Latest / The Catholic Current / Novel Prophecies Pt. 8 - Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here” (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 9/4/26

Transcript

Novel Prophecies Pt. 8 - Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here” (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 9/4/26 · The Catholic Current

0:00
This is The Catholic Current with Father Robert
0:04
McTague. I don't see a lot of heroes in
0:08
this story, and I see a lot of people who can't
0:12
wait for the next round of beat up the church.
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Am I just too jaundiced and cranky today? Well, it's possible to
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be jaundiced and cranky and correct, so both of them—
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alas, your mileage may vary, but that's been my experience.
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Uh, yeah, there's, there's no one on the side of the church as far as
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the government's Praise be Jesus
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Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for
0:39
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 the Cross Studios, your local radio station,
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and the iCatholic Radio mobile app. We proclaim the fullness of truth
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with clarity and charity. As always, let's start with
0:53
prayer. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
0:56
Almighty God, through the intercession of Saint Ignatius Loyola, we ask that you pour forth
1:00
your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit of discernment they
1:04
might hear your voice and obey your command. In the name of the Father,
1:07
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Hey friends, it's Friday here at the
1:10
Catholic Current. You know what that means, you and me, let's talk about this.
1:13
We walk through a complex issue together, and we are up to
1:17
part 8 of our ongoing series, Novel Prophecies.
1:22
We're reading some novels that are future-oriented. We've been trying mightily to
1:27
read them in chronological order. We've been reading mostly
1:31
Catholics. We've been expanding recently. We're going to get back to Catholics
1:35
later this series. So part 8 is a book that was
1:38
written in 1935 by a very respected American
1:43
author, Sinclair Lewis, and it was called
1:47
It Can't Happen Here. Well, what was the
1:50
it that couldn't happen here? Well, this was,
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uh, fascism. Now one of the things I found in reading about fascism
1:59
and talking to living people about fascism
2:03
is that no one has a ready, handy definition of what fascism
2:07
is like, what— or actually what it means. So linguistically,
2:12
in most political discourse, especially online, is a fascist
2:16
is anyone I don't like. And, you know, and everyone who upsets
2:21
me is Hitler, and that's what fascism is.
2:25
And orange man bad, and whoever it is that we
2:29
want to throw dirt at, we just call him a fascist.
2:32
Because— and here's how the political reasoning goes— because,
2:36
you know, in World War II, Captain America beat up
2:40
fascists, so we can beat up fascists now. Yay! Because— because—
2:45
so let's not do that. So you know me, I love etymology. I love the
2:48
roots of words. Let's start with that and build up.
2:52
If we go all the way back to the time of
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the Roman Republic, you would see a
3:00
bundle of rods tied together.
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What did that represent? And each one was called a fasces.
3:08
So fasces was a group of— a bundle
3:12
of rods, and they were tied together.
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And because they were tied together, it was harder to
3:19
break the rods than if you broke them individually. So,
3:23
and then you'd have SPQR underneath.
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Senatus populusque Rome, the Senate and the people of
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Rome. So it's kind of a variation, you know, if we don't hang together,
3:34
we'll surely hang separately. All right, so now let's
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jump ahead to the 20th century. And,
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you know, the great avatars of fascism
3:45
in Europe in the early 20th century are Mussolini
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and Hitler. What are the defining characteristics of
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real fascism and not just everyone I don't like? Is fascism?
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Well, first of all, it's a totalitarian ideology.
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I mean, Mussolini said, everything in the
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state, nothing outside the
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state, nothing against the state.
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There is no room for the individual.
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There was a very famous pro-Nazi film propaganda
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by the director Leni Riefenstahl,
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who by the way was a very serious world-class model before she
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got onto film. And one of the things you see as you watch this film,
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which goes on for hours, was you had the marching
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of the masses but never the
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individual. And fascism says the individual has no right.
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You have value only to the degree that you
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serve the nation-state, the party,
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the, the Great League. And so uniforms
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were important and individuality was lost. And the
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nation-state always had a great leader.
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Now, how leader-y was this leader really?
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Well, this is where the word that gets overlooked, and that's
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corporatism. So, private property and
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private enterprise are absorbed by
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the state, but really, the corporations
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are kind of very buddy-buddy with
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the state. You know, when Eisenhower, in his farewell
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address when he left the White House, talked about the military-industrial
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complex, it was that sort of thing. So, the state
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is the state, and industries and companies and corporations don't
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necessarily own by the state, but the state rearranges
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things to benefit the corporation.
