Schism, Heretical Bishops, and Pope Benedict XVI (Dr. Richard DeClue) | Ep. 512

Summary

Podcast Summary: Pints With Aquinas Ep. 512

Episode Title: Schism, Heretical Bishops, and Pope Benedict XVI (Dr. Richard DeClue)
Host: Matt Fradd
Guest: Dr. Richard DeClue
Date: March 1, 2025

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Overview

This episode revolves around the legacy, theology, and ecclesiological insights of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), with Dr. Richard DeClue as the featured guest. The discussion meanders through issues of schism and heretical bishops, the role of the papacy—especially from a eucharistic perspective—the fate and future of the Church, and the unique character and contributions of Benedict XVI. The tone is candid, thoughtful, and at times warmly personal, with frequent references to the emotional and intellectual impact of Catholic theological giants.

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1. Benedict XVI: The Man, The Writer, The Theologian

First Impressions and Legacy

• Dr. DeClue describes his awe at Benedict’s ability to unite heart and mind in his writing—expressing deep truths in beautiful, simple language.
• Matt Fradd reminisces about being near Benedict in Washington, DC, and notes, “I just expected him to be like 10 feet tall because he’s a giant (intellectually).” (02:21)
• Dr. DeClue lauds Benedict’s “unity of the mind and the heart,” saying,

  “It doesn’t just make you go, ‘oh, yeah, that’s true.’ It makes you go, ‘wow, that's awesome.’” (03:21)

Benedict’s Style vs. Scholasticism

• Benedict is described as “not a scholastic” but rather someone who “shows, not proves” theological truths—painting a mosaic from tradition, scripture, and synthesis.

  “He’s not doing a logical demonstration. So he’s not demonstrating. He’s monstrating… He’s hoping you’re going to perceive it through his words.” (06:03-07:27)

• Comparison with Pope John Paul II: Both engage heart and intellect, but Benedict is less philosophical, more metaphysically rooted, and shows the interconnection of all doctrine.

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2. Resignation, Comparison with John Paul II, and Papal Office

On Benedict’s Resignation

• Fradd speculates on “what might have happened if [Benedict] hadn’t quit.” (09:03)
• Dr. DeClue thinks the resignation extended Benedict’s life and freed him from the burdens of office.
• Contrasts are drawn between John Paul II’s perseverance through suffering and Benedict’s humility:

  “John Paul II… shows us the image of Christ carrying his cross… Benedict kind of shows us John the Baptist, ‘I must decrease that he must increase.’” (18:17)

On Election to the Papacy

• Benedict saw his own election as an execution:

  “He compares it to an execution… the image of the guillotine falling down… He didn’t want it. This isn’t a man who sought power.” (16:34)

• “His gift was always theology, and he was academic most of his life… Because of his humility, he thought, ‘I need the Church more than the Church needs me.’” (17:41)

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3. The Second Vatican Council and Its Aftermath

Implementation and Media

• Both Dr. DeClue and Benedict criticized the implementation of Vatican II:

  “He was not happy with the implementation of the Council. Neither were people like Henri de Lubac.” (10:10)

• The media’s unprecedented ability to spin and distort the Council’s message is seen as a major cause of confusion.
• “It’s the first time that the media could manipulate a church council in the history of the church… you didn’t have TV, you didn’t have radio.” (11:02-11:19)

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4. Schism, Heretical Bishops, and Church Unity

Eucharist, Papacy, and Unity

• Dr. DeClue’s central thesis: The Church’s unity (expressed most profoundly in the Eucharist) requires a unifying structure—the papacy.

• “Everything comes from the Triune God… Communion is actually at the heart of reality… To celebrate the Eucharist schismatically is a lie… The Eucharist is meant to bring us united as one body.” (00:00, 35:14, 40:25)

• The Papacy as a “Eucharistic office”:

  “Even more than orthodoxy, the chief role of the Pope is to serve ortho-Eucharist—the right celebration of the Eucharist.” (40:20)

• The need for visible, tangible unity:

  “You can't… just separate off into separate churches because then you're separating the body of Christ from itself.” (41:25)

• Critique of spiritualized unity:

  “That's against the Incarnational understanding of the Church... It's visible and invisible.” (41:51)

[Important Communion Segment]: (34:09–43:45)

Dr. DeClue offers a step-by-step explanation of how the Church’s very essence is communion, flowing from the Trinity, actualized in the Eucharist, and requiring universal unity—necessitating the papacy.

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5. Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue & Limits of Synodality

• Dr. DeClue recounts engaging with Orthodox theologians:

  “You can’t have a synod without a protos… so… primacy [is] of divine right.” (44:03-46:10)

• Orthodox bishop John Zizioulas admitted primacy “does belong in Rome”—the disagreement centers on what primacy entails (46:09–46:26).

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6. Progress, Persecution, and the Church’s Future

Benedict’s Prediction of a Smaller Church

• Benedict’s famous prediction:

  “The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning… But when the trial of this sifting is passed, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified church.” (54:13–56:14)

• Dr. DeClue draws parallels with Ratzinger’s experience under the Nazis:

  “We now know what it means that the gates of hell will not prevail against her because we have seen the gates of hell and she alone was left standing.” (56:50)

Local Extinction and Church Visibility

• Fradd and DeClue discuss the possibility of the Church disappearing from entire countries:

  “The gates will not prevail against the Church does not mean the gates will not prevail against the Church in Switzerland or in Ireland.” (58:35)

Heretical Bishops and Accountability

• A sober reminder:

  “Heretic bishops is a real thing that has happened in the history of the Church and it does a lot of damage.” (60:01)

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7. Schism and the Dangers of Overreaction

Schism as False Fidelity

• Dr. DeClue addresses the temptation—especially among “rad trads”—to schism as a supposed act of fidelity:

  “If you go to a schismatic group, you’ve actually conceded the gates of hell did prevail… the Church has a visible, identifiable, tangible reality.” (65:20)

• Cautions against substituting oneself for the magisterium:

  “If you style yourself a traditional orthodox Catholic, [Satan] is not going to tempt you with radical liberal progressive ideology… He’s going to try to get you to become a schismatic the other way… justifying leaving the Church.” (68:18)

• Dismisses “Set-vacantist” moves as self-refuting:

  “What would be the mechanism by which you would ever have a pope again?” (66:34)

[Schism Discussion Segment]: (64:20–71:33)

A detailed unpacking of the temptation to schism, the theological and practical fallacies of such moves, and the real demonic dangers that exploit both left and right extremes.

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8. The Secularization Facade and Sacramental Integrity

• Ratzinger’s early warning (1958) about the “new pagans in the Church”:

  “The church is becoming a facade… people from the outside, it looks like we’re strong, but in reality, the people in the pews are pagans… They don’t really believe.” (72:01–74:46)

• The scandal of sacramental hypocrisy—baptizing, confirming, and marrying people who have no intention to live the faith.

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9. Q&A: Limbo, Sainthood, and Where to Start with Benedict XVI

Limbo and Benedict’s Stance

• “I’d like to see a quote when he explicitly says that… This is still an area of dispute among theologians.” (50:40)
• Staples (catholic.com) referenced: Under Benedict, limbo was reduced to a “possible theological hypothesis.”

Sainthood and Doctor of the Church

• DeClue:

  “I would like to see [Benedict] canonized, to be made a doctor of the Church… but maybe even those we need to slow down a little bit.” (76:04–78:16)

Reading Recommendations

• For beginners:

  “I usually tell them Milestones, which is his memoirs… It gives you a great insight into who he is as a person.” (78:36)

• Favorites:
  • Introduction to Christianity
  • “Principles of Catholic Theology (Building Stones for Fundamental Theology)” (his personal ‘sleeper hit’)
  • Called to Communion (short book on ecclesiology)
  • Jesus of Nazareth series

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10. The Word on Fire Institute

• Dr. DeClue is engaged in both academic and popular-level ministry with the Institute, providing lectures, seminars, and community engagement, notably “Theology for Evangelists.”
• Courses aim to train evangelists “with the Word on Fire ethos,” combining faith, reason, and beauty (29:46–32:06).

