Latest / The Catholic Current / The Inconsistent Consistory Part II (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 1/30/26

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The Inconsistent Consistory Part II (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 1/30/26 · The Catholic Current

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This is The Catholic Current, with Fr. Robert Mittaig.
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We do have to recover the sense that the fathers had of the danger of being Christian, because
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it is a danger.
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This is a real struggle that we're facing today.
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It may not be persecution, but man, something's going on, and we better respond the way our
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fathers did.
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Well, yeah, and you know, because otherwise we become God's frozen people.
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And you know, I think of Nietzsche, who was a madman, but not a stupid man, and he said,
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I'd be more inclined to believe in the Savior if the Christians, if the Christians looked
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and sounded like they were saved.
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Praise be Jesus Christ.
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This is Fr.
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Robert Mittaig of The Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic Current, where
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we bring Christ to the world, and the world to Christ.
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You're listening to us from the station of The Crow Studios, your local radio station,
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the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
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As always, let's start with prayer.
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Name the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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As we go through the intercession of St. Ignatius, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit
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upon us, a spirit of 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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Hey, friends, it's the end of the week.
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It's Friday.
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You know what that means.
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Let's talk about this, you and me, walking through a complex issue together.
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You want to stay with us for the whole hour.
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We wrap up with weekend readiness, reviewing the headlines of the week in light of the
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upcoming Sunday Scriptures, so you'll be all prayed up for Sunday Mass.
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As promised, this is part two of my three-part reflection on the inconsistent consistory.
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There was a consistory of cardinals meeting to advise Pope Leo in Rome recently.
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The agenda was cut.
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Not a whole lot was done, but as the cardinals were going out the door, a number of documents
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were given to them, and one of them was from Cardinal Fernandez, the prefect of the DDF,
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the Caster for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it was about a reminder to reread Francis's
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document on preaching called Evangelii Gaudium.
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Well, okay, so the cardinals got homework, and there's a sentence in particular that
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concerned me right away, and I think that concern was vindicated, as I'll show you in
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a moment.
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Cardinal Fernandez tells his brother cardinals that, according to Francis, preaching, here
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I quote, is, is not about an obsessive proclamation of all the doctrines and norms of the church,
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although necessary and precious, but above all, the heart of the gospel, the kerygma,
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the beauty and saving love of God manifested in Jesus Christ, dead and risen.
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Well, okay, I'm going to try to get the save on this one, but I don't think I can.
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I'll tell you why in a moment.
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It is true that the proclamation of the gospel is neither exclusively nor entirely a proclamation
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of all the doctrines and the norms of the church, although somebody has to do that sometime.
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I find it unfortunate that he used the word obsessive proclamation.
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Does Father Cheerful at St. Typical's really have the reputation for being doctrinaire?
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Does he really have the reputation for being exclusively and obsessively didactic?
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Is he really renowned for turning all of his sermons into hideous academic lectures?
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I don't think so.
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Now, this is me trying to get the save and help out Cardinal Fernandez.
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Some years ago, I was concelebrating at an early morning mass, and it was the Solemnity
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of Christ the King, which is a solemnity that I love, and I noticed that there was a young
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family in the front pew, God bless them, and Mom was wrestling with a lot of toddlers
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and little kids, and Father Not Me was preaching, and he decided to take the Solemnity of Christ
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the King early morning mass with a pew full of youngsters in front of him to offer a 25-minute
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discourse on the finer distinctions between a personal ordinariate and a personal vicariate.
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Now, even if one were a canon lawyer attending a canon law conference, this would not be
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the stuff of inspiration and stimulation.
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And if the preponderance of the majority or even a representative sample of Catholic preaching
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was like that, and only like that, with refusals on the part of such preachers to preach only
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that, then I'd say, all right, your eminence, we've got to encourage some of these guys
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to get a grip, they've got to pull back.
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They're kind of missing the point of the distinctiveness of liturgical preaching.