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So, you know, you would have, you know, the big state,
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the party, the deep state, but then you'd also have,
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you know, whether it's Big Oil or Big Pharma. And then of course
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militarism was very important. One of the ways to distract
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people from the fact that life is awful and you're hungry is
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to have someone to blame. And someone to
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fight against. And so whether it
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was, you know, the Jews or the capitalists or
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the bourgeoisie, there was someone to blame.
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And then you had expansion of empire, and it wasn't
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just to kind of spread the good news of your nation-state, but you also
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had to recover this mythological past.
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I mean, Mussolini saw himself as
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in the line of the great Caesar, Caesars, and that's
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why he wanted to conquer Ethiopia and North Africa.
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It's one of the reasons why Hitler was fascinated with
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the music and the opera of Wagner, because he had a
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fascination with the pagan past,
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the rather idealized pagan past of,
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of Germany, and following the inspiration of the madman
7:15
genius Nietzsche, who decried Christ and
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Christianity as having, uh,
7:22
the womanish virtues of servanthood.
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Christ inspired a slave mentality,
7:31
and what he called for instead was a triumph of
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the will, and that was going to get us to where
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we wanted to go. So we would go into a glorious future,
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and that glorious future would be animated by this
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glorious mythic past.
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And in 1935, the shooting
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really hadn't started in earnest just yet,
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and there were people around the world,
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including in the United States, who says, you know,
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maybe these Hitler and Mussolini guys, uh,
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maybe they're on to something, you know, uh,
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because, you know, World War I was
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awful, The great, you know, we got
8:20
a hangover from the Roaring '20s, and the Great
8:24
Depression is really very awful.
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But if we could have someone to blame and have a
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glorious future to look forward to and
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a glorious past to stand on,
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that sounds really very attractive.
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And as that began to murmur in the United States,
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and more than murmur, there were some people who
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expressed concerns. Are we going down a dark path?
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And there were people who said, bah, no, that couldn't
8:59
happen here, 'cause, you know, America and
9:02
the Constitution. And we didn't have John Wayne to
9:06
refer to just yet, but, you know, we were the arsenal for democracy
9:10
and we were making the world safe for democracy and the business
9:14
of America is business. I think it was Calvin Coolidge who
9:19
said that. So there was kind of a smug reassurance that
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all the things that were kind of scary and going
9:26
towards a dark path in Europe
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just couldn't happen here because we have the First Amendment and we have
9:35
the Second Amendment. We have the Constitution. And Sinclair Lewis
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said, well, stay with me. I've got a story to tell.
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Let me tell you how it really could happen here.
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So as we come up on the break, friends, I want to put this thought
9:51
in your mind. Do you remember during the COVID interruption,
9:55
the reign of King COVID, the enthusiasm
10:00
with which some people wore masks and
10:04
the way that people who didn't want to wear masks
10:08
were vilified? What if they weren't masks, but they
10:12
were armbands? Then what? And do you remember
10:16
the enthusiasm that people had for
10:21
ratting out their neighbors for having too many people
10:25
in a house at Christmas time? Do you remember the enthusiasm
10:29
with which police arrested people sitting on
10:33
a beach by themselves because COVID?
10:36
Do you remember all that? Are you really sure
10:40
that could never happen again?
10:45
Is it possible, just maybe,
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that there's something in human nature that's itching
10:52
to join a great cause where you can point at
10:57
your neighbors and say, they're not one of us, let's get them?
11:01
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
11:05
Remember, our rallying cry of The Catholic Current is Christus Mundo Mundus Christo,
11:09
bringing Christ to the world and the world to Christ. We do it because our
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Lord says so, for the greater glory of God, the love of our neighbor,
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and the salvation of our own soul. After the broadcast today,
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Take us to your family and friends. Together we'll take it to the whole world.
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Back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay with us.
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You're listening to The Catholic Current with Father Robert
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Current.
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus,
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your daily host for The Catholic the Current, where we bring Christ to the world
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and the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross
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Studios, your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app. We proclaim
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By subscribing to iCatholic Mobile, you help fund programs that defend
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our Catholic faith. Here we are Friday. Let's talk
12:58
about this, you and me walking through a complex issue together. We are up to
13:02
part 8 of our ongoing series, Novel Prophecies.