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11. Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On unity and the Eucharist:

  “To celebrate the Eucharist schismatically is a lie… to celebrate it outside of communion with that body is an aberration.” (00:00)

• On Benedict’s writing:

  “Just that simple language, but so deep, so beautiful.” (05:25)

• On the temptation of schism:

  “If you go to a schismatic group, you’ve actually conceded the gates of hell did prevail." (65:20)

• On the ‘facade’ of Catholic culture:

  “The church is becoming a facade… but by keeping up appearances, we’re… allowing these people to believe they aren’t pagans when they really are.” (72:01)

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12. Final Thoughts

This episode is a tour-de-force on both the theological vision of Benedict XVI and the perils and responsibilities of being Catholic in a confused, sometimes hostile age. Dr. DeClue’s passion for Benedict’s thought shines—especially in his focus on communion, the sacramental nature of the Church, and the dangers of both laxity and schism.

For those seeking to understand Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the logic and necessity of papal primacy, or the emotional and existential realities Catholics face today—this conversation is an invaluable resource.

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Key Segments

• 00:00–08:59: Benedict’s writing, personality, style, and impact
• 09:00–20:00: Comparing John Paul II and Benedict, the papacy
• 34:09–44:00: Deep dive on Eucharist, papacy, and unity
• 50:40–54:13: Limbo, smaller Church prediction
• 64:20–71:33: Schism, heretical bishops, Church unity
• 78:36–end: Benedict’s best works, sainthood, and practical recommendations

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For Further Exploration:

• Dr. DeClue’s Book: [Bookstore.WordOnFire.org]
• Word on Fire Institute: [Institute.WordOnFire.org]
• “Milestones” and “Introduction to Christianity,” Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI
• International Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue documents on ecclesiology

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“No matter how marred the body of Christ gets… It doesn't mean the solution is to lop yourself off of the body. If your right arm gets gangrenous, you don't chop off your left arm.” — Dr. Richard DeClue (70:45 approx.)

Transcript

[A]

Introducing Family freedom from T Mobile. We'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones, all on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com familyfreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phone via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement. Example Apple iPhone 16, 128 gigs $829.99 Eligible trade in example iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due. If you pay off early or cancel contact us. Everything comes from the Triune God and his order towards the Triune God. Right? That means all of reality is based in the Trinity. Communion is actually at the heart of reality. To celebrate the Eucharist schismatically is a lie. In a way. It's the exact opposite of what it's supposed to be. Because the Eucharist is meant to bring us united as one body. To celebrate it outside of communion with that body is an aberration. You have to have a means of maintaining universal unity. If we can understand the Papacy as being a eucharistic office, then it makes it more understandable to our orthodox brethren because they, along with us, have Eucharistic ecclesiology. The gathering to celebrate the Eucharist is the Church at her highest mode. Like that is what she is for, is worshiping God in the Eucharist.

[B]

Good to see you.

[A]

Good to see you.

[B]

Thanks for coming back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Congratulations on your new book.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Congratulations on going with a publisher that knows how to make beautiful books.

[A]

I know, right? Seriously, they really do. They. When they had this, they first showed me this. They sent me a image of it first. I was just like, yes, thank you. Really? Yeah.

[B]

I wouldn't know. I see. If they had shown that to me just as a. As a document. I don't know. It's also the binding they do and the type of COVID they have.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's really beautiful. Do you ever meet Benedict?

[A]

No. But he did walk in front of me. Hey, let's go maybe a little further from where we are from each other now. He walked right in front of me. And when he came to Washington, D.C. to Catholic U, I was there at the time and I was. Remember the first thing I thought was, oh, wow, he's my height.

[B]

Okay. I just expected him to be like 10ft tall because he's a giant taller.

[A]

Yeah. You know, but yeah, it was pretty cool.

[B]

Yeah. I was in Rome when I interviewed Cameron Battuzzi. Remember when he announced his Conversion to Catholicism. I don't know if you remember that.

[A]

Yes, I do.

[B]

But when I was there, they gave us a tour of the Vatican, and we went back behind the walls and we walked past the house that he lived in. That's the closest I've come to Benedict.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So you're a fan.

[A]

Huge fan.

[B]

You know what I mean? So I've been reading this. Fruit of Her Womb.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

One thing that I have, just because it's. There's. The reason I bring it up is there's a lot of reflections from rat, from rats, from perpetuate the 16th. And I was shocked at how he writes. Like, he writes so simply. There's no. At least when he's maybe writing to a regular audience, there's no jargon. But it's so brilliant and so profound. I really miss him.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely true. I think one of the greatest aspects of his work is the fact that he's very profound and deep. He's got a tremendous wisdom, but he also knows how to put things in a very affective way. Like, it doesn't just make you go, oh, yeah, that's true. It makes you go, wow, that's awesome. You know, and it's sort of that unity of the mind and the heart that, you know, truth and affect, you know, it's not just a list of facts or things we can prove, but something to delight in.

[B]

Well, I know what affect means, but what do you mean when you say that?

[A]

So there's. It elicits. It elicits a positive sentiment or feeling, like it's a matter of the heart, too. It's not just the head. It's like the head and the heart combined. And I think that's a big part of his brilliance as a theologian, as a churchman, is that the ability to unite those two things together. It's sort of like the idea that. I mean, if you go back to, like, ancient Greek rhetoric. Right. Rhetoric can be considered a negative thing because. Yeah, we see that all the time in politics. Right. You know, all the rhetoric. And it's. You know, people are lying, but they will be effective because they'll get away with it and most of the people won't know any better, and it'll work. But that's not what I mean here. What I mean is the art of being able to present things in a way that. That makes it attractive.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But that is appropriate because it's also true.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, and I think that's. Yeah.

[B]

Let me show you kind of give one example of this. This is from his Christmas message in 2011. He says, this is the great evil, the great sin from which we human beings cannot save ourselves unless we rely on God's help, unless we cry out to him, come to save us. The very fact that we cry to heaven in this way already sets us a right. It makes us true to ourselves.

[A]

We.

[B]

We are, in fact, those who cried out to God and were saved. God is the Savior. We are those who are in peril. He is the physician. We are the infirm. Again, just that simple language, but so deep, so beautiful.

[A]

Yeah, he's. It's. It's amazing. It's one of the things I love the most about him is the way that he writes. And because he, I think, you know, in some senses, one of. Part of his method in theology is. And this can make some people not like him as much is he's not a scholastic. Right? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, he's a big fan of Bonaventure, who was a scholastic, of course, Saint Bonaventure. But he doesn't write in a scholastic style. And so sometimes, like, if you really want to get down in nitty gritty details on things and questions of sub questions, you're not necessarily going to find that y. Now, occasionally he might have insights like that, but so he's not doing a logical demonstration. So he's not demonstrating. He's monstrating, meaning he's not proving. He's showing.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And so I. I find his theology to be best understood as an elucidation that helps you see what he sees. It's like he's dug through the tradition, he's dug through the scriptures, he's read authors from throughout the centuries, and he's interiorized it. And now he's now perceived not just the data, but the meaning behind the data. He's seen the connections. So now he's painting you a mosaic. So he's revealing to you what he himself has imbibed and collated and synthesized. And so he's showing you a picture of the reality. He's not necessarily proving it to you beyond a shadow of a doubt and some sort of mathematical proof.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But he's hoping you're going to perceive it through his words.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And then you will just know it's true because it will ring true and it'll. You'll be gripped by the truth.

[B]

How is that different from. I know he was a theologian. Pope John Paul. Pope St. John Paul II was a philosopher. But how. How is that different. Different to his sort of phenomenological approach, because it sounds similar in that he's. He's sort of showing you something which ought to just resonate with you without necessarily going through the. The arguments.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, there certainly are actually a lot of similarities between the two of them, I think, in a lot of their method, in their way of expressing, especially as popes. You know, they both have a very keen intellect, but also know how to put things in a beautiful way that grabs you as far as, like Pope St. John Paul II was. Was more of a philosopher. So. But they both. So, yes, John Paul II had a phenomenological bent, but still rooted in metaphysics. And I think that's why there's such a similarity between him and Benedict. So Benedict's not a philosopher either, but he defends philosophy multiple times, tooth and nail. Says it's absolutely crucial, especially metaphysics. And it's that metaphysical realism that I think they both share in common and I think is absolutely essential to the Catholic faith, to be honest. And I think a loss of metaphysics is actually behind a lot of our problems. Sure.