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But as I said recently on the air, my concern for this statement is it begins to clear the
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ground for, I don't want to go so far as to say it's a policy, but clearing the ground
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for a habit, a practice of putting certain aspects of church's teaching kind of on the
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down low, being less enthusiastic about some of the more demanding aspects of revelation,
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especially to the degree that they are relevant to or consequent from the Sixth Commandment,
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you know what I mean?
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With the very young years I'm speaking, trying to speak in a very family-friendly way.
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Given all the other things he's said and done and published in fiduciary supplicants, etc.,
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I'm not ready to be completely disarmed and unguarded and naively and innocently expectant
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whenever Cardinal Fernandez makes a pronouncement.
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I'm just not.
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And I don't know that you should be either.
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So I want to offer you some vindication that I thought that this statement to the cardinals
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from a couple weeks ago was a preparation for something else.
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This week there was a plenary session for the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith,
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so basically kind of an all-hands-on-deck meeting, and his eminence as the prefect offered
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some reflections as they began their meetings.
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And he called it the Opening Meditation, and the title of his talk was called Do Not Ask
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for the Light, but the Fire, okay?
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Especially with the Northeast being hammered by cold weather, I understand the appeal of
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fire, you know, staying warm.
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We still need light, so we have to be careful.
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We have to be careful about this approach.
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So again, I believe that the statement to the cardinals was a preparatory move to clear
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the ground for a backpedaling of certain more difficult Catholic teachings and a way
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of relativizing the certain aspects of Catholic teaching and taking a false humility as a
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costume for a more insidious agnosticism.
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Let me just start with the first paragraph here before we get to the break.
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His eminence Cardinal Fernandez said, recently, while in prayer, I have felt a strong call
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to intellectual humility, recalling those ancient words, ubi humilitas ibi sapientia,
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where there is humility, there is wisdom.
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So I would like to begin our meeting in this context of prayer with an invitation to intellectual
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humility.
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Well, okay, fine, yeah.
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We don't want to claim more than we actually have warrant for, that's fine.
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And I'm going to ask Madam Producer to add to the show notes today, my recent sermon
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at St. Thomas on St. Thomas Aquinas, because there I say that Aquinas certainly had humility,
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but he also had audacity.
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He had a single-minded inclination to pursue the truth to the degree that he was able,
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and he had a single-hearted passion for truth, which was not a concept, but a person.
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So he loved the truth, and in humility he told the truth about the human ability to
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know the truth.
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And we can know very important things, one plus one equals two.
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We can know how to build a bridge that doesn't fall down.
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We can know for sure that we must do good and avoid evil.
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What I believe is Vatican I says, the preambles of the faith, human reason unaided can know
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with certainty that the soul is immortal and that God exists.
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And if you have those two things, you're off to the races.
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You're going to start seeing some very demanding things really soon.
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And this kind of awe, shocks, gosh, what do I know approach to theology and to teaching
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and to faith strikes me as disingenuous, and if I may be so bold, can at least be a precursor,
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or more gently, a facilitator of mischief.
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I want to go to the second paragraph, and I want to point out that in rhetoric and in
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logic there's an informal fallacy called the straw man, and the straw man is a set of claims
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or assertions or arguments that your opponent didn't make, and then you virtue signal by
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denouncing those things that your opponent didn't claim, but then attribute those to
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your opponent.
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So if you're running for office and say, I just think America's not ready to vote for
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a candidate who celebrates the strangulation of puppies, and okay, yeah, but who the heck
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was, but never mind, he's already kind of running down the races because he's got you
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all worked up now about someone running around wanting to strangle puppies.
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Here's the second paragraph, Cardinal Fernandez says this, he says, God has given human beings
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the capacity for thought, a capacity with universal scope.
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One can think about the world, about history, about our origins, one can even think about
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God, and I'll say, yeah, absolutely true, that's what makes us distinctive from everything
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else, Aristotle knew this, Plato knew this, he goes on, however, this universal capacity
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for thought does not mean that humans possess the capacity for exhaustive knowledge or even
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a comprehensive perception of reality.
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Okay, now here's my question.
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Who is it who said humans possess a capacity for exhaustive knowledge?