13:06
We're talking about the novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair
13:09
Lewis, published in 1935. And I've been talking about
13:14
what is the it that can't happen here in the United
13:17
States, and it was fascism. And I tried to give a rough and ready
13:21
definition of what fascism is, and some people get
13:25
it confused, understandably. What's some other things that it needs to be
13:29
distinguished from? For example, there's a dirty word called nationalism,
13:34
and apparently that's very bad. Well, nationalism is just patriotism
13:38
that says, hey, you know, I love the land of my birth,
13:41
you know, go Team America. That's fine.
13:45
That's natural. That's human. That's not an issue. Well, how does fascism,
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you know, differ from traditional authoritarianism?
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You know, you just— your garden variety dictator.
13:57
Well, the claim is that whether it's a monarchy or a military
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junta, they're just trying to preserve public
14:05
order and the existing social hierarchy, and they're
14:09
pretty much otherwise leaving life and
14:12
ordinary institutions intact.
14:16
But that's not what fascism does. Now, how does it differ from communism?
14:20
Communism basically wants authoritarianism for
14:24
everyone, the worldwide revolution.
14:28
And fascism is, no, no, no, no, there's, there's the one top
14:32
dog and it's gotta be us.
14:36
And the Germans believed that in the
14:40
early part of the 20th century, as did the Italians as
14:44
well. And, you know, Americans are
14:48
supposed to know better because, you know, the Constitution and our
14:52
education, and, uh, and etc., etc.
14:56
So let's talk about how Sinclair Lewis argues how
15:00
it really could happen here,
15:03
and he makes a pretty persuasive case. So let me tell you what he said,
15:07
and then I'll tell you what I make of it. So he writes— now,
15:10
the, the main character is a guy who has got an odd first name.
15:13
His name is Doremus. And Sinclair Lewis
15:17
writes— and the, the bad guy, the main bad guy, his name is Windrip.
15:22
And he writes this: Doremus discovered that neither he nor any
15:26
other small citizen had been hearing 1/100th of what
15:29
was going on in America. Windrip and company— they
15:33
were the bad guys— like Hitler and Mussolini,
15:36
discovered that a modern state can,
15:39
by the triple process of controlling every item
15:42
in the press, breaking up at the start any
15:46
association which might become dangerous, in keeping
15:50
all the machine guns, artillery, armored automobiles,
15:54
and aeroplanes in the hands of the government,
15:57
dominate the complex contemporary population better
16:02
than had ever been done in medieval days, when rebellious
16:06
peasantry were armed only with pitchforks and goodwill, but the
16:10
state was not armed much better. So,
16:13
if you want to be a totalitarian, the 20th century
16:17
was a good place to get your start. And I think he would agree
16:22
now even more so nowadays because, you know,
16:25
thanks flock cameras and the surveillance
16:29
state. Thanks Microsoft. I had to, uh,
16:33
I'll say this much, I had to give a
16:37
fingerprint to be hired at a certain place recently,
16:41
and it couldn't just be stick your thumb in ink, it had to be scanned
16:45
electronically, and then it was fed through the
16:48
unsecured internet to a company called— and I'm not kidding, this is the name of
16:52
the company— called Biometrics for All.
16:57
All right, let that sink in. So the idea
17:00
that it couldn't happen here, he says, you know,
17:05
I think if Sinclair Lewis were alive today, he'd say
17:09
it could probably happen here even easier
17:14
even easier because of the technology.
17:19
And then you say, no, no, no, Father, we certainly learned our lesson
17:22
here in the 20th century. And by golly,
17:27
you know, we have our glorious education system
17:32
where young people are raised to be discerning and skeptical
17:37
and not be led by the nose and to be inoculated
17:41
against propaganda. Well, no, nobody believes that. So it—
17:45
towards the end of the novel, Americans begin to revolt against
17:49
the fascist state. They're called the corpos.
17:53
And Lewis writes this: But the revolt halted
17:57
because in the America which had so warmly praised itself
18:01
for its widespread popular free education,
18:05
there had been so very little education widespread
18:09
popular, free, or anything else,
18:13
that most people did not know what they wanted; indeed,
18:18
knew about so few things to want at all.