[B]

What do you think would have happened if he hadn't have quit?

[A]

That's hard to say.

[B]

Can you imagine?

[A]

Yeah, I don't know.

[B]

He didn't die that long ago. I wonder what would have happened to the Church.

[A]

I don't know if he would have lived as long as he did. I think resigning did extend his life significantly. I mean, Ganzschwein, his secretary at the time, says, like, we didn't expect that he would live that long. Maybe a year, two, three more. They did not expect he would hang on as long as he did.

[B]

But.

[A]

That probably had something to do with being relieved of the duties of office.

[B]

That's wild how last time you were on, we were talking about the Second Vatican Council.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Which was a super helpful episode, I think, because a lot of people just blame everything on the Second Vatican Council. A lot of people do. Right. And not realizing why it was necessary, what they were responding to. Maybe a lot of these people haven't even read the documents, etc. But one of the things you said back then was that there was a lack of oversight that led to the confusion and liturgical chaos that resulted.

[A]

Yeah, it seems to me. Yeah. I mean, and it's something that Benedict himself complained about. I mean, he was not happy with the implementation of the Council. Neither were people like Henri de Lubac. I mean, they were rather upset about the way that the Council was put into effect. And the way it was being twisted by the media and other theologians who are taking advantage of the media.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I mean, then, of course, Ratzinger being his name, I mean, basically said, it's like, yeah, you know, we might have been right in the theology, but we may have not. Not taken into consideration how it would be received. And so they didn't anticipate the way that it would be twisted. And even with regards to liturgy, he was. He was rather upset at, you know.

[B]

And this is kind of the first time that the media could manipulate a church council in the history of the church. Because it didn't exist.

[A]

Yeah, not on that scale.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, on that scale.

[A]

Papers. But you didn't have tv. You didn't have radio.

[B]

Yeah. That's what I mean.

[A]

You didn't have any of that. Yeah.

[B]

Isn't that crazy to think about? Because I. That was gonna be my next question. Like, had that happened before? But, yeah, the media is. We know it.

[A]

Yeah. It's hard to know what would have happened if he. If he hadn't resigned. I don't know. That's a good question. I mean, I guess it would have depended on how long he lived. And then it may have affected the next election based on which cardinals would have aged out and that sort of thing. It's also a question of, like, how well would he have been able to continue leading the church.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And what. What may have rotted beneath the surface while he was unable to deal with things because of his health. Perhaps that's a possibility. Right. And that things may have looked okay on the surface with his red shoes and cool stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Big fan of the red shoes.

[A]

This is something I, like. I like to mention, and I actually bring it up, think, in the book, towards the end of the first chapter on his life. But I think. Because when you compare Benedict to John Paul ii, you see a pretty stark contrast. Right. As far as how they handled that. The end of their papacy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, John Paul II just showed steadfastness and perseverance through suffering. And he had Parkinson's disease and just wouldn't stop. He just fought tooth and nail to the end. Then you look at Benedict and he's like, all right, I'm resigning. And I think there can be a temptation to say, oh, well, one is virtuous and the other one's obviously cowardly. And, you know, we. And, like. No, I actually think it's rooted in showing us different virtues that correspond to their personalities and their gifts and talents. John Paul II was Always a gregarious, outgoing, go getter type of person, you know, since he was young. I mean, that's who he was. Benedict was a shy, humble person who never sought the limelight. You know, he was made Archbishop of Munich and Freising, out of nowhere, he thought for sure his spirit director would tell him to reject it, to turn it down. And he's like, no, you have to accept. He's like, what? And then a couple years or soon thereafter, he was actually asked to move to Rome to head up the Congregation for Education, and he turned it down. Now, his excuse was, it's not fair to Munich. They just got a new archbishop. It would be unfair to them to lose it so fast. You know, it's a major archdiocese, you know, so that only worked for so long. And then eventually John Paul II basically said, I want you to head the cdf. And Benedict kept trying to decline it, you know, and eventually he's like, okay, I'll accept under one condition, which he didn't think would be given. He didn't think it could be given.

[B]

How do you know that?

[A]

That's what he says. He says that he does in interviews. He told Sewalt this, that he's like, I'll accept the position as long as you continue to allow me to publish.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So writing books and articles and things like that. And John Paul was like, okay, well, I'll look into it. He goes, john Paul comes back. He goes like, actually, it turns out this other guy did the same thing, so you can, too.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

He's like, okay, I guess I have to do this. So then he tried to retire after five years. He told him. He's like, oh, well, my five year term is up, so obviously it's time for me to get out of here. And John Paul was like, no, I don't accept that you're staying. Then he had a brain hemorrhage. Benedictine.

[B]

Wow. I didn't know that.

[A]

Yeah. And he was like, you know, this is obviously really incapacitating. You know, it actually affected his vision, which eventually he lost vision. I think it was in his left eye. You know, I really need to be relieved of my duties. Like, I've had this brain hemorrhage. You know, this is really grueling. John was like, no, I need you. And then a third time Pope, John Paul II said, don't even bother asking. He goes, as long as I am Pope, I will need you in this next to me. And so he tried to retire three times before he became Pope.

[B]

Yeah. And then John Paul II wasn't around, and he did well.

[A]

When he became Pope, the only person that could tell him no was himself. And I think what's interesting about that is he, even though he knew his name had been bandied about, like, in the press and people were talking about his name as possible being elected, he didn't think it was actually possible. He thought it was absurd that he would be elected. Probably the only person on the planet that thought he wasn't an actual contender.

[B]

Did he give reasons for that?

[A]

No, he just didn't. He just didn't think it made sense. He didn't think it was possible. And then the image he gives of when he was elected, when it became clear he was going to be elected, he compares it to an execution. He says the image of the guillotine falling down on you came to mind. He didn't want it. This isn't a man who sought power in the Church. And he's also a very humble person. I honestly think, think that from his perspective, and it's known, and other people have testified to this, he was never good at playing the political game. He's in some sense, almost childlike in the fact that he doesn't have any guile like that. He doesn't try to manipulate things. He doesn't know how to play the game, like the sort of politics that you'll see in any sort of organization. He doesn't jockey for position. He doesn't. He doesn't play those sorts of games. So. Which tells me is he probably doesn't know really how to detect it either.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, administration was never his strong suit. It was never what he was known for. His gift was always theology, and he was academic most of his, you know, life. And I honestly think, because of his humility, he thought, I need the Church more than the Church needs me. I'm probably standing in the way, like, so. Whereas John Paul II in some ways, to me, shows us the image of Christ carrying his cross on the way to Golgotha.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Benedict kind of shows us John the Baptist, I must decrease that. He must increase. Like, let me get out of the way. Like, I think he honestly thought someone else could be doing a better job. The Church. I'm holding the Church back. I can't fulfill this to the best of my ability. They're probably better if I step down. I think that's honestly what he thought. And he said that he wasn't pressured, and I believe him.

[B]

Do you think there was a reaction to how Benedict governed to put Pope Francis or how. Yeah.

[A]

What do you mean?

[B]

Well, I mean, if, if Benedict was, you know, like God's Rottweiler in the sense that he would. He was very Orthodox and doctrinally sound. Do you think there was a contingent of cardinals who kind of. I, I honestly swim to the other direction with Francis.

[A]

It could be, but I don't even know how much the cardinals even knew of because I don't know how much they know of each other. I mean, how many of them really even knew who he was? I mean, I'm sure there was a poor contingent that did in this, as.

[B]

A push chef, they would know about him. But don't you think.

[A]

No, I meant. No, I meant, no Francis.

[B]

I see. I see.

[A]

I mean, I never heard the name Bergoglio before he was elected. Right. I don't know how much they know of each other or how they, how that works out. I really. So I don't know. I mean, that could be. I. I really don't know what went into that. Yeah, it's, It'd be, It would be interesting to be on the fly, on the wall in those conversations.

[B]

So, like, why did you get into Benedict? Have you always loved him? Did it develop till you wanted to write this book or it.