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Who is it who said humans possess the capacity for a comprehensive perception of reality?
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Nobody.
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Nobody.
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So I think he's setting us up for a kind of relativism called perspectivalism, that we
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only have, because our knowledge is not exhaustive, we can only have perspectives, and we learn
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more when we hear different perspectives.
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And this is the setup for a synodal listening, but you know what?
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The people they want to listen to synodally don't include anyone that I know, and don't
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include anyone that I would be especially inclined to listen to.
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You've probably heard this story, you know, some sultan somewhere gets an elephant and
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a group of blind men, and says, you know, describe the elephant, and you know, one grabs
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the tusk and said, oh, an elephant is hard and sharp, and another guy grabs the trunk
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and says, oh, you know, an elephant is long and thick, and then somebody else grabs the
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ear and says, oh, an elephant is big and flappy, and he says, see, you know, they're all saying
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true things, but from their own little perspective, and I say, now, where is the sultan when he's
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saying that?
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Doesn't he get to see the whole elephant so that he can make his snarky remarks about
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those?
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The only way he knows that they're speaking from their limited perspective is because
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he has at least some sense of the whole, even if he doesn't know the nature of the elephant
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exhaustively.
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See, they want it both ways, the relativists do.
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They want there to be intellectual humility and limitations on knowledge when you want
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to hold them accountable, but they want to have absolutes when they want to boss you
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around and tell you what to do.
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So he goes on, even with the help of the most powerful technologies imaginable, it is impossible
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for a human mind to be aware of reality in its totality and in every one of its aspects.
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This is possible only for God.
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Well, okay, thank you for that statement of the obvious.
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I don't think that anyone is claiming anything to the contrary.
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Even a Silicon Valley enthusiast for artificial intelligence maximalism will say that the
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human mind and a machine can know all of everything about the everything.
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So who is he arguing against?
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He goes on, the problem is that for this reason we cannot have a complete understanding of
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even a small part of this world since that same part can be understood fully only in
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the light of the totality in which it is integrated for everything is connected.
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Well okay, I would say to my students, pull on the thread, get the whole rug.
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When you make a moral claim, for example, whether you know it or not, you're dragging
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with you an underlying anthropology and metaphysics and worldview, and you've got to make sure
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those all cohere or otherwise you end up speaking nonsense or saying foolish things.
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So to be able to navigate well the moral life, to be able to evaluate well the claims and
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assertions of a fallen world, let me say that again, a fallen world which demonstrably
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hates the church Christ founded, we do have to know things at a wider and a deeper level.
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That is certainly true.
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And sure, we consult experts and we do our own homework and so on, but you know what?
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Ultimately you have to turn to the deposit of the faith.
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You have to turn to what was entrusted to Christ, entrusted by Christ to the church
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he founded.
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So now he attempts to put himself in good company.
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He says, consequently we are incapable of interpreting all the meanings and nuances
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of a reality, a person, a historical moment, or a truth.
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Well okay.
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And then he quotes Aquinas, and he quotes St. John of the Cross, and he said, see, these
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guys agree with me that you can't always know everything about everything, and if you don't
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know everything about everything which only God can do, then your knowledge is incomplete.
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But I don't think anyone would deny that.
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But apparently he thinks there are some people who do.
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And I do agree with him insofar as he has a cautionary tale about those who claim to
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know more than they actually could know, aided even by technology, because he says the more
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science and technology advance, the more we must keep alive the awareness of our limits
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and our need for God so as not to fall into a terrible deception.
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Yes, that is certainly true.
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And we're capable of doing things with science and technology, and we don't have the moral
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maturity to see the dangers of what we're doing.
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I'm thinking of in vitro fertilization, for example.
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I think we need to admit we're eggshells armed with hammers, and our technological prowess
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has exceeded our capacity for moral reflection.
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We live in a fallen world.
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And so we agree on that, but then look at what he does.
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If we don't admit that we have limits and we need God, we fall into a terrible deception.
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The very same one that led to the excesses of the Inquisition, the world wars, the Shoah,
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which is another name for the Holocaust, and the massacres in Gaza, all of which rely on
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fallacious arguments for their justification.