18:23
And even 2 and a half years
18:27
of despotism had not yet taught most electors humility,
18:32
nor taught them much of anything except that it was unpleasant to be arrested
18:36
too often. Pow! And then at the end of this
18:40
particular edition that I have here,
18:44
there is a, a scholar. This is Gary Scharnhorst,
18:48
who's writing from the University of New Mexico. And listen to
18:51
his last line here: Lewis's message, his protest
18:56
of middle-class complacency and intellectual regimentation,
19:00
what we call today political correctness on both the
19:05
left and the right remains as relevant and timely as
19:09
ever. One of the reasons why I continue
19:13
with The Catholic Current— I've been doing this for over 8
19:16
years now, thank you for listening— and I really am a
19:21
raging introvert, and as I get older, I want to pray, I want to
19:24
write, and I want to read, but I keep showing up to the microphone every
19:27
day. Why? Because I want to raise the level
19:31
of discourse. I want to restore the
19:35
lost art of intelligent conversation, and I want to lead by
19:39
example with the very smart people I talk with so that
19:43
you can do this on your own. You know, talk amongst
19:48
yourselves. That's what I, I want to do,
19:51
and I give, you know, pretty extensive resources
19:57
list for every, every episode, every episode.
20:00
And I often ask Mr. Engineer and Madam Producer,
20:05
do you think anybody looks at it? Gosh, I hope so, because there's quite
20:09
an education to have there. So here, here's my point: human
20:13
nature doesn't change, and God
20:17
doesn't change. And when we choose to ignore
20:21
God which is what we did in spades in the 20th century,
20:25
and we got it— we're doing a pretty darn good job of ignoring
20:29
God now— then mischief happens.
20:34
And if Christ isn't recognized as King and Sovereign
20:39
and Judge, then something or
20:42
someone else will offer to take his place.
20:46
And if Christians don't put a halt to it, some ideology
20:51
or some fanatic or kook will effectively
20:56
try to take Christ's place as king and as sovereign.
21:01
Prove me wrong. And I think this is also what
21:05
is happening now, and I think the horrors of the COVID interruption really
21:10
showed us how eager people
21:13
are to be among the cool kids and
21:17
denounce the people who are the
21:21
threat to the community,
21:24
who are not wearing the mask or the armband, who don't have
21:28
the certificate of the jab. And now,
21:32
as more is coming out about Fauci flat out lying
21:36
to us, I think we all need to sit down
21:41
before a crucifix and a mirror and examine our conscience
21:45
and ask ourselves, how easy is it for
21:49
a liar to convince me to denounce
21:53
my neighbor, to hate my neighbor?
21:57
And let's not forget, during the COVID interruption,
22:01
we also had the divinization of
22:05
George Floyd. Let's not forget about that. We couldn't
22:09
go to church even while practicing social distancing
22:13
or wearing a mask, but we could express our thirsting for
22:17
justice in loud mobs, unmasked, shoulder to shoulder,
22:21
setting fires to our neighbors' stores and looting our neighbors.
22:26
And that was okay. That was okay.
22:30
So can it happen here? Can even
22:34
Americans be whipped into a frenzy
22:38
by an ideology, by demagoguery?
22:42
Yes. I mean, God forbid,
22:46
you know, presidential candidate Kamala
22:50
Harris— what if she were a decent speaker
22:53
instead of this— mixing metaphors— a fountain of word salad?
22:58
What a perfect stream of non sequiturs her her political
23:03
campaign was. What if she had been persuasive?
23:08
What if she had sounded smart? One of the reasons I know God loves
23:12
us is because AOC is a blatherskite.
23:17
She's unintelligible. But there may come
23:21
a time in my lifetime and yours where
23:26
someone who talks, who not only sounds
23:30
like he makes sense, but is persuasive
23:36
and is inspiring and has,
23:39
say, one and only
23:43
one great idea.
23:46
What damage could be done then?
23:50
Are we so very sure that
23:55
our institutions, our schools,
23:59
our neighbors are immune to that
24:03
kind of manipulation? And how much confidence
24:07
can we have in the people who have badges
24:10
and guns to stand up for us? You know, I made a video
24:14
not long ago. I said if you had a friend who was a
24:18
victim of domestic abuse saying, I can't be abused
24:22
anymore. Why not? I have a restraining order. And waves a magic piece of
24:25
paper. In the presence of a gun and in the
24:30
presence of a mob, isn't the Bill of Rights,
24:33
isn't even the Constitution, isn't even the gospel
24:39
just a piece of paper?
24:42
Don't we need a community whose mind and
24:46
hearts are conformed to Christ the King?
24:51
Don't we need a community like that to
24:55
resist the next round of demagoguery which
25:00
will inevitably come our way?
25:03
Please do think about this. I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTiger,
25:07
host every day of The Catholic Current. After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
25:12
get our resources list, download our audio as podcasts wherever you can
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find audio. You can find us. Follow us on your favorite platform,
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write a 5-star review. We need to attract the attention of the listeners so
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these conversations get the attention they deserve. Everything you
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need to take this to your family and friends, we give to you. Together,
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let's take it around the world. We can do it with you, and we cannot
25:33
do without you. Let's do this very good work together.