[A]

Yeah. So my history with Benedict, when I was in college as a. I was a theology major, and I remember just default liking him because I knew he was Orthodox, which, you know, back in, in those days, you know, was not. You had to hang on to the Orthodox people, you know, when you had them. So I loved him by reputation. I never actually studied him. It wasn't until I don't know the year or where, which grad program I was in graduate school. And I just, I started reading them and I don't remember what the first book was, but the more I read, I just wanted to read more, and I just kept reading and I remember just being like, this is amazing. Like, I would underline and highlight and make comments in the margins and it was like every page had like, yes, exclamation point, amen, underline. So when I got my second graduate degree, the STL in Systematic Theology, I decided I was really interested in ecclesiology, which theology of the Church. And so I ended up writing my STL thesis comparing Ratzinger to a Greek Orthodox theologian, John Zezulis, on how to understand the papacy or universal primacy from a Eucharistic perspective. Like, can we understand the Pope as a Eucharistic officer? Because Catholics and Orthodox both understand the Church and the Eucharist as being intimately and essentially united, almost as like two sides of one reality.

[B]

What are the two sides? The Eucharist.

[A]

Eucharist and the Church.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So if we both understand the Church Eucharistically and that's like our strongest thing we have in common. Well, the thing that divides us the most is the Papacy. So can we understand the papacy in light of the Eucharist? How would you.

[B]

And therefore, what does that mean?

[A]

Well, I wrote a whole STL thesis on it. I talk about it in the book a little bit. We can go into that, but let me finish.

[B]

We can come back for it. I'll make a note.

[A]

So that was the first foray into doing major work on him. It was about 140 page thesis comparing him to zealous on that question. I loved it. So then when I went back for the doctorate, I had to come up with a topic and I wanted to continue writing in ecclesiology, but I couldn't find anyone to direct it. Like, all of the obvious professors were booked. They just had no more room for any more directees. So was one professor, Father Galvin was like, well, you know, so his original brick is going to another tangent. In Germany, you typically don't just write one dissertation, write two for the habilitation degree. So his second one was on Bonaventure. Right. Now, the first version was rejected and never approved. And that was from 1955. That one was never approved. It was rejected. He had to change. He changed it, published only a section of it as the whole thing to pass the degree. Well, I think it was in 2008 or 2009. The original version was published for the first time in German. So no one had access to that before. And so it was a major change. So my professor was like, I've got the German copy of this. I could direct a dissertation talking about his Theology of Revelation using this, his habilitation from 1955. I was like, all right, let's do it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I did my doctoral dissertation on his theology of Divine revelation. And so that just. That was really hard because, like, most of my sources were in German.

[B]

Did you learn any?

[A]

Well, I had to learn German to the whole.

[B]

Can you read it fluently?

[A]

Speak it fluently? I wouldn't say fluently. You know, it goes up and down depending on how much I use it. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I can have a conversation that's casual. I can understand a lot now. Like, I'll watch things in German sometimes, if they're not too fast, I can pick it Up. Yeah, I can read it fairly well.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I wouldn't say I'm fluent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, in the sense. Like a native sense. But, yeah, I've done a lot of research in German. I've helped with translations before. So that was really difficult, but it was just fascinating. And so for. I wanted to write this book probably 15. For, like, 15 years before I started. And I finally had the opportunity, and I was like, yeah, I want to do this because I've. The purpose of this book in particular, because what he did for me is it was through Ratzinger that I became more aware of how all the different doctrines of the faith are part of one mystery, which means they're all connected. They're not separate questions. They're just different aspects of one reality. And I never really saw it that way before. And so I wanted to write a book that not only gave you a summary of his thought on specific questions, I wanted to show how all of his answers to those questions and how all of those questions themselves are related to. And so that was the purpose of the book. It was to try to explain how the Catholic faith, how you have all these different areas. And so I ordered the chapters in a very intentional way. I try to do it in a way that I think most logically exemplifies how they're related to each other, how one flows from the other. And then I try to show this leitmotif of communion as being the key to understanding every single area of it. And so the purpose of the book was not just to give a summary of those separate questions, but to show how they're actually forming unity. And so that's what we tried to do. Awesome.

[B]

Were you a convert to Catholicism at all? Did you always believe?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I remember.

[B]

You were just like a nerd, like a Scott Barn nerd back in the 90s. Listen to his tapes.

[A]

Little. Yeah, I remember middle school. I was reading Peter Kreeft.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And.

[B]

Whoa, Middle school. That's amazing.

[A]

Yeah. In middle school, I was reading his yes or no, Strangers to Tough Questions About Christianity. And then I read his Refutation of Moral Relativism, Interviews with an Absolutist. And I was reading, like, Stephen B. Curry's, like, Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, Scott Hahn's Rome, Sweet Rome. I would really love the. I listened to a lot of Scott Hahn audio. Like the Fourth Cup. Yeah, I loved that. So, yeah, I was doing all that when I was young. Some of that was in college and high school, but that wasn't all. In middle school, but, you know, over the years. So I always just loved the faith. My. I came from a very devout core family, plus grandparents, aunts and uncles on both sides, so very Catholic environment. And I. I don't remember a time in my life when my faith wasn't important to me, is probably the best way to put it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it started before, I think my memories even begin.

[B]

You're a blessed man.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So would you consider yourself an academic at this point? This is primarily what you're doing is writing and researching?

[A]

Yeah, you could say that. I kind of have a foot in both worlds because I do a lot for the Institute for a more popular level as well.

[B]

What are you doing?

[A]

Right. So as a professor of theology of the War on the Fire Institute, I. I run what's called the Theology for Evangelists Community.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So within, if you sign up for the institute and become a member, we have all these different communities you can join.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And mine is Theology for Evangelists. So I give lectures over the course of like a semester. So it's not, you know, we take breaks for summer and for December. Every other week I give a live lecture and give you like a little assignment to do to help you try to express what you've learned or whatever. So I do that. I do.

[B]

What's the website?

[A]

It's Word on Fire institute. So sorry, institute.WordPress.org or community.WordPress.org if you go institute.WordPress.org it will. That will redirect you to the website.

[B]

Yeah, I'm with it.

[A]

I'm looking at it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So Sword on Fire Institute. And then we also do, every month we have a three day seminar which is. It's so it's an hour, it's 75 minutes per day. So it's not like the whole day. But they're live seminars where one of us, one of the professors or one of the fellows will do three days on a specific topic that's pertinent to the culture. So I've done two of those so far.

[B]

All right, Help me understand Wood on Fire. So I understand it is. It used to be just Baron doing videos.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then he did that Catholicism series and that exploded. I'm not asking you to like, advertise for it necessarily. I'm just trying to personally understand the difference. So if people sign up to this day, they just start getting different courses from different people who work for him or work for y'. All.

[A]

Right. Yeah. So, I mean, it's grown massively over the last several years. So I don't even know how many employees we have now, but it's expanded quite a bit. So we've got different departments, of course. We've got like the development departments and we've got like the communications and media. I'm probably butchering the department names, but we've got tons of people working in there. We've got a publishing arm that's got multiple imprints. So good. The obviously customer service and relations, things like that design team, which is amazing. Absolutely fantastic team there. That's why we have such beautiful books and yeah, the. So the institute was founded to try to provide a little bit higher level. I guess one way of putting is to help train people to be evangelists with the word on fire ethos. So commitment to, you know, positive orthodoxy and eucharistic and Christocentric. We have like a whole eight principles, you know, and the idea is to help train evangelists to. To engage the culture, to evangelize the culture. It looks so good. And so the institute, we have courses in there. I mean they're like basically 8 to 12, 20 minute talks. They're not like full academic courses, but, you know, on different topics. We do a lot of stuff on faith and science. Like I've given a couple of lectures on faith and science through. We have conferences on that. We've had the Wonder conference now for a couple years and the year before that even started, we had a Faith in Science summit. We bring in like Ivy League Catholic scientists to talk about faith and science. Things like that of course is all on all sorts of different topics. And then. Yeah, these communities. So. And you get. We have a quarterly journal that comes along with the membership. The Evangelization and Culture Journal. Incredible. It's gorgeous. Yeah. So we have good articles that are, you know, they're intellectual and they're deep, but they're not academic in that sense.

