world stage is, it's not quite right.
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It's not quite right.
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It seems, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in this document, whoever is responsible
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for writing it, and I think it was Kemetes, see man as the star of the show.
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And I find that hard to square with Christian tradition.
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The initiator, the primary agent, is the provident creating wise and good God.
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And man is meant to be responsive to God Almighty, answering the call of the Father.
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And because we abused our freedom and betrayed our Creator, we're in an insoluble dilemma
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unless there is divine intervention in the form of the Word made flesh.
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Son of God becomes Son of Mary, becomes Savior.
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And those fundamentals decide absolutely everything, but ultimately each man, all men,
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and especially the church, are meant to draw attention to Christ.
24:58
And we're not meant to draw attention to ourselves.
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We are not the main character in this story.
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Yes, we have agency, yes, we have purpose, yes, we have dignity, but none of that makes
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sense if we're not constantly, deliberately, consciously, and gladly pointing to Christ.
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In the next segment, I'll talk a little bit more about how we might be able to do better.
25:31
I'm Jeshua Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of the Catholic Current.
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After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audios
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We're talking about a second look at Pope Leo's first encyclical regarding humanity
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and artificial intelligence and lots and lots of other things.
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I want to draw your attention to paragraph 237.
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Read just a few sentences.
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Let us remain faithful to the truth.
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Living amid incessant flows of information, opinions, and images, we know how easy it
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can be to influence decisions and preferences through increasingly sophisticated algorithms.
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That's certainly true, and as a philosopher and a theologian, I'm very keen on remaining
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faithful to the truth.
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The document goes on, in this context, it is imperative to cultivate hearts that love
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the truth, prefer what is right despite the most appealing content, and pursue wisdom
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rather than immediate results.
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Yes, I do not argue with any of that.
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It goes on to say, we must always keep before us the truth about God and humanity just as
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Christ has revealed them to us.
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Yes, I can sign my name to all of that.
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Here's my problem with it.
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I'm not convinced that the people who wrote that actually believe it.
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Now why do I say that?
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I have a hunch, I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to believe that the committee,
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the group that wrote those sentences from paragraph 237 are also enthusiasts about synodality
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and the synod on synodality and the pronouncements of document number nine and would applaud
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and nod knowingly and agreeably whenever someone, including Pope Leo, says no one has a monopoly
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on the truth and theology can't be formulas and we have to be a listening church now and
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even be willing to revise what the church has always taught because of the testimony
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of the lived experience of whomever the synodalist happened to be listening to at any given moment
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and then call that the work of the Spirit.
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So on the one hand, we're told that it is imperative to cultivate hearts that love the
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truth, prefer what is right, and we must always keep before us the truth about God and humanity
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just as Christ has revealed them to us and at the same time, there is nothing, if the
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synodalists are to be believed as I understand them, there is nothing in Catholic dogma that
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is not subject to negotiation.
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There's nothing that can't be dialogued or synodaled away.
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There's nothing that can't be rewritten in light of lived experience.
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Let me tell you a story.
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When I was a young Jesuit, before I was ordained, I was at a meeting of other young Jesuits
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getting ready for ordination and there was a Jesuit there who had been ordained a year
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and he had said that one of the things he learned as a new priest was that he had to
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apologize so often for being a man and a cleric and he did that willingly and with humility
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and gladness and et cetera, et cetera.
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So I said, well, who's asking you to do this?
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And he said, well, you know, it's mostly women and well, why are they doing that?
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Well, the other question I had was, well, what kind of women are you hanging out with?
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Well, because, you know, their lived experience and their pain and they're not able to be
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ordained yet, clericalism, et cetera, et cetera.
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And I said, now suppose I told you, contrary to fact, that I was raised by my older sister.
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So I don't have an older sister, so this is purely hypothetical.
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But supposing I told you that I was raised by my older sister who beat me every day without
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mercy until I ran away from home at the age of 16.
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And then as a result of my lived experience, I have an animosity towards women.
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What would you say to me?
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Well, I'd want you to grow and I'd want you to move, put your experience behind and move
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beyond.
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And I said, well, wait a minute.
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Why is it that my lived experience is negotiable, but you hand over dogma and doctrine to a
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group of unhappy women who invoke lived experience?