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Hey, Your Eminence, can we go back to the excesses of the Inquisition, also known as
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the Black Legend?
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There's got to be people in Rome who are well-informed about church history and say,
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look, Your Eminence, it is certainly true that historically the Inquisition has gotten
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a bad rap.
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Was the Inquisition perfect?
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No.
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But you know what?
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The Inquisition was a heck of a lot better than the civil courts, and when people got
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in trouble with the law, they begged and pleaded and scrambled to get into a church
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court, because it was a church court where you had things like due process, etc., etc.
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And you know what?
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More people died during the 10 or 15 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland than died
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in centuries of the Inquisition.
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So to paint the Inquisition with a black brush, the same that you used for the World Wars
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and the Shoah, that's just sloppy and lazy.
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You must have access to more historical information about the Inquisition than what you can find
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on Wikipedia.
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And so when I see careless, thoughtless statements like that, my confidence is not inspired.
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If this were a student essay, I would have a circle around this, excesses of the Inquisition,
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especially because it's associating it with horrors like the World Wars, and then I would
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say, hey, show your research.
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What you've written here casts doubt on your understanding.
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You need to reconsider your method of preparation.
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So friends, I've been saying for months now that the senior Catholic cadres of the people
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who should really know better club, they need much better ghostwriters, and they need much
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better fact-checkers, because you're saying things that are very public.
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We know that the internet is forever, and they're embarrassing to you as a person and
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to your office, your office as a bishop, as a cardinal, and as the prefect of a dicastery.
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And you can do better, and we deserve better, and God deserves better.
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to mention the Station of the Cross.
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And he asks us to recognize two things.
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He says, number one, quote, that in order to understand anything fully, we must allow
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ourselves to be illuminated by God.
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We must invoke Him, pray and listen to Him, and let ourselves be guided by Him amidst
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shadows.
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Faith assures us that we can truly do this and that God can truly enlighten us so that
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we might see more clearly.
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Yes, yes, yes, I agree to all of the above.
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And not only to see clearly, but to see surely.
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This is very important.
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Because then he goes on to the next step.
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He says, we must reflect, think, and analyze reality, but while also listening to others,
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welcoming their perspectives, which allows us to perceive other aspects of that same
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reality and opening ourselves to other points of view.
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For this reason, it benefits us to pay attention to the peripheries where things are seen differently.
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A very qualified yes to that.
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When it comes to uncertain matters, when it comes to non-dogmatic matters, when it comes
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to prudential judgments about which honorable people may disagree, then sure, listening
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to others, welcoming perspectives.
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Psychologists speak of something called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which was written about
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by two psychologists named Dunning and Kruger.
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And he says, there are people who the more ignorant they are of a topic, the more confident
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they are in their knowledge of the topic.
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And we want to be careful about that.
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Just as there are people who think they're doctors because they can look up things on
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WebMD, there are people who think that they are masters of Catholic theology because they
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went to Catholic school in fifth grade 50 years ago.
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So when I would teach something from the pulpit that the church has always taught and people
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either didn't like it or never heard of it, they say, well, I never heard of that.
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I've been a Catholic my whole life.
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I went to Catholic school, you know, and I said, well, yeah, so did Martin Luther.
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So this is where a certain degree of modesty and humility has to come in.
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I mean, anyone, say, who is a health care provider says, hey, you know, you can be a
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general practitioner, but then you turn to specialists for kidneys or cancer or whatever.
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Every canon lawyer I've spoken with always is delighted when I say I've studied just
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enough canon law to know that I'm not a canon lawyer.
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I'm not a master of biblical Hebrew.
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I know that there are things that I don't know, and I act accordingly.
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Part of the fun of doing this work is I get to talk to really smart people who know important
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things that I don't know, and that's fine.
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That's fine.
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But it's where he goes next.
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In the next paragraph, he says, along these lines, Pope Leo XIV recently affirmed, no
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one possesses the whole truth.
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We must all humbly seek it and seek it together.