[B]

Yeah. How did, how did Baron get so good at this? Did he just know who. Who to put in the right seats? Yeah, because I presume he's not a graphic designer. He's got an idea of what he wants.

[A]

No, it's unreal. He. He and Father Steve have a great ability of talent acquisition.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They seem to just know how to find people that. And help them use their talents. I mean it's. It is amazing honestly, to. To see because there's such great people that work work for us that I. Sometimes you do wonder, how did you find this person?

[B]

Is this primarily online word on fire with like these communities referring To.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So are you forming communities outside of the web, or is it just people connecting online?

[A]

There. There had. I don't know, the current status on some. On some of these things, because we used to have a fellow for parish life and a fellow for community life or something. I forget. So we've done things with parishes. Some parishes will use our stuff for RCIA and sorry, OCIA and stuff like that. So we've had some interaction with local things in the past, and I think, you know, I don't want to speak for the future visions of the organization, but, yeah, there's some desire for people to actually meet locally as well.

[B]

Awesome. Yeah. I'm so impressed with everything Wood on Fire is doing. They keep sending me books, I think, because they. I keep letting them.

[A]

We also have a master's program now, too.

[B]

You do?

[A]

In evangelization and culture. What? Yeah. So you get to take classes in like, philosophy and theology and literature that are all geared towards evangelizing the culture.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so grateful for all the Baron's doing. I'm tempted to go back to this Eucharist and papacy thing, but I'm afraid it'll be too complicated. Can you sum it up quickly for me so that, like, me can understand? And then if I can understand that, we can go deeper.

[A]

Right. Okay.

[B]

So the. What's. What do you.

[A]

What's your.

[B]

What's your argument trying to accomplish?

[A]

Basically, as a Catholic, my argument is to try to show how the papacy is actually necessary for the Church understood from a Eucharistic perspective.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because it's needed in order for the Church to be that which the Eucharist makes her to be. So it's not accidental that both the Church and the Eucharist are called communion. Okay. Now this all. It might actually make more sense if I just try to give you the brief outline of the book. But the fundamental point is that the. Everything comes from the triune God and is ordered towards the triune God. Right. That means all of reality is based in the Trinity. Okay. That means relation, Communion is actually at the heart of reality.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So sin breaks apart. Communion.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. Isolation, separation destroys relationships just like wheat. It destroys relationships with our relationship with God, with one another, even with ourselves. Right. The integrity that we have of the division of the body and the soul warring against one another and not even having full possession of our own self about that. The will and the disorder. Yeah. That's disordered. So it's a lack of integrity. It's a disunity with Yourself. That's what sin accomplishes. So what is redemption and salvation? It's healing the division caused by sin, which means bringing back into communion, which means healing relationship with God. And by healing the relationship with God, healing our relationships with one another and with our in our interior selves. Right. Ordered towards becoming members of the communion of saints. Right. So that means there's a communal aspect to salvation. It's not just individualistic. Yes, we are judged individually. No one's denying that. But if salvation is to live divine life, and divine life is communal, then salvation is communal. It's being united with God and all of the others who are united with God. Which means the Church is not accidental to salvation. It's the beginning of salvation. So the unity of the Church is essential to what she is, as Lumen Gentium said, she's as a sacrament or sign, an instrument of a closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race. She. So the Church symbolizes and enacts, affects the unity of man with God and the unity of all mankind. That's what she is in her essence. So the argument is that what we understand, as St. Paul says in First Corinthians, we are, though many, are one body for all partake of the one bread. Right. Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a communion. A communion. It's koinonia, a communion in the blood of Christ. It is not the bread that we break a communion in the Body of Christ. Therefore we, though many, are one, for we all partake of the one body or the one bread. The Eucharist is the source of our unity as the church. Even St. Thomas Aquinas says this. Right. The res tantum, the effect of the sacrament of the Eucharist is the bond of charity of the members of the Church. So the unity of the Church is the res of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the thing, the effect that it has. So that's what the Eucharist does. It unifies us as the Body of Christ, which means it must be celebrated in unity. Okay. So unity is therefore the effect. And that means it can only be properly celebrated in universal communion. So you have to have these means of maintaining communion.

[B]

I missed that step.

[A]

Both local. Yes.

[B]

It has to be celebrated in universal communion. What does that mean?

[A]

Meaning that the different celebrations of the Eucharist must be in communion with one another for them to be what they're what they fully what they are.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Right. To celebrate. This is what the early Church Fathers were saying. Right? You don't go to the table, to the altar of a schismatic. Right. So you need to have communion on the local level, and that's where the bishop comes into play. And you need to have communion on the universal level to keep all the local churches, one church throughout the world and throughout time. So. And to be professing one faith. So there must be a means, a structure by which the Church can maintain her identity throughout the globe and throughout time. So across time. So it's diachronic and synchronic unity. And basically the argument is that the papacy is the office that serves the universal communion of the Church through space and time, so that the Eucharist can be celebrated properly and those celebrating the Eucharist can receive that as members of the one church established by Christ. Right. Which is part of what the Eucharist means. So the. The idea there is that it's a eucharistic office, meaning. So this is actually something Benedict XVI is known for. It's not a direct quote. It's actually someone Bautiste Mondine said this about him that even more than orthodoxy, the chief role of the Pope is to serve ortho Eucharist.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

The right celebration of the Eucharist. And what does that mean?

[B]

What does the right celebration of the Eucharist mean?

[A]

That it's celebrated properly. Which means with the. With right belief, you could argue right way it's supposed to be done, but that it is done in universal Communion, because that's what the Eucharist means. So to celebrate the Eucharist schismatically is a lie. In a way. It's the exact opposite of what it's supposed to be. Because the Eucharist is meant to bring us united as one body. To celebrate it outside of communion with that body is an aberration. So the point being, in order to celebrate the Eucharist in a united way that is tied in unity, you have to have a means of maintaining universal unity. You can't just separate off into separate churches because then you're separating the body of Christ from itself.

[B]

And what if you try. I guess one way around this would be to try to come up with a spiritual view of the Church. Would it? To say that we're all united. It's really hard, but not in a.

[A]

Sense when you're literally breaking off from one another because you don't want to be in communion with each other. You know what I mean? Like, people can push that thing. Like the whole spiritual versus corporal communion. First of all, it's against the Incarnational understanding of the Church.

[B]

That's a great point.

[A]

I see it like Jesus is the Logos and made flesh. Right. The Church is after, analogously to the body of Christ, both spirit and flesh. It is visible and invisible. Right. And it's obvious Jesus prayed for this. He prayed that the Church would be one, as he and the Father are one in John 17. Right. So it's hard to argue that there's this great spiritual unity when people are literally refusing to be in communion with one another. Yeah. That's interesting because they don't agree, like. Yeah, so it sounds nice. It does, right? Oh, we're all one. It's all the same. Well, then why aren't we coming? Well, because. No, no, no, no, because you guys believe in the papacy in Purgatory and Mary and like, we can't.

[B]

Gotcha.

[A]

Well, that's not unity.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's also not unity in faith, which is part of the celebration of the Eucharist. Right. Or even the validity of the Eucharist, first of all, requires apostolic succession, which requires a hierarchical structure. But, yeah, basically the idea is that the papacy serves the authenticity of the local eucharistic celebrations. And that's what I was trying to argue in the thesis that if we can understand the papacy as having. As being a eucharistic office, then it makes it more. More understandable to our Orthodox brethren because they, along with us, have a eucharistic ecclesiology. Their ecclesiology is very similar to ours in understanding the Church primarily as the eucharistic synaxis. The gathering to celebrate the Eucharist is the Church at her highest mode. That is what she is for, is worshiping God in the Eucharist.

[B]

Have you found on the ground that it has been somewhat helpful, foreign?

[A]

It's definitely helped. Well, I don't know how many people read my thesis, so probably not as. As much as it could be.

[B]

But I mean, the argument, not necessarily just the thesis, what you've come to argue, has it been helpful?