25:37
Let's strive mightily together to be so very much
25:41
more than merely relevant. Back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay
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This is the Catholic Current from the Station of the Cross Catholic
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of
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Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world
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26:52
Here we are Friday, another round of Let's Talk About This, you and me walking
26:56
through a complex issue together. We are up to part 8 in our series
27:00
called Novel Prophecies, and we're looking at the book called
27:04
It Can't Happen Here, a novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935,
27:09
and it became a bestseller. And he said, you know,
27:12
it wouldn't be all that hard for fascism— I mean,
27:16
real fascism— to take root even in America.
27:19
And I'm going to ask Mr. Engineer to add into the show
27:23
notes my recent video about the FBI having
27:28
been weaponized against what
27:32
they called RTCs, Radical Traditional Catholics, and the
27:37
FBI was interested in tracking down Catholics
27:41
who, and here I quote, rejected Vatican II. Now what
27:45
the heck was that all about? But it's okay because just recently
27:49
the FBI investigated itself and it assured us
27:53
that they're never gonna stand for it. By golly, that's certainly never gonna happen again.
27:57
So says the people who now lead the FBI for now.
28:02
And the field agent who signed off on all of that, well, he's no longer
28:06
with the FBI. He's the Director of Homeland Security for the state
28:10
of Virginia. So gosh, so much winning,
28:13
so much winning. You know, I'm a fan of
28:17
one of the great curmudgeons of all time, uh, Hilaire Bellocq,
28:22
and he wrote a book back in the '30s called Survivals
28:25
and New Arrivals: The New and Old Enemies of
28:29
the Catholic Church. So I recommend that to you.
28:33
And friends, you know, we really do need to pick
28:37
sides. And Bellocq said it's Christ
28:41
or chaos. And there are even senior
28:46
Catholic cadres of the people who should really know better clubs— well,
28:50
Can't we have the not chaos and have
28:55
sorta kinda Christ and some other people?
28:58
That'll work, right? Well, no. No, we are
29:02
living in a world where the nation-state
29:07
armed with bureaucracy and technology unimaginable
29:11
even in my childhood is going to demand an exaggerated
29:16
kind of, if not loyalty, at least compliance.
29:21
This is what Belloc was writing in the 1930s. He says this: The
29:25
worship of the nation has been able to make men tolerate under
29:29
its authority what they could never have tolerated from princes—
29:33
a submission to rule which, through sumptuary laws on food
29:38
and drink, through conscription, through a cast-iron system
29:41
of compulsory instruction for all, on state-ordered
29:46
lines, and through a state examination at the gate of every profession,
29:50
has almost killed the citizen's power to
29:55
react upon that which controls him, and has almost destroyed that
29:59
variety which is the mark of life.
30:02
So says Ballock, written almost 100 years
30:06
ago. See what a totalitarian arrangement
30:11
can't tolerate are other
30:15
institutions, other loyalties,
30:20
and that's why throughout history totalitarians
30:24
of every stripe have hated,
30:28
hated, hated the Church. Why?
30:32
Well, let me step back for just a moment. One of the reasons
30:35
why fascism worked according to St. Clair Lewis in
30:39
his novel It Can't Happen Here is that the combination
30:44
of corporations and the state, which were called corpos in
30:47
the novel, they said, hey, we'll give you free stuff and
30:52
we'll give you people to hate and push around.
30:55
And for a lot of people, envy and
30:59
vindictiveness are irresistible.
31:03
Temptations. And I can't ask for
31:07
a show of hands, but are you really, really 100%
31:12
certain, with God as your witness, that you
31:16
are absolutely immune to such temptations?
31:20
That's something to bring to prayer.
31:23
And look, since the founding of the church, Christians have suffered
31:27
at the hands of every form of thuggery, junta, party, despot,
31:30
dictator and megalomaniac and ideology.
31:35
That is beyond dispute. And the question
31:39
is, is why? Well,
31:42
basically 2 reasons. First of all, the church offers
31:46
fellowship. The church offers bonds
31:50
of affirmation and charity and justice and mercy and compassion
31:54
and unity and identity and dignity and
31:58
destiny that the absolute state
32:02
cannot tolerate. And the church in
32:06
her daily communal life reminds everyone that
32:09
each person is unique and precious, and all
32:13
persons are valuable in the sight of
32:16
God. And the church fosters a love of neighbor that the
32:20
absolute state cannot allow. Because love,
32:25
charity, mutuality are incompatible
32:30
with the complete isolation and dependence
32:34
that such a state encourages and commands.
