(LifeSiteNews) — Father Charles Murr and Liz Yore join John-Henry Westen on this week’s episode of Faith & Reason, in which they discuss the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, former President Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses, the potential problems with him and rival candidate Nikki Haley, and the problem of the Francis pontificate.
This week, while speaking to the WEF, Argentine President Javier Milei said that socialists push a “conflict” contrary to human nature that claims humanity is destructive to the natural world to the point where they advance a “bloody abortion agenda” or “population control mechanism.”
“Unfortunately, these harmful ideas have taken a stronghold in our society,” Milei told the globalist organization.
Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the Western world, and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture, universities, and also international organizations. The latter case is the most serious one probably because these are institutions that have an enormous influence on the political and economic decisions of the countries that make up the multilateral organizations.
Yore noted that Milei’s remarks were what one would expect from the Pope, but that Pope Francis has promoted a climate change agenda instead. She also pointed out that Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase and a supporter of President Joe Biden, said at the WEF meeting that it was a mistake to scapegoat Trump voters, saying that Trump was right on a number of things, including immigration.
“I don’t think that Davos is turning out exactly as Klaus Schwab wanted it to,” said Yore. Observing that this year’s WEF meeting has the theme of “rebuilding trust,” Yore added that trust was “shattered” because of COVID policy and globalist movements, also mentioning the farmers’ protests in Germany and the Netherlands.
“I don’t think rebuilding trust is going to happen when you have somebody like Javier Milei really calling them out for their 50-year agenda to destroy human beings and kill babies in the womb,” Yore opined.
Father Murr said that he has been following Milei for some time, and that he is a “refreshing” figure in politics with a very “Trumpian” message. “He’s quick on his feet, and he speaks like a man who knows the truth and is not afraid to speak it,” he said, adding that people should “expect big things from him.”
Murr also addressed Milei’s relationship with Francis, saying that Milei’s dislike for the Pope is not personal, but one based on religious and political conviction, and that he has “some very good points that really should be addressed and answered.”
Yuval Noah Harari, a highly influential figure with the WEF, meanwhile, has said that Trump’s reelection to the presidency would likely be a “death blow to what remains of the global order.”
Yore and Westen admitted to being wary of Harari’s claim. Yore said that the globalists “are getting very nervous,” but that she was getting nervous because “I figure [the globalists] are putting a target on the back of Donald Trump.” Connecting Harari’s remarks with Trump’s win in the Iowa caucuses, Yore said that she believes people in the national and international media were made nervous by it and that Harari is “sensing that they have to acknowledge the movement in order to coalesce the globalist forces to fight it.”
Murr observed that globalism acts like its own religion, but that it will not work because the globalists have promised to take things from people, while Trump has promised to empower people. In his view, this is why the globalists may be nervous, figures like Trump and Milei not being under globalist control and much more popular.
“This is going to come to a head real soon,” said Murr. “Let’s see who wins the elections of the United States. I think we already know who’s going is going to, and maybe these last four years will have served sort of like what I think Francis has served for: for better times in the future.”
“You have to go through a period of dryness so that you appreciate the good times,” he explained. “And I think this is what the Church is going through, I think it’s what the world governments are going through.”
Later in the episode, the trio touched upon the exemption of the African continent from implementing Fiducia supplicans, leading into a commentary on the problem of the Francis papacy. While the continent is exempt from the implementation of the declaration allowing for same-sex “blessings,” the bishops’ conference of the north region of African (CERNA) said that it would be conducting such blessings.
Yore and Fr. Murr both spoke to how a declaration from a Vatican dicastery could not be implemented in the universal Church. Yore maintained that there is confusion in the Church over the declaration and asked if it did not cause a “de facto schism.”
“I’m just very concerned about the message, of course, that this is sending throughout not only the Catholic Church, but the world as a whole,” said Yore. Noting that Fiducia supplicans directly contradicted a 2021 responsum ad dubium from the then Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), she asked, “What is this schizophrenic attitude that is going on here? One minute, yes. Next minute, no. Depending on who? The head of the CDF?”
Murr said that the crisis in the Church caused by the declaration is “diabolical,” explaining that the etymology of the word means “tearing apart.” He also stated he could not believe that the “tearing apart” was being done by accident – a sentiment he is not comfortable with and that is shared by a number of priests and bishops he has spoken to. He also addressed a sentiment of Yore’s, whereby she noted that the majority of bishops have remained silent regarding the declaration.
Murr admitted that he has little respect for many bishops, but added that he recently spoke with a bishop who admitted to being afraid to speak up. He closed his thoughts on Fiducia supplicans saying he has hope in the election of a new Pope in the next conclave.
“I think it’s going to be quite different this time, because I think the majority of the electors in the upcoming conclave do see that there’s a problem,” he said. “They’re afraid to speak, but they do understand. I think in the moment of voting, the last thing they’re going to do is vote for a continuation of this.”
To Fr. Murr’s point, Westen said that he was troubled by what to make of the Francis papacy, recalling the opinions of liturgist Dr. Peter Kwasniewski and Bishop Athanasius Schneider that the Francis papacy is good insofar as it destroys “papolotry.” The thought worries him, Westen admitted, because to him the only reliance one could have about the Pope not committing error was when he spoke ex cathedra, essentially making nothing more than a “disappointing” bishop, and that one wouldn’t know what to believe, whereby every Catholic would be like a Protestant and making up his own belief.
He also admitted to the problem of relying on the ordinary magisterium in light of Amoris laetitia, Gaudete et exultate, the change in the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the death penalty, and Fiducia supplicans.
Murr responded to Westen’s problem recounting a story he had about Sister Pascalina Lehnert, Venerable Pius XII’s secretary. Murr said that Lehnert once showed him a pamphlet arguing that St. Paul VI was replaced by an imposter. When asked if she agreed with the premise of the pamphlet, she said that she didn’t for one moment, but that the point was that the Austrian couple who gave it to her were in such disbelief regarding the crisis in the Church, they were looking everywhere for an explanation. “That’s where we are today in spades,” he said.
“Right now, I don’t know what to tell you except hold on, and I’ve told that to every Catholic that I know,” Murr told Westen. While he believes that the Church must resolve that a similar crisis cannot happen again, asserting that the Church cannot stand something like the Francis papacy again, he added that he believes the crisis is happening because it has to happen right now.
“For whatever reason, God has willed that this happen, for some sort of a purification, and some sort of a better understanding of the Church as His Mystical Body,” he explained. “You’ll see there will be positive ramifications of this in the future. It’s terrible to go through, but I do not believe it’s going to happen again. No, I can tell you, it will not happen again.”
Murr also maintained that while Catholics were raised to respect bishops and the Pope, the hierarchy is behaving such that they cannot be respected, comparing the situation to a cleric who has been caught in scandal. This time, however, the crisis is a crisis of the Catholic faith itself. He also opined that the crisis the Church finds Herself in would not have happened if the Second Vatican Council was interpreted in light of Tradition, and said that the situation in the Church cannot get worse, inviting everyone to “hold on, wait,” and to “take it as a personal and a collective penance, for many things.”
“Maybe this is the penance God’s giving,” Fr. Murr said. “Whatever it is, we’re to endure it, we’ll come out of it, and things will change, but not because I say so. Because they have to. No one is going to put up with this any longer. This is the worst that it’s ever been. And I’ve spoken to bishops and priests galore. Everyone says the same thing. This is it. But also, everyone is afraid. It’s … incredible.”
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