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Why does their lived experience give them the crown jewels of the church and my lived
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experience tells me I have to grow up and change and get over it?
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I got a blank stare.
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And for a number of years, I wanted to hand out t-shirts that said, no more blank stares
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or maybe just wear that t-shirt myself.
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So the synodalists who are the absolute devotees of dialogue, and my goodness, the number of
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times dialogue is mentioned in this document is beyond counting.
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I'd use AI to count it, but that might be ironic.
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Why is it that the champions of dialogue who want to listen to everyone, including those
33:19
who don't acknowledge Christ, why are they also making this appeal to truth?
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And why are they making this appeal to, we must keep before us the truth about God and
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humanity just as Christ revealed them to us?
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I said, oh my gosh, if only, if only, let's do that, but I don't think we are.
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So I think that there are contradictions in this document.
33:56
There are some things that were not well thought out.
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I really wonder who was in charge.
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I understand sometimes documents are written by committees and so on, but there has to
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be an editor-in-chief that harmonizes things.
34:13
But what we have here is this grab bag of, oh, yeah, we got to talk about social doctrine,
34:20
okay, and we got to talk about AI, okay, and we got to talk about war, and we got to talk
34:24
about slavery, and we got to talk about wisdom, and not really do much justice to any of them.
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So, all right, Father, what do you recommend?
34:36
Well, I think that we do need a document about artificial intelligence.
34:43
And you know what?
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I'm a humanities major.
34:45
I've, you know, maybe 43 years ago, I wrote a few lines of code in BASIC on an AT&T desktop
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that had a two megabyte hard drive.
34:55
So what I say about computer science has to be obviously very, very modest.
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And I accept that.
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I accept that I own that.
35:03
And I do believe that artificial intelligence is a tool.
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It's an unusually powerful tool.
35:11
And it's a potentially seductive tool.
35:16
And it's an unreliable tool.
35:18
You know, back when we were on the air during the papal conclave, and I said, hey, let's
35:26
see what AI has to say about some papal trivia that I can mention while I'm waiting for the
35:31
election of the pope, and I had asked the question, you know, how many popes came from
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which countries?
35:38
And, of course, the vast majority of popes come from Italy.
35:44
Country number two is France.
35:48
And then you get to the bottom and it says, and four popes from Latin America.
35:52
Well, that's simply not true, and we all know that.
35:56
But if I were some high school kid who was lazy and didn't know any better, I'd just
36:00
say, but there were four popes from Latin America.
36:02
So, all right, we need to acknowledge all those things.
36:06
But I think what's prior to that is whatever man sets his hand to, he's likely to misuse
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it because he's fallen.
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And his fallenness, if not remedied, will lead to misery in this life and horror in
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the next.
36:33
And the only remedy, the only remedy, the only remedy to misery in this life and horror
36:42
in the next is the kingship of Christ crucified in his shed blood.
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That's it.
36:51
And any good thing we want to say about human aspiration and dignity and plans and work
36:59
and fraternity and justice and peace and puppies, et cetera, it all goes downhill.
37:07
It all goes sideways.
37:10
It falls short of what it could and should be unless and until we're all, all, all converted
37:22
to Christ.
37:25
And we've always known this, in terms of the deposit of faith, we've always known this.
37:33
And whether the technology is a printing press or a steam engine or a nuclear reactor
37:41
or a modem or a fountain pen or a supercomputer, given enough time, a fallen man will do dangerous
37:53
and stupid and destructive things that are unworthy of his human dignity and worthy of
37:58
the dignity of his neighbor and offend God Almighty.
38:02
I would like to see us live in a manner unlike that, where we use our tools to imitate and
38:14
share in the creative work of God and express our gratitude for our intelligence and our
38:21
cerebral cortex and our opposable thumb by working together with good tools.
38:29
I would like to see all of that happen.
38:32
And every now and again, there have been flashes of that, you know, even in pagan culture.
38:38
You know, there's a lot of Roman roads that still work.
38:42
There's a lot of Greek philosophy that's still great.
38:46
And yet, there's more to it than that.
38:49
There can be and there should be so much more to that.