32:39
I wonder if Mr. Engineer can find it, but back in
32:43
the day, the Obama administration had a video called
32:46
The Life of Julia, and it was about a baby
32:50
girl who grew up to be an adult woman And at every stage of
32:54
her life, from birth to Social Security,
32:57
the federal government was there.
33:01
Not family, not a father,
33:05
certainly not a church, and not a husband,
33:10
but Uncle Sam was the provider, the protector,
33:14
and the sugar daddy. And that was presented
33:18
as not only normal, but normative.
33:25
You know, I recently turned 65, and I have to fill
33:28
out the paperwork for Social Security and Medicare,
33:33
and it really is like getting a vigorous bureaucratic
33:36
colonoscopy. And it just has to be
33:40
done because reasons. And there was
33:44
a time when families and
33:48
religious community took care of the sick and
33:52
the elderly and the vulnerable,
33:56
and we've outsourced all of that,
33:59
all of that to the government,
34:03
basically at gunpoint now. And then we let
34:07
ourselves be bribed with our own money,
34:11
and there are a lot of religious members
34:14
of the People Who Should Really Know Better club who
34:19
evaluate the quality, or better said, the success
34:23
of their ministry by how much state funds
34:27
they collect every month and year. Because you
34:30
need that kind of funding not only to do good, but to keep
34:34
the bureaucracy going. And here's a basic element
34:38
of organizational psychology which states The purpose
34:42
of a system is what it does. And there are
34:46
some people who've been making some very persuasive cases that
34:51
the purpose of many churches is to sustain
34:55
the bureaucracy. And the most reliable way to
34:59
get the cash to sustain the bureaucracy is to traffic
35:03
people across the border. That's a very,
35:07
very large topic. This is what people have been telling me and providing
35:11
a lot of evidence. If you have contrary evidence, please do let us know.
35:15
I want to read it. So the first reason the total state hates us,
35:20
hates the church, is because we provide fellowship and
35:24
we believe human beings are sacred. But the
35:27
other reason it hates us, and this is the biggest
35:31
threat, is worship.
35:34
Not just gather everyone around the table and kumbaya
35:38
and celebrate us and all of our usness. And isn't God God lucky
35:42
to have nice people like us on the payroll because us?
35:46
No, no. But because of the
35:50
recognition of the transcendent,
35:53
that there is a Creator God, just and
35:58
merciful, who is sovereign over
36:02
all creation. And God Almighty is
36:06
above the state. Above the party,
36:10
above the dear leader, above the revolution,
36:15
above the 5-year plan,
36:19
even above creation, which is sometimes called,
36:24
even by senior Catholic cadres of the people who should really know better,
36:26
Club, even above creation, which is sometimes
36:30
called, and here I quote, our common home.
36:35
Yeah, that. And worship is
36:39
simply acknowledging that there is nothing and no one above
36:43
God. There is no greater and more perfect truth,
36:47
beauty, and goodness than the Creator God.
36:51
And creatures who are rational and free and therefore moral
36:56
rightly worship him. And Jesus
37:01
of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Mary, second person of
37:05
the Trinity, the only begotten Son of
37:09
the Father, the Word of the Father through whom all things were made, the Christ
37:13
of God, showed us the one and only— let
37:18
me say that again— the one and only right way to
37:21
worship God in a way that is pleasing to God.
37:25
And that is through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
37:30
And Catholics have always recognized the Holy Sacrifice of
37:34
the Mass as the premier good and the Church's
37:38
greatest gift to God and man. And the
37:42
total state hates that.
37:47
And if it can't contain it or eliminate it,
37:50
it will corrupt it. See what's taking place
37:54
in China, you know, with those Chinese bishops
37:59
who are all in communion with Rome, you know. And I
38:02
hear those Chinese bishops selected by the Communist Party,
38:06
I all hear that they offer very reverent Novus Ordo Masses,
38:10
you know. And what can be better than that? So the
38:13
total state hates the Church because
38:17
of the dignity of the individual and sustained by fellowship,
38:23
apart from any party loyalty. And the
38:27
total state hates the church because we worship the transcendent
38:31
God and see God as the greatest good. And friends,
38:35
make no mistake, there can be no such
38:39
thing as a religiously neutral state
38:43
if God is not above the state.