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All right.
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Who claimed to know the whole truth recently?
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Somebody did that?
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Who is that?
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I remember as a novice, and gosh, I wish I could remember this Jesuit's name.
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Was it?
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If I walk through the cemetery in Wernersville, I could find his grave.
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But he said that when he was a scholastic, he had found a medieval manuscript called
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The Summation of All the Knowledge Known.
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In his later studies, he read that there was a second edition, and he wondered what it
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was that was discovered that it had to be added to.
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And then there was the American director of the US Patent Office, I think 1880s, 1890s,
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who said that he thought that the Patent Office should shut down because anything that could
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be discovered has already been discovered.
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Well, obviously, I think such a statement was premature.
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And there are people who like to say, no one has a monopoly on the truth, Father.
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I think nobody claimed that.
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But you know what?
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I and you and everyone has access to the deposit of the faith.
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I and you and everyone else in the world can know what Christ revealed to and entrusted
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to the church he founded.
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And you and I as baptized have an obligation to live, love, and act on the deposit of faith.
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Is the deposit of faith, does it teach you how to do quantum mechanics?
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Does it teach me how to change the oil on my old Toyota?
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No it doesn't.
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It certainly teaches me everything I need to know about God for the sake of my salvation.
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And I can know that with certainty because this is what Christ entrusted to the church
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he founded.
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And it is unseemly, it is unbecoming, it is unnecessary, and it is a veiling of mischief
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to have a kind of false humility to claim that we don't know what in fact Christ has
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revealed or to have a false modesty about the certainty of what we know about what Christ
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has revealed.
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Fernandez goes on to quote Leo saying, a church that does not close in on itself but remains
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attentive to God so that it can similarly listen to everyone.
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Listen to everyone?
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Everyone?
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The insane?
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The possessed?
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Those who want to pray in Latin?
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Shall we listen to everyone including those who want to use communion rails in the Diocese
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of Charlotte, North Carolina, to pick an oddly specific example, everyone?
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Including those who love the traditional Latin mass?
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Everyone?
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Including those who are absolutely heteronormative?
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Everyone?
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Including those who reject artificial contraception?
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Who reject IVF?
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Are we going to listen to everyone?
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The idea that we're going to miss out on some essential datum about God because we
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failed to listen to everyone, I don't know what to make of that.
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So Cardinal Fernandez goes on, he says, naturally this applies all the more to the truths of
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the faith.
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Today, a theologian normally possesses knowledge limited to a single theological discipline
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or an isolated topic, whereas the mysteries of faith are interwoven into a rich hierarchy
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in which the whole is especially illuminated by those central truths that constitute the
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heart of the gospel.
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Yes, that's fine.
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I've studied scripture, I'm not a scripture scholar.
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I've studied canon law, I'm not a canon lawyer.
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I love Our Lady, I'm not a Mariologist.
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I get that.
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I appreciate interdisciplinary approaches to important problems.
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Here he's going to go with the shift.
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Here he's going to go with the shift, not just referring to grace of office, but also
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to expertise.
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Because remember, we've got to listen to everyone, we've got to listen to everyone.
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We're going to miss out on God if we don't listen to everyone.
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Now here's the people I don't want you to listen to.
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Because this is what he says next.
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Certainly, in a place such as this, where we have the possibility of giving authoritative
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answers to not only the possibility, the obligation, of writing documents become part of the ordinary
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magisterium and of even of correcting and condemning, okay, I'd like to see more correcting
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and condemning, candidly, a little holy pouncing, as St. Thomas would say.
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He says, but the issue is even more serious today, since on any blog, anyone, even without
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having studied much theology, can express his or her opinion and condemn others as of
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speaking ex cathedra.
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Well, let's go back.
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Let's go back a few paragraphs.
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It benefits us to pay attention to the peripheries where things are seen differently.
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The church does not close in on itself.
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It must listen to everyone except certain bloggers.
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Yes, it's true that I'm more inclined to pay attention when a bishop speaks rather than,
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some random person with a free Substack account.
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Okay, I get that.