38:53
Because what human life is meant to do, and that includes what we do with our tools, is
39:00
make a glad return to the Lord for all that he has done for us.
39:07
And you know, you've heard me say this before on the air, and I've mentioned it many times
39:11
from the pulpit, it is a matter of fundamental justice to offer the Creator and God thanks
39:18
and praise simply for creating us.
39:22
And it is necessary for us to worship the living God who saved us from ourselves.
39:29
And the best we can say on our best day to God Almighty is, imperfectly, I offer you
39:36
my imperfect love.
39:38
And as individuals and communities and nations and tool makers, we can say to God Almighty,
39:44
imperfectly, I offer you my imperfect gratitude.
39:49
And God, who must always be honest, will say, rightly, thank you very much, that's not good
39:55
enough.
39:57
All that you do, and all that you offer, must be united to the person and sacrifice
40:05
of Christ crucified, and his victory and his resurrection.
40:10
And unless and until we are adamant about that, then our documents are a waste of time.
40:23
I'll say that.
40:26
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host every day, The Catholic Current, and you want
40:29
to stay with us for the rest of the hour.
40:31
Coming up next, Weekend Readiness, you and me reviewing the headlines of the week in
40:34
light of the upcoming Sunday Scriptures, so we all prayed up for Sunday Mass.
40:38
Be part of the conversation, follow what we're following by following us on Gab, that's G-A-B.com,
40:46
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You can contact us at thestationofthecross.com slash askfather.
40:53
Comments, questions, suggestions, recommendations, we want to hear from you.
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Let's do this good work together.
40:59
We can do it with you, we cannot do it without you.
41:02
Be back in just two minutes, please do stay with us.
41:23
Have a question or feedback about today's episode?
41:34
Want to suggest a guest or a future topic?
41:37
Go to thestationofthecross.com slash askfather and help influence the conversation.
41:50
Please be Jesus Christ.
41:51
This is Fr.
41:52
Robert McTigge of The Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic Current, where
41:56
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41:58
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42:07
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42:13
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42:21
Support us please at thestationofthecross.com.
42:24
Here we are, the last segment of our Friday.
42:26
You know what that means?
42:27
Weekend readiness, you and me reviewing the headlines of the week in light of the upcoming
42:30
Sunday Scriptures, so we all prayed up for Sunday Mass.
42:33
You're listening to this on June 12th, however, I am recording this on not June 12th.
42:40
We had some scheduled juggling to do, so there may be something very dramatic that happened
42:47
on June 11th or June 12th that I'm not speaking of, only because it hasn't happened yet.
42:52
So I'm going to make some more generic observations.
42:54
As I record this, the city of Los Angeles is still counting ballots for its mayoral
43:02
election.
43:03
The Republican candidate who had a lead now looks like he's going to get knocked out
43:08
of the running.
43:09
Isn't that interesting?
43:12
The nation of India, which is a really big place and has 660 million people, which is
43:18
the largest democracy in the world, they're able to count their ballots for the whole
43:24
country in one day, and California can't seem to manage it in a matter of weeks.
43:33
Not to mention they're absolutely committed to, you don't need ID, you don't need to have
43:37
signatures, you don't have to be a partisan to say that there's a lot of shenanigans going
43:45
on in California voting, and I think it's one of the reasons why people are moving out.
43:51
Pope Leo is in Madrid for World Youth Day, which is, I think, a confabulation that needs
43:57
to be discontinued, and I was disheartened to see, given my age, that there was a Spanish
44:04
production of at least highlights of the Broadway musical Godspell being performed
44:10
for the Holy Father.
44:12
Godspell, for those of you who weren't treated to that, my goodness, it is the zenith, the
44:23
apogee, the that-then-which-there-is-no-witcher of 1970s Christianity, with our Lord as basically
44:34
a clown, and my goodness does it appeal to adolescent enthusiasms, and I say this as
44:40
I beat my breast, because when I was in high school in the 70s, I saw Godspell on Broadway
44:48
three times.
44:51
And so the thought of this being revived, it's just pretty appalling, disappointing.
44:58
Maybe appalling is too strong a word.