38:47
Then the state becomes God.
38:51
History bears this out repeatedly,
38:56
and there was a time when very
38:59
many Catholics in America were taught by the likes
39:03
of Fulton Sheen, very soon to be Blessed
39:07
Fulton Sheen, and they knew to
39:11
resist the lie. Are we so
39:14
very confident that Catholics in America
39:18
could resist that lie today? Your family and friends who
39:23
drifted from the Church, who marry outside of
39:26
the Church and conjugate in a way that the Church has perennially not
39:31
approved of— are we so confident that they
39:35
are immune to the state
39:39
hijacking the Church and remaking the Bride of Christ
39:43
in its own image? I'm not so sure.
39:47
So friends, we have to study, we have to pray,
39:51
we have to go to confession frequently,
39:55
and we need to talk about these difficult things more and more often.
40:00
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
40:03
Be part of the conversation. Follow us we're following by following us on
40:07
Gab. That's gab.com.
40:11
The channel is The Catholic Current, and you can influence the conversation.
40:15
Contact us at thestationofthecross.com/askfather.
40:20
Comments, questions, suggestions, recommendations, objections— we read
40:24
everything that you send us. And you know, friends, I said some very
40:28
challenging things today. I want to know, do you agree? Do you disagree?
40:31
Free? Why or why not?
40:32
stationofthecross.com/askfather.
40:35
Let me know. Back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay with us.
40:58
Have a question or feedback
41:03
about today's episode? Want to suggest a guest or a future
41:07
topic? Go to thestationofthecross.com/askfather and
41:13
help influence the conversation.
41:21
Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McDade of the Society of Jesus,
41:24
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world
41:28
and the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross
41:31
Studios, your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app.
41:34
We proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
41:38
It's the last segment on Friday, and you know what that means, you and me—
41:41
weekend readiness, reviewing the headlines of the week in light of the upcoming Sunday scriptures.
41:45
So be all prayed up for Sunday Mass. And you
41:49
know, it's the usual. People are shooting each other in large
41:53
numbers, expensively. Things are getting more expensive.
41:57
Random people are pulling out knives or axes or guns
42:01
or cars and killing strangers because reasons.
42:05
Family is very much in mind. Lindsay Cunningham,
42:09
who strangled to death her 3 young children. As I'm recording
42:13
this, the jury hasn't reached a verdict yet. What has stood out for
42:17
me however, is the rather enthusiastic
42:21
support, especially among women, for Lindsay Clancy showing
42:25
up and wearing pink. GoFundMe has raised over
42:30
$1 million for her. There are people who want to see her walk because,
42:34
you know, reasons. The same time, there's a woman, sadly I can't
42:38
remember her name right now, but she ran into a burning
42:42
building several times to rescue all of her children from
42:46
a burning building and ended up with severe burns on 93% of
42:51
her body. And her GoFundMe has raised
42:55
$42,000. So let's
42:59
keep that in mind.
43:02
And then let's turn to a Virginia
43:06
mom got a 6-month suspended jail sentence for
43:09
letting her 5-year-old, uh, living in a gated community walk
43:14
to a park by himself because think of the children.
43:19
And she was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
43:23
And in Maine, there is
43:27
a— now remember, in Maine, if a mother wants to murder her child
43:32
in the womb, then the father has absolutely
43:36
nothing, nothing, nothing to
43:40
say about it. But a divorced mom who's got the custody
43:44
of her child, the father of the child intervened and
43:48
said, you can't take our child to
43:53
your church because the theology there is upsetting.
43:57
And a state court in Maine backed the father up because
44:01
the father said that the church was a dangerous and
44:05
harmful environment. And there we are,
44:09
people with badges and guns and backed by court intervened
44:12
because apparently state courts really do understand
44:16
the merits of spiritual theology.
44:21
So my body, my choice, except, you know,
44:25
when it isn't. And today, God rest her soul, Gloria Steinem,
44:30
described in NBC News as fierce feminist
44:34
trailblazer, dies at 92,
44:37
surrounded by people who loved her, which did not include the child she
44:41
aborted. And she was very big on the whole my body,
44:44
my choice. And so on the one hand, you've got Gloria Steinem
44:48
for almost 70 years telling us that
44:53
women can do everything that men can do,
44:56
etc., etc., because reasons. And now the supporters of
45:00
Lindsey Clancy says, yes, women are just as good as men
45:04
in every single way, and we reserve the right to be serial
45:07
killers let free because hormones.