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I also think, if we're going to talk about intellectual humility, there are certain,
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if you will, you know, we talk about armchair generals, guys who talk about how war should
33:31
be conducted when they've never had a shot fired in anger.
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I think of the boxer, Mike Tyson, who says, everybody has a plan until he gets punched
33:40
in the face.
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Likewise, there are people who expound very confidently about theology, and I don't know
33:50
what their confidence is based in.
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Now remember, on the one hand, his eminence wants us all to sit at a table with absolutely
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everyone and listen, listen, listen, because we'll not only learn things about things,
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but we're going to hear from the Holy Spirit, and there's things that the Holy Spirit needs
34:21
to say that can only be heard when we sit at a table in a group and listen, and in peripheries,
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the more peripheral the better, apparently, on this view, and at the same time, we shouldn't
34:40
listen to people who blog whom Cardinal Fernandez doesn't like.
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See, this is the secret appeal of relativism and agnosticism and false intellectual humility.
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That allows me the opportunity to avoid accountability.
35:04
That's just your truth, you know, and at the same time, I get to make stuff up and call
35:11
it my truth, and I get to be dismissive of people I don't like because they don't have
35:21
expertise or credentials.
35:24
So if you wanted to play a game where your goal was to get your way and avoid accountability,
35:36
then this is the way that I think the game should be played.
35:42
But if we wanted to teach saving truth with clarity and urgency and confidence, if we
35:49
really wanted to find our prophetic voice, and that means pronouncing God's judgment,
35:56
his warning, his promise of blessing or curse, we need to be more clear-eyed and more firm
36:04
than I think what Cardinal Fernandez makes possible in this document.
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Episodes like this need the support of listeners like you.
36:11
If you want to hear more of the Catholic Current, please make a donation at thestationofthecross.com.
36:16
Thank you.
36:18
Here we are, the last segment of Friday.
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You know what that means, you and me, Week in Readiness, reviewing the headlines of the
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week in light of the upcoming Sunday Scripture, so we will be all prayed up for Sunday Mass.
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Where to begin, near and far, there is a lot of news.
36:32
A lot of America's attention is focused on the weather and people really suffering because
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of the extreme weather, especially in the Midwest and the Northeast.
36:44
We're located in Buffalo, and we know how to handle winters here, but there are some
36:49
folks who have gotten clobbered and don't have the equipment or the experience that
36:53
the Buffalonians do, so we will pray for them.
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There's a lot of kerfuffle going on with ice in Minnesota.
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At the moment, at least two people have lost their lives.
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I will just say that the investigations haven't been completed yet.
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I will simply make the observation that interfering with federal law officers in tense situations
37:21
where they're doing their duty, that's a risky business.
37:29
I will just say that much.
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I'll leave that there.
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A number of fireworks are commenting on it, not only in the United States, but they're
37:40
also commenting on it overseas.
37:44
Cardinal Perlin has spoken about it.
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There might be one exception.
37:49
I have to double-check, but as I am recording this, I'm not aware of any hierarchy addressing
37:57
the fact that a woman who is a nurse in Virginia promised to poison to death any ice agents
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who came into her care at the hospital that she worked at.
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Isn't that interesting?
38:15
And I really hope that by the time this is released, at least one hierarchy will have
38:20
commented on it publicly, and if that's the case, I'll have Madam Producer add that to
38:25
the show notes.
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I find that disturbing.
38:28
Looking around, we see that in Britain, the first woman has been formally installed as
38:39
the Archbishop of Canterbury.
38:41
I saw just a little bit of the ceremony where she's reading that since no one has objected,
38:46
she's taking this job, and someone from the piece said, no, no, I object, this is wrong.
38:52
Apparently very many African-Anglican bishops think this is wrong.
38:57
And hey, do you know what the Church of England did, the Anglican community did in the 1950s?
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They embarked on a venture called the Cenotal Way.
39:08
They pursued cenotalism.
39:13
Take that in and let that run around inside.
39:18
Meanwhile, a German Cardinal, Rainer Maria Wacke, Archbishop of Cologne in Germany, basically
39:26
said, he's done with the Cenotal Way.