[A]

This has been separately sort of an approach taken by the International Catholic Orthodox Dialogue. I mean, one of the earliest documents they wrote, if not the first one, was the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic or the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches as a whole, or something like that long I'll take your word for, was on the mystery of the Church and of the Eucharist in light of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It's actually a pretty beautiful document, but it's showing we have A mutual understanding of the Church from a eucharistic perspective, or that we understand the Church and the Eucharist in a trinitarian way. So there's this link between the Trinity, the Church and the Eucharist. Zezulis was a good dialogue partner because he's a Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamon in Turkey. He's also a scholar, and he was actually very amenable to universal primacy. I mean, he pushed back against some of his fellow Orthodox and said that, you know, trying to claim that synodality or collegiality is of divine right, but primacy is only of ecclesial right, doesn't make any sense. And the reason it doesn't make any sense is that you can't have a synod without a protoss. You can't have a synod without someone who heads it. So if it's a sine quo non condition for a synod, then it exists by the same right as a synod exists, because you can't have a synod without a head. That means the head exists. The office of the head exists by the same right, which is divine. So if you're going to admit that synodality is of divine right, then the head of the synod also exists by divine right, because you can't have the synod without him.

[B]

Gotcha. Yeah.

[A]

So he actually. And he basically admitted too, it does belong in Rome. It's just a question of, well, what does primacy mean? And that's where you start getting into arguments of, you know, well, what are the extent of his authority and power?

[B]

Some evolving happening today on how to understand the.

[A]

I haven't been directly involved in that research in a while now, but I haven't seen that on the ground. I'm hoping that they're making progress. I do think there was some progress in the commission itself. The theologians. There was a document, I think it was the one they were writing when they were in Ravenna in Italy, and he was supposed to be on the. The primacy in the first millennium. And they wanted to have a joint study of how primacy was exercised in the first thousand years prior to the schism. Right. So they had different working groups in different languages. They had a commission that had to bring those all together. They wrote a document. The Catholic and Orthodox theologians agreed on it. The Orthodox bishops wouldn't accept it. So it got rejected because they didn't like the outcome of the research, the joint research. And it did get leaked online. I don't remember the title of it, but there's attempts to try to address this on an academic and an inter. Ecclesial level. So I think at high levels it's happening. I don't know how much that's happening on the ground. I think I wasn't really involved in a lot of the, you know, on the street level conflicts with the Orthodox before. You've had some converts from Orthodoxy, but I guess I didn't have a real sense of how much many of them hate us until I started seeing the online world when it comes to that. Now maybe that's just because it's the online world because that brings out hatred and all sorts of things, isn't it?

[B]

Because. Yeah, yeah. I'd want to be careful of the word hate because obviously I don't think. But it's hard to interpret it differently when you read it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When you read a lot of what's going on.

[A]

Yeah. And it's not all of them. I'm not saying everybody, but I've seen. I didn't realize how much animosity there really was.

[B]

You see that in Catholic circles, don't you?

[A]

Oh, of course.

[B]

And.

[A]

Yeah, that's true, too. Yeah.

[B]

I'm not disagreeing with you. I just think it's. I don't know what it is. It's a. It's insistence on a very particular way of devotion and worship, perhaps in the Catholic Church at least, that will not settle for any kind of compromise or any kind of accommodation. I think it's. There's a fear that my Catholic faith is being eroded. And so. And so I'm talking from the Catholic perspective. And so if I feel as if you're compromising my faith in any way, I will lash out at you. There's a lot of that.

[A]

Right. Yeah. Which if you're correct, is actually appropriate in a way. Right.

[B]

If you're right.

[A]

If you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I mean, I mean, there's. Yeah. So I mean, even growing up, I mean, we had. My parents had to take us to a different parish because I don't remember exactly. I think it was a. It was a parish somewhere in Connecticut and my mom was going to enroll us in faith formation there. And I don't even know how it came up, but it was something like she. They told her that, oh, we don't believe in purgatory and all that nonsense anymore or something, and so she took us to another church. So there's definitely reasons to be on guard for the right understanding of the faith. Because it has been eroded on the ground.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

In many places.

[B]

Well, speaking of Purgatory, something similar. Limbo. I don't know if you know about this or not, but B. Taran146 says Pope Benedict XVI said he didn't believe limbo exists. Does the Church have an official teaching on this?

[A]

See, I'd like to see a quote where he explicitly says that himself. I don't know that. If that's the case, I would like to see the direct quote. I think there was a commission that came out with a document that addressed limbo while he was head of the cdf. This is still an area of dispute amongst theologians.

[B]

What is limbo for those at home?

[A]

I guess the best way to describe it would be for those who die without like say infants or the equivalent thereof. People who have never been able to reach attain an age of reason or right use of faculties where they could be held responsible for like mortal sin.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or whatever. That if they died without baptism that they would go not to the hell of the damned.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But basically to a place that would be akin to natural beatitude. So the perfection of human nature, but not supernatural beatitude. They would not behold God face to face in heaven. So it'd be like all perfection of all the natural aspects of. Of human life, body and. And soul. You would have natural virtues.

[B]

Here's a article from tim [e-mail] In 2007 the International Theological Commission, which is department of the Roman Curia under the Caster for the Doctrine of the Faith and serves as an advisory board for the Castry, issued a document called the Hope of Salvation for Infants who Die Without Being Baptized. It was published with the approval of Benedict XVI and taught that the Church has reduced the teaching of limbo from the level of common doctrine among theologians to a possible theological hypothesis. It does not do what many expected. That is completely abandoned limbo.

[A]

Right.

[B]

As Benedict has had said the Church should do back ah. When Cardan, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger. But it did reduce teachings prominence. Now the question here has to do with Pope Benedict xvi. People will sometimes talk about it as a prophecy. Whether it was a prophecy or not, I don't know. But I believe it was in his interview with Raymond Arroyo where he said that the Church will continue but it will remain.

[A]

It will become very smaller church. Yeah, I think that was. He was reading. Yeah, I think it was like smaller but pure church or smaller but more faithful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean I wouldn't. I doubt it was like a prophecy in the theological sense of that term. But he seemed to be reading the signs of the times. And saying that, look, I mean, it seemed to him that society itself was becoming more and more antagonistic to the faith.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so he expected that as the persecutions ramp up and as we're asked to compromise more and more, that those who are willing to endure that and not or not be won over by the ideology of the culture would reduce the numbers of the church. And therefore. But those who remain would be. Would because of that external pressure. To remain already means that you've got some deeper level of commitment. So I think he was just doing the math in a way, like, well, it would make sense that the church is going to get smaller, but the people who remain will be serious about it.

[B]

Here's an excerpt from his work, Faith and Future. The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. And I tell you, as someone who just lived in Austria for six months and traveled all around Europe, that seems to be true. As the number of her adherence diminishes, she will lose many of her social privileges. Yep, it will be hard going for the church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the church of the meek. And the process will be long and wearisome, as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution, when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain. But when the trial of this sifting is passed, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God. They will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. And so it seems certain to me that the church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end. Not the church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently, but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home when he will find Life and hope beyond death. So beautiful.

[A]

It is so beautiful. And it's also partly. He's not just looking to the future there. I think he's also drawing from his own personal history because he's got a beautiful quote about the Church perduring through the Nazi regime. And it's in the book. I quote it in the book, but it's. It's just a beautiful things where he basically says that we. We now know what it means that the gates of hell will not prevail against her because we have seen the gates of hell and she alone was left standing.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Meaning that the church remains steadfast and did not kowtow. And I'm not sure how true that.

[B]

Is in Germany now, but yet back then.

[A]

Right, sorry. Right. But he saw that in the past. And so I think that's why. I also think he's. He's. You can almost see, like societies is analogous to corporate personalities. Like, they're almost like individual persons.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

If you see someone who completely begins to dissipate and live a life away from truth and virtue and all that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Their life doesn't always get better.

[B]

No. Almost never.

[A]

Right. So it's like. I think what he's saying is once society gets what it wants, it's gonna realize how empty what it wanted really is, and it's still not satisfied. And then you're gonna have this remnant of people that have been telling you, you guys are the crazy ones all along for trying to get rid of us. And they're gonna be like, wow, that's where meaning is. That's where beauty is. That's where authenticity is.

