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(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Bishop Strickland Show, Bishop Joseph Strickland offers a meditation on a poem by Archbishop Fulton Sheen in light of current societal ills and the crisis in the Church.
The poem, about a man who went to a church looking for a priest only to be told that the priest was taking part in a protest, ends with the man being told by an angel that the devil is in charge of things. Bishop Strickland saidthe poem reminds people that the spiritual battle is against the powers of darkness, not those in positions of power in the world.
“We get angry, we get upset, we get just irate at the false messages being sent by governments and by the Church, sadly, by too many people in government and in the Church,” he observed. “But we pray for those people. I love the way Archbishop Sheen reminds us in a very … clever, almost … childlike way … that we’re fighting the principalities and powers of evil. And we need … to call it evil,” adding that people should not call those in positions in authority evil, as all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God.
His Excellency also noted that “we need to have the audacity of faith” to convert people. “No matter who opposes us, no matter who shouts us down, no matter what happens, we don’t attack anyone.”
Remarking that people should indeed be upset and angered at developments in government and the Church, Strickland maintained that “we need to channel that energy into prayer and into speaking the truth with clarity and charity … and recognize that, as Archbishop Sheen reminded us so well, it’s not people that we’re fighting, it’s Satan and his minions.”
Later in the episode, His Excellency offered comments on a tweet he posted about the appointment of Archbishop Victor Fernandez by Pope Francis to be head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), known for holding heterodox views.
“The truth is not some burden that we need cast off,” Strickland said, noting that the late Pope Benedict XVI noted how the greatest problem facing the modern world was relativism. “It’s not shackles, it’s not chains. It is the treasure, it’s the pearl of great price. It’s everlasting life.”
Comparing what the leadership of the Church is doing with the Synod on Synodality to unplugging a phone from its charger to get power, Strickland continued: “Leaders in the Church are unplugging from God and saying ‘Well, we’ll just decide [what the truth is] ourselves.’ And that’s no more plugged into God than people who have no Faith and aren’t part of the Church. So we have to … be charitable, we have to be full of compassion, but we have to stand for the truth.”
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