39:30
He says, for me, the Cenotal Way is concluded.
39:36
He says, in my view, this body does not have the mandate to evaluate an individual diocesan
39:40
bishop or an individual diocese has or has not implemented from the decisions of the
39:45
Cenotal Way.
39:46
And he says, I have to answer to my ordination vow.
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So good for you, your Eminence, round of applause.
39:56
As I'd mentioned earlier today, and as you'll hear next week, well, first of all, I've been
40:00
doing a multi-part series on the inconsistent consistory held in Rome where we're looking
40:07
at what Cardinal Fernandes says about, you know, there are certain people we really don't
40:12
need to listen to, and basically they're bloggers whom we don't like.
40:15
Remember, we have to listen to everybody, everybody, everybody, totos, totos, totos.
40:20
Here we go to the peripheries, perspectives.
40:23
Unless you have a blog we don't like, then no, then you're in the outer darkness.
40:29
And let's not forget Bishop Martin of Charlotte, North Carolina, who apparently lies awake
40:34
at night worrying that someone somewhere thinks about kneeling while receiving Holy Communion
40:39
and might do it at a communion rail.
40:43
And yet, in terms of priorities, the Duquesne area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a former
40:53
church, former holy name Catholic church, has been sold off and has been reinstituted
41:02
into a video game arcade, plain vintage video arcade game.
41:07
So in a place where the holy sacrifice of the mass was offered, where people were baptized,
41:14
confirmed, where their confessions were heard, where they were married, in which they were
41:19
buried, you can now go there and play Pac-Man.
41:26
Think about that.
41:28
And yet, we're told that what should really make us anxious is people who want to kneel
41:37
for receiving Holy Communion and people who want to pray in Latin, and to pray in a manner
41:47
that inspired the faithful to build most of the beautiful churches in the West.
41:54
We're not having that, and we're also not going to talk about that you can now go to
42:00
a holy name Catholic church, Duquesne, and play Pac-Man.
42:05
We're not talking about that either, because by golly, we have our priorities.
42:12
And I say, yeah guys, I guess you do.
42:16
Guess you do.
42:17
So if you're following the Novus Ordo calendar or the polling, right, we're looking at the
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Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary 70.
42:26
And I will intercede for the poor folks at St. Typical's Church.
42:33
Why?
42:34
Because the gospel is from Matthew 5, and it's the Beatitudes.
42:39
And certain areas of scriptures inspire pastoral typicalians to preach in especially banal
42:48
ways.
42:50
You know, these are the folks who want to tell us from the pulpit that, remember, you're
42:55
a human being and not a human doing, and the Beatitudes are be-attitudes.
43:04
It's not about what you do, it's what you are, be, I don't know.
43:14
Our Lord said, blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every
43:20
kind of evil against you, falsely because of me, rejoice and be glad, for your reward
43:27
will be great in heaven.
43:31
And I think of Catholics who've lived very generous and sacrificial lives, folks who
43:36
admit they were sinners, in fact, they admit they're sinners sacramentally, very frequently,
43:44
and they've really tried to keep the faith that was handed onto them.
43:51
And they've been called names like rigid and backwardists, they've been called other ugly
44:00
names as well.
44:03
And even though they've been on the peripheries, they have not been provided for.
44:11
They haven't been accompanied, they haven't been listened to, they haven't been invited
44:17
to speak, and they're relegated to small, distant places where, for now at least, praying
44:25
in the manner of the saints is, as a concession, for now, tolerated.
44:37
I think the baptized deserve better.
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May God's holy name be praised now and forever.
44:45
I'm District Father Robert McTague, your host here every day of the Catholic Current.
44:48
Hey friends, we have an unexpected bonus for you.
44:51
Wherever you are, go to your favorite podcast platform right now.
44:55
I'm adding my sermon from this week from the Feast of Thomas Aquinas, talking about the
45:01
humility and audacity that's needed in Catholic theologians.
45:05
I think it'll be a bonus for you.