[B]

Yeah. A couple of comments on this one. I remember while in Europe at these different places, there were certain places where it looked like there was. There was real faith, and it was very inspiring. There were other places I went where I thought to myself, I don't know if the church will exist in this city, maybe this country in 50 years from now, given the stories I was being told from the couple of faithful were there or the bishop. And it made me realize. And you correct me if you think I'm wrong. I don't think I am. But the gates will not prevail against the church does not mean the gates will not prevail against the church in Switzerland or in Ireland or in. Right. Nope.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the idea that people could be living in a.

[A]

In a.

[B]

In a country with. With no church.

[A]

I mean, you think about the number of times that even in the patristic era, even after the Edict of Milan. Right. It's not like Constantine came in and he had edict Milan and everything was great. You still had heretic emperors come in from time to time and do more persecutions and exile bishops. St. John Chrysostom was basically kicked out of Constantinople and he died in exile. Right. I mean, you can have your. Even if you have a good bishop, he could be thrown in prison by the government, he could be sent into exile and, you know, taken away. I mean, that happened in the early Church, even after the Edict of Milan. So the idea that it couldn't happen now and, you know, perhaps worse you can have. Because, I mean, think back again. Even after the Council of Nicaea, Arianism didn't go away. It remained a force for a long time. You know, there were a lot of Arians that remained after Nicaea and sometimes took power. You know, and a lot of bishops were Arians. So heretic bishops is a real thing that has happened in the history of the Church and it does a lot of damage.

[B]

God's mercy is such a mysterious thing. You think of somebody being raised in a country where the Church may not be present anymore, or not in a state that it ought to be, and so it causes scandal. Perhaps. Like you think of some places in Germany, we lived in a place in Austria where we were told not to go to this church because the Eucharist is invalid, because the priest does all sorts of shenanigans with the Eucharistic prayer. And you think about the 6 year old who's attending that Mass and he's none the wiser and he's getting told things and he comes to believe certain things.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, what's, what's responsible or what is that kid responsible for believing? And how is he culpable if he rejects the faith, which it may not even be, that's being presented to him.

[A]

Yeah. Of course that child wouldn't be culpable. Right. In that way. But it is, still has it. It is, it is scary. I mean, to be honest, and I don't know if we. I mean, obviously some people take this seriously and they talk about it ad nauseam online, but I'm trying not to overstep my bounds, but do it. It's the history of the Church. If, if you could have, in the age of the fathers, heretic bishops, sometimes that were a significant number of the episcopate. The idea that that couldn't happen now just because we're like in a later time period. Yeah. Is absurd.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Especially when you consider the Fact that dissipation tends to happen the more free from government persecution. You are right. A lot of those heresies arose after the Edict of Milan, right? Aryanism, Apollinarianism, Maniche, like so, not. I'm not saying every heresy necessarily did, but I just think the Church as a whole and individual members need to take seriously whether or not they're actually orthodox and the fact that we will be held accountable for that. And I think there are significant numbers of people in positions of the Church that don't take that seriously. Being given power in the Church is not a license to preach your own gospel. I mean, St. Paul's very clear on that. If even we, or an angel from heaven should preach you a different gospel, let him be anathema. Right? And the idea that if you become a bishop or a professor in a theology classroom that you can change the Church's. You can present the faith in your own image and likeness to your liking when it's not authentically united with the tradition. And you're aware of that fact. I don't think some might not be, but if you're talking about bishops and professors, they should know better. Yeah, it's, it's one thing to be to, to say, no, this is. I, I read the tradition and it seems to say this like, and I'm receiving it. It's another to like, well, let me twist it to fit this mold that I like and ignore it. I mean, it, It's. I really do think that's. It's not, it's the souls of, of the leaders and the professors and, and the people they influence that are at stake. And I don't think, I think sometimes we give heterodoxy a pass too easily, you know, because we think, oh, it's not really that big of a deal, do we? Who thinks that? I think. I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people think that it doesn't really matter because as long as you're nice or you're. Or even charitable like you like, well, as long as I get the virtue of charity, I don't need the virtue of faith.

[B]

Yeah, maybe that's, Maybe that is true. I just don't think that's true for people like you and me. I think it's what's more likely for me. I don't know you. So I can't speak. I'll speak for myself. People like me, the temptation isn't to become like that. The temptation is to become like a schismatic. Because all around me appears to be falling away. And I wanted to bring that up. Right, because that is the temptation. It's sort of like where Christ says all people will hate you because of me, you know, and how many people have just assumed that they must be faithful to Christ throughout history because they're hated when maybe they just sucked and kind of that's why you were hated. Right. But it's so easy to take that passage and apply it to yourself as one of the chosen ones. People shouldn't be hated, of course, but the same thing here. The church will become small. I mean how many people are reading Benedict's words saying yes, exactly. And that's why I don't go to Mass anymore. I go to the garage that Father Gary celebrates the.

[A]

But that's where I have the problem. Because if you go to a schismatic group, you've actually conceded the gates of hell did prevail. Right. Because the, if, if the. Again, like go back to. This is one thing that I always find interesting is a lot of the radical traditionalist schismatic groups will talk about the past encyclicals and all that. Well, they explicitly say, like condemn the notion that the Church is not a visible, identifiable, tangible reality that you can point to and that, you know, it's just this free floating thing, you know, that no, it's got a structure, it's got an identity. Like you can see it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Touch it, go there. Like there's a reality to that and that it must have this universal structure. So to say that it is persisted without the, the papacy like is, I'm not saying you can't have short periods of time like that, but especially when there's no way to reinstate it. What would be the mechanism by which you would ever have a pope again?

[B]

That's making.

[A]

That's what I mean, doesn't make any sense.

[B]

Yeah, that's what seems crazy to me when people try to deny the papacy of Pope Francis because then are the cardinals he has elected, are they legit? Right.

[A]

And if, if, if they are the majority.

[B]

Do you know, I'm actually asking, do you know if like these modern set of accountists would say that the cardinals.

[A]

No, they don't think, obviously they think he's not legit, then the car. They can't be legit cardinals.

[B]

The reason I asked that is that maybe he's making them cardinals based on him being the bishop of Rome and they're trying to separate that from the.

[A]

You can't, you can't, can't you. I Think. No, you're pope by virtue of being the Bishop of Rome. So if you have a bishop of Rome, you've got a pope that works.

[B]

All right, well then, then let's say. Yeah, so let's say then that is the case, that they're saying that these cardinals are illegitimate. Then you just have a conclave of.

[A]

Illegitimate men who cannot, they can't elect anything.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's somewhat self refuting, but no, I get that the tendency to schism is definitely out there and I didn't, I don't think I realized until recently how out there it is. Like, it's, it's a growing problem. It almost.

[B]

What do you mean when you say recently, what did you see?

[A]

Or. Well, because I'm, I'm not really an online. Like I don't, I'm not big into doing a lot of social. I just don't find social media very glorious because I used to be much more involved in that social media and I just, I enjoy not being involved in it.

[B]

So what did you see that you like? Holy crap, this is big.

[A]

No, you just see like. Because sometimes in videos I'll watch, I'll look at the comments or look at the. That's mostly where I see it now.

[B]

Scary.

[A]

And I'm just like, oh my gosh. And there's some wackadoodle stuff out there. And this is, well, this is the other caution. So we talk about heterodoxy. Satan is very wily, right. He knows what your weaknesses are. So he's going to try to get you ensnared based on your weakness. If you style yourself a traditional orthodox Catholic, he's not going to tempt you with radical liberal progressive ideology to try to get you to leave. He's going to try to get you to go in the opposite direction. He's going to try to get you to become a schismatic the other way, which is you hold yourself so high as a standard of orthodoxy in the tradition that you will try to make yourself a judge of the magisterium itself and therefore find a way to justify leaving the church. Because he wants everyone to jump off the bark of Peter. That's what he wants. And he does that in different ways. And he tries to either get you to leave by liberal progressivism or by radical traditionalism in a way, depending on which one is more enticing to you. And I think he really does that. I do think it's demonic and that people have bought into lies and feats. Even scripture talks about this. No, it's not facetious. What is it the word? Is it facetious arguments? No, I forget what we. Maybe that's what it is. Specious arguments like. And that you're like, wow, I can't believe. Because sometimes some of these groups are really good at weaving a narrative that if you don't know any better, sounds very convincing. The use of rhetoric and selective quotations and things like that is. It's, it's propaganda. It's the same way people fall into other sorts of ideologies. Right. And that's how he's going to get you. But it's, you know, the reality of it is it's like, well, then. But if you understand the Church as a communion that has a visible and an invisible structure or a component to it, then schism is never the answer. That's always an exacerbation of the problem. So no matter how marred the body of Christ gets, no matter how bad certain people in certain positions might become, it doesn't mean that the solution is to lop yourself off of the body. If you're, you know, let's say your right arm gets gangrenous. Well, you don't chop off your left arm. Right. So you want to remove a good member of the body of Christ because there's some bad ones out there. Like that just makes. That exacerbates the problem, the disintegration of the Church. Right. You don't want.