45:02
And Israelis and Hezbollah are shooting at each other, Israelis and Houthis are shooting
45:08
at each other, Israelis and Iranians are shooting at each other, Russians and Ukrainians are
45:12
shooting at each other, and on and on it goes.
45:17
And what does the scriptures have to say about that?
45:21
Well, if you're following the Novus Ordo calendar of the Pauline Rite, we're in the 11th Sunday
45:28
of Ordinary Time, yes, Easter and Pentecost are behind us, and we're now in the time of
45:34
the high poetry of Ordinary Time.
45:38
We're looking at Lectionary 91.
45:43
And I want to focus on the Gospel, in particular Matthew chapter 9, starting verse 36, it begins
45:55
with this,
45:56
At the sight of the crowds, Jesus' heart was moved with pity for them, because they were
46:01
troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.
46:07
So our Lord really does have compassion for us.
46:12
He does suffer with us.
46:16
And I think, let me rephrase that, could we say that even now the sheep look up and are not fed?
46:28
Our Lord says to His disciples,
46:30
The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.
46:34
So ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.
46:40
This weekend, I attended the final profession of Religious Sister, and the very good bishop
46:45
gave a very good homily at the Mass.
46:48
He said when he was a new bishop, he was told,
46:50
Well, the age of religious life is over, it's the age of the laity now, because reasons,
46:55
blah, blah, blah.
46:56
And afterwards, the bishop and I were seated next to each other at the reception, I said,
47:01
Bishop, my perception is that all those years ago when people were gushing about it's the
47:06
age of the laity now, that was primarily said by religious who weren't able to get
47:10
vocations anymore, and he agreed with me.
47:14
So every member of the body of Christ has a work to do.
47:20
Every single one.
47:23
And I think it is in the nature of the church to have consecrated souls.
47:28
Certainly, it is Christ's plan that the church is hierarchical.
47:35
From the Greek word it is hiros arke, which means holy order.
47:41
And it is the role of the clergy to teach, to sanctify, and to govern.
47:47
And it can't be Christ's church without that.
47:51
Now, to live faithfully as a married person, to live faithfully as a consecrated religious,
47:59
to live faithfully as a member of the clergy, indeed to live faithfully as a disciple in
48:05
any form, requires conversion, and it requires generosity, and it requires grace.
48:14
It demands sacrifice.
48:18
And so everyone's contribution is needed in different ways because we're members of the
48:25
body and we're differentiated.
48:28
And he calls the twelve apostles, gives them authority over unclean spirits, and he calls
48:36
them by name.
48:40
And I think this is something that's really important.
48:43
I think it would be tragic if we had a view that discipleship is something kind of generic,
48:52
and it's something that we choose for ourselves.
48:57
And I think the disciples who persevere and who are fruitful are those who know that they
49:06
are called by name, that God has given them a purpose, has given them a mission, and he
49:13
calls them by name because he loves them.
49:18
And someday I'll have to talk more about how to recognize that you have been called by name.
49:26
And he says, without cost you have received, without cost you are to give.
49:32
Here's the moral of the story for us.
49:35
Christ wants to continue his work in the world, and one of the ways he does that is through
49:43
the individual work of the members of his church, and that includes you and me, regardless
49:52
of our state in life.
49:54
So with all this talk about human dignity, I can't think of anything more dignified than
50:01
sharing in the work of Christ, to die and rise with him for the life of the world that
50:10
gives us a good reason to live and a good reason to die, and these are things that the
50:14
world cannot imitate, cannot match, and cannot take away.
50:21
My friends, there is nothing greater than to be a disciple of Christ.
50:26
May God's holy name be praised now and forever.
50:29
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
50:33
Join us on Monday for another episode of The Catholic Current.
50:37
Great topic, great guest, great conversation.
50:39
That's what we do here at The Catholic Current, proclaiming the fullness of truth with clarity
50:43
and charity and a sense of urgency, because we want to be and must be so very much more
50:51
than being merely relevant.
50:54
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audio
51:00
podcast, everything you need to take this to your family and friends who give to you.
51:04
Together, let's take it around the world.
51:06
Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may mighty God bless you, Father,
51:10
Son, and Holy Spirit.
51:11
Go in peace and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.
51:21
Amen.