45:13
What do you say to that?
45:17
What do you say to that? And then Mr.
45:23
Engineer and I have agreed to have some
45:28
sort of reference to some good news story whenever
45:32
we do the review of headlines. And so here it is from Good News
45:36
Network. Florida teens designed charity app
45:39
to help generous locals deliver pizza for a
45:43
purpose. So if you're in their neck of the woods and you want to donate
45:47
a pizza to charity, you can do it through the app.
45:51
I mean, the only thing better than a good pizza is
45:54
a good pizza with anchovies on it and
45:59
not pineapple. Obviously. All right, so that's what's going
46:02
on in the world. How do we make sense of that in light of the
46:05
upcoming Sunday scriptures? If you're following the Novus Ordo
46:09
calendar or the Pauline Rite, we're coming up on the 23rd Sunday
46:13
in Ordinary Time, Lectionary 127.
46:17
Let's focus on Ezekiel, and I'm
46:21
going to read the thing. It's only 2 verses. Thus says the
46:25
Lord: You, Son of Man, I have appointed watchman
46:29
for the house of Israel. When you hear me say anything,
46:33
you shall warn them for me. If I tell the wicked,
46:37
O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak
46:41
out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall
46:45
die for his guilt, but I will hold you
46:50
responsible. For his death. But if you warn
46:53
the wicked, trying to turn him from his way,
46:57
and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die
47:01
for his guilt, but you shall save yourself.
47:06
Oh my, doesn't that make God sound,
47:10
you know, judgy?
47:13
Yeah, I'm thinking so. So especially
47:17
for The Catholic Cadres of the People Who Should Really Know Better Club,
47:21
and in particular the Senior Catholic Cadres of the People Who Should Really Know Better
47:24
Club, we've been ordained to preach the gospel with authority and
47:28
to hand on intact what the Church has always taught.
47:32
And sometimes what the Church has always taught upsets
47:36
people. And we see
47:39
what God Almighty said to Ezekiel, if you don't
47:43
preach the hard message and someone persists in their sin, they're going
47:47
to face responsibility for their sin, and you're going to face responsibility for
47:51
your silence. And here I want to quote, uh, Charles Spurgeon,
47:55
British preacher from the 19th century,
47:58
extraordinarily eloquent man. Listen to this.
48:03
He says, if sinners be damned, at least let
48:08
them leap to hell over our dead bodies.
48:12
And if they perish, let them perish with
48:16
our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay.
48:21
If hell must be filled, let it be filled in
48:25
the teeth of our exertions, and let
48:29
no one go to hell unwarned and unprayed
48:34
for. So says Charles Spurgeon.
48:38
Now, audio only, so we can't have a show of hands, but do
48:43
you think this sounds very much like synodality? Do you think it sounds
48:47
very much like listening? Do you think it sounds very much
48:51
like accompaniment? Do you think it sounds
48:55
very much like welcoming? Do you
48:58
think it sounds judgmental?
49:03
G.K. Chesterton said the human mind is like the human
49:07
mouth. Both are meant to close down on something solid.
49:12
G.K. Chesterton also said, if your minds are too open,
49:16
your brains will fall out. And I think that's
49:19
where we are right now. And human beings are
49:23
made to make judgments. We can know right
49:27
from wrong very readily because the moral
49:31
law is written on the human heart by God himself.
49:36
And we can have a finer appreciation of right and wrong and a
49:39
stronger ability to desire and choose right and wrong
49:44
when we are in a state of grace.
49:48
So it's really important for the Church Christ founded to be the champion
49:52
of natural law and the dispensers of God's
49:56
grace. May God's holy name be praised now and forever.
49:59
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host here every day of The Catholic
50:03
Herald. Join us on Monday, another round of the Catholic Current. You know what we
50:07
do here— great topics, great guests, and great conversations.
50:11
That's how we roll here every day, the Catholic Current and the Station of
50:15
the Cross, where we strive to be so very much
50:19
more than merely relevant. After the broadcast today, go to
50:22
thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list,
50:25
download our audios, podcasts. Wherever you can find audio, you can find
50:29
us. Follow us on favorite platform, write a 5-star review. We need to attract the
50:33
attention of the listeners so these conversations get the attention they deserve.
50:37
Take us to your family and friends. Together we'll take it to the whole world.
50:41
The intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Almighty God bless you,
50:45
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Go in peace, and please do pray for me,
50:48
for I am a sinner.