[B]

So I think a lot of this has to do with what Benedict says here, with the kind of glory days of the Church, this desire to have this sort of social clout that we did once have. Even watch movies from the 80s and 90s, even back then, occasionally you might see a priest who has a lot of kind of moral authority and amidst social cachet. Yeah, yeah. Among a kind of community of people.

[A]

Yeah, right. It's just a beautiful, tempting. But if they have no mandate from the Church, they are not proper ministers, so they can't do that. Right. It's in some ways it's larping. So I will say this, though. Benedict got a lot of flack when he was. I think he was still a fairly young priest at the time. It was like 1958 or 59. He wrote an article in. I think it was in Hoekland, which is a magazine or journal. And depending on how you translate the German, it's either the new heathens or the new pagans in the church. And so this is in the 50s. Right. And he basically says, we got a problem. And he said the Problem is the church is basically, I'm paraphrasing, but pulling in some of his words. The church is becoming a facade. Yeah, we're keeping up appearances 100%, but by keeping up appearances, we're allowing. So to give an example, he's basically saying people, from the outside, it looks like we're strong, but in reality, the people in the pews are pagans. They don't really believe. You got people bringing the children for baptism who have no intention of actually following through in the baptismal promises. They'll. They'll answer yes to all of them during the ceremony, but they don't mean it. They're not going to bring the kid to Mass every day. They're not going to make sure they're raised in the faith and get good catechesis. They're not going to do that. So we baptize the child anyway. We confirm the ones that don't really believe. We allowed them to get married in the church when they don't even really know what that sacrament is. And, you know, they just kind of go, huh? When you give them their faith formation. And he basically says by doing this, we are allowing these people to believe that they aren't pagans when they really are. And he basically says this is a problem we need to take seriously that the sacraments come with obligations. And the fact that we're not holding people to those is actually a scandal to those very people we're administering the sacraments to. I'm highly paraphrasing here, but that's the gist of what he was saying, is that basically the church looks fine if you look at it from the outside, but the people don't really believe and we're allowing them to continue to think they're believers when they're not.

[B]

I thought of that when I was in Ireland. There's some beautiful people in Ireland, obviously, and some wonderful Catholics who are excellent things, getting together in communities, celebrating the liturgy, etc. It's very lovely. But I mean, there's a church on every corner almost, and the churches look really beautiful. And so when you're there, you just get the idea like this feels like a really Catholic country. Right. Ireland. But if you were to remove every single church and only remove the ones that are being used, you might not see a church hardly anywhere. To the idea of it being a facade. Yeah. And that would be more honest. I'm not saying we should do that. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And I think he may have even been talking to the people that even go to church. Like, you Might have a parish where everyone's going every Sunday. But they really don't believe, you know, they don't take it seriously. Think of the Mafia leader who takes his son to get baptized.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, does he really believe, you know?

[B]

Yeah. All right, we got a few more questions. That okay with you? Catholic Viking says, do you foresee him becoming canonized as a saint? If so, when do you think it could happen by? And what would you guess his patronage.

[A]

To be right now? Obviously all this is complete speculation. There'd be difference between what I want and maybe what would be better for the Church. I would like to see him be canonized, to be made a doctor of the Church. Really, I would. And Father Amory de Gaulle, who wrote the foreword of my book, mentions that in his forward, he says that he is qualified for this. I don't know how fast that will or should happen. I think there does. I would like to see it in my lifetime, obviously. Because I want to see it happen. I should think, well, I can see it happen from purgatory or heaven. Right. I don't need to be here. I don't know if it could or should happen that quickly. I think there is. They're starting to grow. A number of people are starting to think, are we just going to canonize every Pope we have now? And like right away?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I mean, John xxiii, Paul vi, John Paul ii, you know, or it's just what, it's just, just what we do now. It's the next step after, you know, And I could see some wisdom in saying, you know what, we should probably give this stuff time. But because of the brilliance of his intellect and how much he fought against evils in the church and against heterodoxy and the like, if he could get enough miracles to qualify, then it'd be great. I think as far as the doctor of the church component probably should take a good amount of time to make sure that his thought remains impactful and looked back upon with reverence and continues to have that before something like that would happen. I think that in particular the sainthood could happen more quickly, but maybe even those we need to slow down a little bit. And then the doctor of the church should probably happen after I'm dead.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Because I, I think you need to show a lasting impact.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

That doesn't just dissipate.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that requires time.

[B]

Seth asks, what do you consider his must read works? And then a follow up question to that would be what might be something to read if you've Never read him before.

[A]

Okay. So usually when people ask him what the first book of his you should read is, I usually tell them Milestones, which is his memoirs of his own life going up to 1977. It's a short book. It's an easy read, but it gives you a great insight into. Into. Because I. So my first book. Sorry, the first chapter of my book is his biography, but I don't just go through chronologically. I go through it thematically. So basically talk about these different themes. And I show how his later thought is sort of prefigured in events in his own life. And so. Oh. This is where his humility comes from. This is where his appreciation of the liturgy comes from. This is where his appreciation of the power of beauty comes from, of art and architecture and nature. This is where his intellectual formation happened and who influenced him. So I. I usually point people to that. Because you get a better sense of who he is as a person. Yep. Then that gives you insight into how he thinks. And so usually I say Milestones. Now, there's obviously a bunch of biographies about him that are good, but of.

[B]

His introduction to Christianity too. Huh.

[A]

Introduction to Christianity is most people's favorite, it seems. Or the one they always go to first. It seems it probably is. And it's a great book. I will say there's a sleeper that I. I actually like more.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's his Principles of Catholic Theology. Building Stones for Fundamental Theology.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

No one talks about.

[B]

Definitely sounds more boring than Introduction.

[A]

It was written later. But it's. It's a great book. And there's a lot in there that's. It's just amazing. And then called the Communion is Good. It's a short book on ecclesiology that I'm an ecclesiology junkie. So I just like theology about the church. So that's one. Of course, the Jesus of Nazareth series is hard to beat as an example of good biblical theology.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Ecclesiology. Nerd, huh?

[A]

They used to be my area of expertise and focus. It's been a long time since I've been able to do that. I do have an article coming out in Pro Ecclesiastical on the Eucharist and Primacy in the works of Jean Marie Roger Tillard, who was a. Another. He was a. I think, French Canadian, actually. I think. But how he tackles the Eucharist in primacy question. So that's coming out in Pro. It's available for those who have access to their digital stuff, but, um, it's coming out. So I did get to do that. But other than that I don't get to delve into it as much as I used to.

[B]

Where can people get the book?

[A]

Well the bet you can give it on Amazon. Although it's better for us. And it's if you go to the bookstore. Word on Fire's actual bookstore. Their own. I think it's bookstore.WordPress.org I think is the link. But that's the best place to get it is is on there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But if you need to there's Amazon as a backup.

[B]

Anything else coming up?

[A]

There's a lot of academic conferences and things I'm going to like next week I gotta fly out to Chicago for a philosophy conference talking about Bonaventure on marriage. And then yeah, another one in January, end of January, beginning of February. I'm supposed to be going to an academic conference there which is a Thomistic themed one. Yeah, just a lot of. A lot of different things like that.

[B]

Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, appreciate it.

[A]

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[A]

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