45:07
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audio
45:12
podcast.
45:13
Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Mighty God bless you, Father,
45:17
Son, and Holy Spirit.
45:18
Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.
45:35
This Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas is one of my favorite feast days, and it's not just
45:49
because it's my sister's birthday.
45:51
I have very many happy associations on this feast day.
45:55
When we were novices, and we were making the 30-day retreat of spiritual exercise with
45:59
St. Ignatius, the novices from the New York province and their novice master came to join
46:04
us.
46:05
And in the calendar we were using that week, a few days earlier, was the Feast Day of St.
46:09
Francis de Sales.
46:10
And the New York novice master had an interesting innovation for his homily.
46:15
He had the novices read aloud letters to Bishop Francis about prayer.
46:20
Dear Bishop Francis, sometimes I get distracted in prayer.
46:24
What should I do?
46:25
And Father read quotes from Francis de Sales.
46:28
And I thought that was interesting, so I went to the novice master, and I said, you know,
46:33
the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas is coming up.
46:35
We should have letters to Friar Thomas.
46:39
And his face did not light up immediately with the recognition of the possibilities.
46:44
So he asked me for examples.
46:45
For example, dear Father Friar Thomas, people tell me that everything is composed of matter
46:52
and form.
46:53
Can you give me some tips on resisting temptations to universal hylomorphism?
46:59
It was a missed opportunity, I'll say that much.
47:02
But I've been thinking about St. Thomas in preparation for this feast, because in my
47:07
lifetime St. Thomas Aquinas is rarely seated at the cool kids table among contemporary
47:14
theologians, which I think is a shame, because there are virtues that St. Thomas had that
47:19
I think every Catholic theologian has.
47:22
And that includes single-mindedness, single-heartedness, audacity, and humility.
47:30
Let me give you an example of a single-mindedness.
47:33
He was a relentless servant of the truth, and a relentless propounder of the truth.
47:41
So according to legend, he was at a royal banquet hosted in the court of the saintly
47:47
King Louis IX of France, and it was decorous and regal and so on.
47:53
And from a corner of the banquet hall, you could hear Friar Thomas pound the table and
48:00
yell in Latin, ad hoc, solvent mani, chaos.
48:05
And that will answer the Manichaeans, and people didn't know what to do, and the King
48:09
called, described, and said, give Friar Thomas something to write that down so he doesn't
48:14
forget it.
48:16
He never stopped serving the truth.
48:22
And he never stopped loving the truth.
48:25
We all know the legend at the end of his life where he just stopped writing because of a
48:32
vision he had, and he saw that his writing, so important for the life of the church, was
48:40
limited compared to the grandeur of God.
48:45
And he had humility.
48:47
If you read his writings, especially his Summas and, oh my gosh, if you want to dive
48:53
into his commentary on the sentences of Peter Lombard, let's just say that his pace and
48:59
manner of delivery is sober and sobering.
49:04
But if you know where to look, his passion, his audacity, his willingness to fight for
49:11
the truth breaks through.
49:14
So in your spare time today, look at his little work on the unity of the intellect
49:19
against the Latin Averroists, and the last paragraph, paragraph 124, so this is stone
49:27
cold sober Thomas Aquinas throwing down on behalf of the truth.
49:34
This is like the crypts and the bloods.
49:35
This is Thomas Aquinas yelling, you dissing me and my colors?
49:39
So listen to this.
49:42
But if there anyone be boasting of his knowledge, falsely so called, who wishes to say something
49:49
against what we have written here, let him not speak in corners, nor in the presence
49:55
of boys who do not know how to judge about such difficult matters.
50:02
But let him write against this treatise if he dares.
50:07
And he will find, not only me who am the least of others, but many other lovers of
50:14
truth, by whom this error will be opposed, or his ignorance remedied.
50:21
Bam, so says St. Thomas Aquinas.
50:25
So here is what we need to pray for, that God will favor us in our lifetime with theologians
50:32
who have the single-mindedness, single-heartedness, humility, and audacity of St. Thomas Aquinas.
50:41
May God's holy name be praised now and forever.